Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1874-03-23
CURrosITIEs oF-alEMORY.

would be too incredible for belief.
Portius Latro. says Seneca, retained
to the last lucid remembrance of all
the declamations he had ever delivered.
Cyrus, according to Pliny, knew the
name of every soldier in his army; the
same is related of Afithridates, who
could repeat the names of his vast army
of $4,000 men.
Scipio knew by name all the inhabi-
tants of Rome, and it is said likewise of
George III. that he never forgot face
he had once seen, nor name he had
ever heard Themistocles could call by
name every citizen of Athens, although
the number amounted to twenty thousand.
Both Napoleon l. and Napoleon III.
had extraordinary powers of memory.
1t is said of the first that he could re-
peat the names of his fullest regiment,
having heard the list but once read.
Later IN life discovering one of his old
soldiers in a certain stone-cutter, he
was able at once to tell the rank he had
held in the army, the exact corps and
regiment he belonged to, where he had
served, and the Individual character he
had borne for bravery
Napoleon Ill could retain an incred-
ible array of names, figures, and facts
with perfect accuracy. His memory
had undergone a severe training, no
doubt, during his early seasons of i'm
prisonment. when it was perilous for
him to carry written memoranda about
him. But never daring to trust solely
to the sense of hearing in its action upon
his memory, it was q fixed habit of his
life to write in notebook whatever he
wished to preserve, and then destroy
the leaf.
Seneca complained of old age when
he could not, as formally, repeat two
thousand words in the order in which
they we're read. At a certain recitation
of his class, when student, two hund-
red verses had been unconnectedly re-
cited by the different pupils, when he
repeated them, from the last to the first
in a perfectly reversed order, and with
out misplacing a word
The Druids taught their whole circle
of sciences in twenty thousand verses,
which students We're callad-upon to COM
NIT to memory, and which frequently
occupied space of twenty years.
Blind Tom, the negro pianist, affords
an example of marvellous memory. All
that he knows or performs he has either
heard or improvised His repertoire
embraces the vast number Of five thous-
and distinct pieces. Estimating the
average number of notes in a single bar
to be eight, and the average number of
bars in a single performance to be two
hundred, we discover that the facts re-
tanned by the musical prodigy amount
to the astonishing number of eight mil
lions
Llszt and Rubenstein, the gifted plan
lists. are both accredited with the pos.
session of great memories. 1t is related
also of Wiegis. German violinist, thai
upon the discovery that the score of {
certain valuable opera had been lost, he
volunteered to write it from memory
This he successfully did, to the nices
detail, and was paid therefore a hand
: some sum of money. Upon many al
occasion Wiegis accurately performed
his part at the opera when he was St
, intoxicated as to make it necessary t.
| provide him with his instrument ant
b. rightly adjust it in his hands.
Rollin tells US of the remarkabl
e memory possessed by Adrein. Johl
Wilson, the painter, Queen Elizabeth
n and Julius Caesar were about equal
:. endowed with this valuable faculty
The conversation of the historian Macau
s lay exhibits an infinite store of per
z fectly appropriate and correct quotation
y while Prof. Porson could reclte yer
4 many lengthy poems with an astonish
IS ing accuracy.
Racine could recite all the tragedie
n of Euripides. Euler, the mathematician
n could repeat the Euclid Lord Grar
= vile repeated the New Testament, frot
V beginning to end, in the original Greel
s and Cooke, the tragedian, is said t
have committed to memory the content
of large daily newspaper.
e Straznicky is said to know the nam
i, and place of every one of the hundre
s thousand volumes of Astor Librar,
at The same was of old said of the librar
a an Magliabachi, who besides known
. the name of every book of his vast
brary, could repeat the contents of
a great number of them, and could te
o, any inquirer not only what book woul
of best satisfy his wishes, but the chapt
I'd and page where the desired data wou
=, be found.
or Mirandola would commit to memol
ny the contents of book by reading
:? three times over, and could frequent
IL repeat the words backward as we'll
forward. Thomas Cramer committed
Is memory, in three months, an enti
~ translation of the Bible; and Leibnit