Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-08-14
WHO NEVER FORGOT.
MEN WHO POSSESSED REMARK
ABLE POWERS OF MEMORY.
Prodigious Abilities in Connection with
Moderate Mentality - Extraordinary
Powers of Memory Displayed by an
Idiot-Learned Men Who Never Forgot.

] l'h'Ns Audl NDafSt WHO are IeN
st'Ssed of great memories are great people,
Many an instance might be cited TO show
that men Of very moderate intellectual
capacity may be endowed with a power OF
memory which is truly prodigious. In ad
dition 10 this there are plenty Of vel
authenticated examples Of the extraordinary
power Of memory displayed even by idiots
In the memoirs of Ms. Somerville there is
a curious account of a most extraordinary
verbal memory. There was an idiot in
Edinburgh she tells Us, "of a respectable
family, who had remarkable memory.
He never failed to go to the kirk on Sun.
day, and on returning home could repeat
the sermon, saying: Here the minister
coughed; here he stopped 10 blow his nose
During the tour we made in the High
lands" she adds, I'VE met with another
idiot who knew the Bible so perfectly that
if YOU asked him where such verse was
10 lie found he could tell without hesitation
and repeat the chapter"
| OF similar kind Is the memory for which
/ Daniel McC Cartnry has become famous in the
! United States. The strange story Of this
mans achievements is told 10y Mr.. Henkle in
The Journal Of Speculative Philosophy. Nc
Cartney in 1867, declared that he could re-
member the day of the week for any date
| from January, 1877, that is, from the time
when he was years and months old-forty-
| two and half years. He has often been
tested, and. SO far as Mr.. Henkle's account
goes, had not failed to tell his queStioner
what day it was, and TO give some informa-
tion al,Out the weather and about his own
whereabouts and doings on any one of the
1900 or more dates that might be named.
With all this singular power Of memory,
however, he is not a man whose general
grasp Of mind is at all noteworthy.
THE RICH GIFT OF MEMORY.
The same may la said Of s,,orpS of men
Whose one rich gift of memory las brought
them into prominence. No one has claimed
any high intellectual rank for the renowned
Memory Corner Thompson, who drew from
actual memory, in twenty-five hours, at two
sittings, in the presence of two well-known
gentlemen, n correct plan of the parish Of st.
James. Westminster, Nth parts of the
parishes Of ST. Marylebone, st. Ann and St
Martin; who could tell the corner of any
great leading thoroughfare from Hyde park
corner or Oxford street to St Pauls, who
could take All inventory of a gentlemans
house from attic to ground floor and write it
out afterward He did this at Lord Nelson's
at Merton, and at the Duke Of kent's, in the
presence of two nOhlemen.
Since the revival of learning in Europe there
have been Scores yea, hundreds Of scholars
who have known their Homer" 10y heart and
a thousand other things besides Bishop
SaunderSnn, old Isaac Walton tells us, could
repeat all the odes Of Horace, all Tully's of
fees and the best part Of Juvenal and Persius
Euler, the mathematician and LiebnitZ, the
philosopher, could recite the LEneid from he
ginning to end. In their day Person, Elmsley.
Parr and Wakefield held the foremost places
as scholars, and ali, Of course, had rare mem
ories; but the palm must lie given to Porson.
Of whom endless stories are told. Before he
went to Eton he was able TO repeat almost the
whole Of Horace, Virgil, Homer, Cicero and
Livy When, as n practical joke, a schoolfel-
low slipped the wrong book into Persons
hand, Just as he was about to read and trans
late, the boy was not disconnected, but went
on TO read from his memory, as if nothing
had occurred In later life his performances
approached the miraculous. Ii would reguir.
all our space 20 give any fair idea of them,
for he not only knew all the Greek ports and
prose writers pretty well by heart, but could
recite whole plays of Shakespeare, or com
plete books from Paradise Lost" POpe's
"Rape Of the Lock" BarTows sermons, scenes
from Foote, Edgeworth's Essays on Irish
Bulls" scores Of pages from Gibbon or Rapin-
or THE GIGANTIC ORDER
Gilbert Wakefeld's memory was also OF the
gigantic order, hut it will not bear compari-
son with Porson's There were few passages
in Homer or Pindar which he could not recite
at a moments notice; Virgil and Horace he
knew perfectly, and he could recite entire
books from the Old and New TestamentS
without halting or failing in single verse.
There WAS also John Wyndham Bruce, whose
leisure time was devoted 10 classical studies.
His chief favorite was IFschylus, the whole
Of whose plays he had learned by heart, in
Guiding the LOO lines Of the "Agamemnon"
collated by Robertellus- he knew his Horace
in the same way, and was quite content until
one day he met with an old fellow student at
Bonn, who, when he made a quotation, would
mention book, ode and verse, remarking that
he did nS regard any one as knowing Horace
properly unless be could do that Mr.. Bruce
accordingly set to work at Horace again, and
was not long before he could name the exact
place occupied by line in any OF the famous
Odes.
The most scientific linguist we have to name,
and one Of the most remarkable for the extent
of his acquisitions, is Won der Gabelentz, who
seems TO have been equally at home with the
Suahilis, the Samoyeds, the HaZaras, the
Aimaks, the Dyaks, the Dakotas and the XII
riris; who could translate from Chinese into
Mancbu, compile a grammar or correct the
speech Of the inhabitants Of the FIJI islands,
New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands or New Gale
donia When We come 20 Cardinal Mezzo-
fanti and Sir John Bowring we iind the high
est record as regards the mere nui2ber and
variety of tongues that men have been known
20 acquire. No one can speak with absolute
certainty as to the number Of languages Mez-
zofanti could converse in with ease. Mrs.
Somerville says that he professed only fifty
two.-Chambers' Journal