ers of retention-but what were the things that he most easily retained?-specimens of his own favorite art. He doubtless forgot other matters that interested him less, in the same way that a dull prosaic man would remember the most dry details and forget the most delightful verses. In Scott's Autobiography, (published by Lockhart,) he thus speaks of his memory—“ But this memory of mine was a very fickle ally, and has through my whole life acted upon its own capricious motions, and might have enabled me to adopt old Beattie of Mickledale's answer, when complimented by a reverend divine on the strength of the same faculty;" No, Sir," answered the old borderer, "I have no command of my memory. It only retains what hits my fancy, and, probably, Sir, if you were to preach to me for two hours, I should not be able when you finished to remember a word you had been saying."

Scaliger tells us that in his youth he could repeat 100 verses after having once read them. It is said that Dr. Leyden had so strong a memory, that he could repeat correctly a long Act of Parliament or any similar document after a single perusal. There is an anecdote of an English gentleman, whom the king of Prussia placed behind a screen, when Voltaire came to read him a new poem of considerable length. The gentleman afterwards perplexed the poet by asserting that the poem was his, and repeated it word for word as a proof of the truth of his assertion. Locke in

cleuch." Now, be it remembered, that this ballad had never been printed. I had merely composed it by rote, and, on finishing it three years before, had sung it once over to Sir Walter. I began it, at his request, but at the eighth or ninth stanza I stuck in it, and could not get on with another verse, on which he began it again, and recited it every word from beginning to end. It being a very long ballad, consisting of eighty-eight stanzas, I testified my astonishment, knowing that he had never heard it but once, and even then did not appear to be paying particular attention. He said he had been out with a pleasure party as far as the opening of the Frith of Forth, and, to amuse the company, he had recited both that ballad and one of Southey's (The Abbot of Aberbrothock), both of which ballads he had only heard once from their respective authors, and he believed he recited them both without misplacing a word."

his description of memory (which description, as Campbell justly observes*, is" absolutely poetical"), mentions that it is recorded of "that prodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done, read, or thought in any part of his rational age." It is said that the admirable Crichton was similarly gifted, and could repeat backwards any speech he had made. Magliabecchi, the Florentine Librarian, could recollect whole volumes, and once supplied an author from memory with a copy of his own work of which the original was lost. Spence records the observation of Pope, that Bolingbroke had so great a memory that if he was alone and without books, he could refer to a particular subject in them, and write as fully on it, as another man would with all his books about him. Woodfall's extraordinary power of reporting the debates in the House of Commons without the aid of written memoranda is well known. During a debate he used to close his eyes and lean with both hands upon his stick, resolutely excluding all extraneous associations. The accuracy and precision of his reports brought his newspaper into great repute. He would retain a full recollection of a particular debate a fortnight after it had occurred, and during the intervention of other debates. He used to say that it was put by in a corner of his mind for future reference.

It seems sometimes more easy to exert the memory than to suppress it. "We may remember," says Felton, "what we are intent upon; but with all the art we can use we cannot know

The following passage bears out Campbell's praise-"The mind very often sets itself on work in search of some hidden idea, and turns as it were the eye of the soul upon it; though sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own accord, and offer themselves to the understanding; and very often are roused and tumbled out of their dark cells into open day-light by turbulent and tempestuous passions, our affections bringing ideas to our memory, which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded."

ingly forget what we would.-Nor is there any Etna in the soul of man but what the memory makes*."

Mere abstraction, or what is called absence of mind, is often

attributed very unphilosophically to a want of memory. I

believe it was La Fontaine who in a dreaming mood forgot his own child, and after warmly commending him, observed how proud he should be to have such a son. In this kind of abstraction external things are either only dimly seen or are utterly overlooked; but the memory is not necessarily asleep. In fact, its too intense activity is frequently the cause of the abstraction. This faculty is usually the strongest, when the other faculties are in their prime; and fades in old age, when there is a general decay of mind and body. Old men, indeed, are proverbially narrative, and from this circumstance it sometimes appears as if the memory preserves a certain portion of its early acquisitions to the last, though in the general failure of the intellect, it loses its active energy. It receives no new impressions, but old ones are confirmed. The brain seems to grow harder. Old images become fixtures.

It is a stale proverb that great wits have short memories, and that small wits have long ones. Truth demands, however, that the saying should be reversed. It is not to be denied that extraordinary powers of memory have been often found in the possession of the dullest minds. Jedidiah Buxton, after seeing Garrick perform, was asked what he thought of the player and the play. "Oh," he said, "he did not know, he had only seen a little man strut about the stage and repeat 7956 words." He could remember the number of words, because he took an interest in numerical calculations; but he forgot the poetry, and saw nothing in the

Of all afflictions taught a lover yet
'Tis sure the hardest science to forget.

Pope.

actor's art. So there are men who recollect dates and names, and forget things and persons. When a mind of very inferior range concentrates its whole power in the faculty of memory, and exerts that faculty on some peculiar class of objects, those observers will inevitably be puzzled who do not sufficiently connect the result with the process by which it is effected.

Nemonica, or the art of memory, was studied by some of the ancients, and an attempt has lately been made to revive it. Mr. Feinaigle, a German, gave instruction in this art in Paris about the beginning of the present century; and as a reply to hostile critics he exhibited the progress of fifteen of his pupils. After they had been tried in various ways, one of the pupils desired the company to give him "a thousand words without any connection whatsoever and without numerical order; for instance the word astronomer, for No. 62; wood, for No. 188; lovely, for No. 370; dynasty, for No. 23; David, for No. 90; &c. &c. till all the numbers were filled; and he repeated the whole (though he heard these words without order and but once) in the numerical order; or he told what word was given against any one number, or what number any one word bore." But a system of arbitrary association or artificial memory, though it may serve to prove how much a particular faculty is capable of improvement, is more plausible than useful; for to cultivate any one power of the mind to such an extreme degree, is to destroy the balance of the intellectual powers. To be the brilliant pupil of a Feinaigle a man must give up every other object, and improve one of his faculties at the expense of all the rest. Fuller advises us not to overburthen the memory, and not to make so faithful a servant a slave. "Remember," says he, that " Atlas was weary. Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory is like a purse, if it be over-full that it cannot shut, all will drop out." The same writer makes a ludicrous observation that "Philosophers place memory in the rear of the

head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because, there men naturally dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss." People as often strike the forehead under the same circumstances.

If men who complain of feeble powers of retention were to cultivate their memory with the same assiduity with which they cultivate their other faculties, they would soon find that it would keep an equal pace with the general advance of the mind. Few people have given it a fair trial, and still fewer know the extent to which it may be invigorated and improved. William Hutton divided a blank book into 365 columns, and resolved, as an experiment, to recollect, if possible, an anecdote of his past life, to fill up each division. He was astonished at the success of his plan, and contrived to fill up 355 columns with his different reminiscences. What a delightful treasure are such recovered relics of the past! What a triumph over time! It is a kind of immortality. Without memory, life would be a daily death; and would be not more brief than desolate. How ignorantly then has this faculty been undervalued! It is as it were the very foundation of genius. Wit and fancy are furnished by the memory with the materials for analogy, combination, or contrast. It is also more closely connected with the imaginative faculty than is generally supposed, and is sometimes even unconsciously confounded with it. People are as apt to say that they fancy they see a particular object as that they remember it.

The past is tinged with a soft twilight lustre. It is this colouring which makes it seem so much more delightful than the present.

'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

The far-off landscape is not more lovely to the corporeal sight than are distant objects to the inward eye. They are alike steeped in beauty. But the divine power of memory is incomparably more precious than the pleasures of external vision. It is inde