Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1886-09-02
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WHO NEVER FORGOT.
MEN WHO POSSESSED REMARK.
AELE POWERS OF MEMORY.

Frodigious Abilities In Connection witt
Moderate Mentality - Extraordinar,
Powers Of Memory Displayed by q,
Idiot-Learncd Men Who Never Forgot
If "al great people have great memories,
as Sir Arthur Helps declares in his delightful
book entitled Social Pressure" it by NJ
means follows that all those who are pos
sessed Of great memories are agreat people.
Many an instance might b cited to show
that men of very moderate intellectual
capacity may be endowed with q power Of
memory which is truly prodigous In ad
dition to this there are plenty Of well
authenticated examples of the extraordinary
power Of memory displayed even by idiots
In the memoirs Of Mrs. Somerville there Is
curious account Of most extraordinary
verbal memory There was an idiot in
Edinburgh" she tells US, @of respectable
family, who had O remarkable memory.
He never failed to go to the kirk on Sum
day, and on returning home could repeat
the sermon, saying: Here the minister
coughed: here he stopped to blow his nose
"During the tour we made in the High
lands" she adds, eve met with another
idiot who knew the Bible SO perfectly that
if you asked him where such verse was
to be found he could tell without hesitation
and repeat the chapter"
OF similar kind is the memory for which
Daniel Mccartney has become famous in the
United States. The strange story Of this
mans achievements is told by Mr. Henkle in
The Journal Of Speculative Philosophy. Nc
CartIey, in 1869, declared that be could re-
member the day of the week for any date
from January, 1927, that is, from the time
when he was years and months old-forty-
two and a half years. He has often been
tested, and, SO far as Mr.. Henkles account
goes, had not failed to tell his questioner
what day it was" and to give some informa-
ton about 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 be said of scores of men
whose one rich gift Of memory has 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
sttings, in the presence of two well-known
gentlemen, correct plan of the parish of st.
James, Westminster. With 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 "taEe en- inventory Of q 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 noblemen.
Since the revival of learning in Europe there
have been scores, yea, hundreds of scholars
who have known their Homer by heart and
a thousand other things besides Bishop
Saunderson, Old Isaac Walton tells u.s. could
repeat all the odes of Horace, al Tully's Of
fees and the best part of Juvenal and Persius.
Euler the mathematician, and Liebnitz, the
philosopher, could recite the 1Encid from be-
ginning to end. In their day Person, Elmsley,
Pa-r and Wakefield held the foremost places
as scholars, AID all, of course, had rare men,
ories; but the palm must be given to Person,
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
Lvy. When, as practical joke, q 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. 1t would require
all our space to give any fair idea OF them,
for he not only knew all the Greek poets 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- Barrow's sermons, scenes
from Foote, Edgeworth's assays on Irish
Bulls" scores of pages from Gibbon or Rapin.
OF THE GIGANTIC ORDER.
Gilbert Wakefield memory was also OF the
gigantic order, but il viii not bear compari-
son with Persons There were few passages
in Homer or pndar which he could not reciue
ut moments notice; Virgil and Horace he
knew perfectly, and be could recite entire
books from the Old and New Testa,nents
without hating or failing in a single verse.
There WAS also John Wtndham Bruce, whose
leisure time was devoted TO classical studies
His chief favorite was -Eschylus, the whole
of whose PLAYS he had learned by heart, in
GLIDING the POO lines of the "Agamemnon"
collated by RobertelluS He kew his Horace
III the same way, end was quite content until
one day he met with al old fellow student at
Bonn, who when he made quotation, would
mention book, ode and verse, rernarking that
he did not 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 a line in any of the famous
odeS
Them scientific linSGiSt we have to name,
ard 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 Sainoyeds, the Hazaras, the |
Annals, the Dyaks, the Dakotas and the XII |
riris: who could translate from Chinese into /
Manchu. compile a grammar or correct the |
speech OF the Inhabitants OF the FIJI Islands, |
New Hebridcs, Loyalty islands or New Gale |
donia When VIC come 10 Cardinal Mezzo- |
fanti ard Sir John Bowring we find the high |
est record" as regards the mere number and |
variety of tongues that men have been known
to acquire. 10 ere can speak with absolute
as TO the number of languages Mez-
zofanti could converse in with ease. Mrs
Somerviile says that he professed only fifty
Journal.
What Miss Cleveland Will Do.
II arr going to write . book which will en-
,ojr NV ax,e-isnros of WASHINGTON society