The southern enterprise. [volume] (Greenville, S.C.) 1854-1870, 1868-09-02
The Powers Of the Memory.

Those who have seen that prodigy;
Blind Tom, in one of his concerts know
The fest. Ii is only necessary for him
once 10 hear the most difficult music,
when lac Immediately seats himself aud
with the most wonderful ease aud cor.
reclness executes it upon the piauo.-
lie has in his accurate and .prodigiously
relentive memory, il is said, MS many
rs five thousand pieces, which he will.
with unerring fidelity, reproduce at call.
History furnishes us instances of the
power OF memory scarcely less tnazing
perhaps than this, but The intuilive fac.
ulty Of executing the music which is
laid up in tue chambers of his memory
is something apart from all powers Of
recollection. This is the astounding
feature in the phenomenon which puts
all philosophy TO the test. Writers
upon mental science have carefully pre
served many instances Of the most
amazing powers Of memory, 10 few If
which il Is interesting to recur.
Cyrus, il is said, knew the name Of
every officer, Pliny that Of every soldier
that served under him. Themistocles
could call by name each one Of the
twenty thousand citizens Of Athens
Horlensius could sit all day at AN auc-
tion, and at night give an account Of
everything sold, the purchaser, and the
price. Mureius saw AT Padau q Young
Corsican, says Mr.. Stewart, who could
repeat, without he,ilatiun, thiIty-six
thousand names in the order in which
he heard them, and then reverse the
order, and proceed back ward TO the
first. DIR. Wallis, Of OSford, on one oc
casion, at night, in bed, proposed 10
himself number Of lify-lh,ce places,
and found its square root Of twenty.
seven places, and, without writing down
numbers at ell. dictated the result from
memory twenty days aferward. 1t
was not unusual with him to perform
arithmeticsl operations in the dark. as
the extraction Of roots, Q. e., to forty
decimal places. The distinguished Eu =,
ler, bliud from early life, had always in
bis memory a table Of ibe first six pow
ers OF all numbers, from one TO one
hundred. On one occasion two Of his
pupils, calculating a couverging series,
on reaching the seventeenth term. found
their. results differing by one unit a.
the fifiieth figure, and, in order To- de-.
| eide which was correct, Euler went over
the whole in his head, and bis decision
was after wards found to be correct
Pascal forgot nothing Of What he had
read, or heard, or seen. Menage, at
seven;y.seven commentaries ia Latin
verses Tue favor cf the gods in restoring
to him, after partial eclipse. the full
powers Of memory which had adorned
his early life.
The instances now given are men,
toned by Mr.. Stewart, but, perhaps,
the most remarkable instance Of great
memory in modern times is the case OF
the celebrated Magliabechi, librarian Of
the Duke Of Tuscany. Ile would in.
form any one who, consulted him, no,
only who had directly treated on any
particJsr subject, but who had indi.
secily touched upon it in treating Of
other subjects, TO the number of, per.
baps, one hundred different authors,
giving The name Of The book, the words,
often the page where they were to be
found, and with the greatest exac,ness.
To test bis memory, one day, gen
lleman Of Florence lent him at one time
manuscript he had prepared for the
press, and some time afterwards came
70 him with sorowful face, aud pre-.
Tended TO have lost his manuscript by
accident. The poor author seemed in>
consolabIe, and begged Magliabechi
TO recollect what be corld aud write il
down. He assured the unfortunate
man that he would, snd setting aboul