I DO not know that any attempt has yet been made in English fiction to draw the character of a “Deaf Mute,” simply and exactly after nature—or, in other words, to exhibit the peculiar effects produced by the loss of the senses of hearing and speaking on the disposition of the person so afflicted. The famous Fenella, in Scott’s “Peveril of the Peak,” only assumes deafness and dumbness; and the whole family of dumb people on the stage have the remarkable faculty—so far as my experience goes—of always being able to hear what is said to them. When the idea first occurred to me of representing the character of a “Deaf Mute” as literally as possible according to nature, I found the difficulty of getting at tangible and reliable materials to work from, much greater than I had anticipated; so much greater, indeed, that I believe my design must have been abandoned, if a lucky chance had not thrown in my way Dr. Kitto’s delightful little book, “The Lost Senses.” In the first division of that work, which contains the author’s interesting and touching narrative of his own sensations under the total loss of the sense of hearing, and its consequent effect on the faculties of speech, ............