Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1889-06-05
PEOPLE WITH MEMORIES.
What They May Do Who Train Their
Faculties.

very retentlve memory, and was es-
pecially well up in Dickens Works. One
evening in the early part of 1868 Dick
ems, then on reading tour in the
States, was dining with Charles Sumner
when Mr.. Stanton and some others were
present. The war minister was put to
the test, and when started could repeat
from memory chapter from any of
Dickens books, showing q much great
er knowledge of the works than the au-
thor could boast. Mr.. Stanton account
ed for this intimate knowledge of Dick
ems by mentioning a habit which he
had formed during the war OF invarl-
ably reading something by the author
of "Pickwick" before going to bed at
night. The late Bishop Prince Lee,
first bishop Of Manchester, was similar
ly gifted. 1t is related of him that be-
ing once, at an evening party, started
by lady with line quoted from
"Marmion." he went right on with the
poem from memory, and could have re-
cited the whole. AS further test, the
same lady quoted few words from a
conversation in ''Ivanhoe," whereupon
the bishop repeated the whole chapter
correctly from memory. But greater
than any of these was Lord Macaulay.
From a very early age the retentive-
ness of his memory was extraordinary.
When only three Or four years of age,
his mind mechanically retained the
form of what he read, so that, as his
maid said, he talked "quite printed
words" Once as child, when making
an afternoon call with his father, he
picked up Scott's clay of the Last Min
strelP' for the first time, and quietly de-
voured the treasure while his seniors
were engaged in conversation. When
they returned home the boy went to
his mother, who at the time was con-
fined to her bed, and sitting down at
the bedside repeated what he had been
reading by the canto, until she was
memory was always subject of inter-
est to his friends, and occasionally was
put to searching tests. One day at a
board meeting at the British Museum,
Macaulay wrote down from memory in
three parallel columns on each Of four
pages of foolscap complete list of the
Cam bridge senior wranglers, with
dates and colleges attached, for the 100
years during which a record of the
names had been kept in the university
calendar. 'On another occasion" says
Trevelyn, ''Sir David Dundas asked
'Macaulay, do you know your popes?'
No. was the answer, L always get
wrong among the Innocents.' But can
you say your archbishops of Canter
bury?' ANY fool said Macaulay,
could say his archbishops of Canter-
bury backward and he went off at
mark on the oddly of there having
been both an Archbishop Sancroft and
an Archbishop Bancroft, until Sir David
stopped him at Cramer." Macaulay
once said that if, by any possible
chance, all the copies of 'Paraolse
Lost" and the "Pilgrim's Progress" in
existence were destroyed, he could
write both out again, complete, from
recollection. When O'Connell made
his motion in 1884 for the repeal of the
union, Mr.. Tenant. member Of Parlia-
ment for Belfast, delivered speech
lasting for three and half hours, full of
figures and calculations, entirely from
memory, in which he trusted so COM
pletely that he sent the manuscript Of
his speech to the newspapers before he
delivered it. His confidence was not
misplaced, tor the grafton was spoken
without single mistake, or even a mo-
mentary hesitation. Another Irish
M. P, Robert Dillon Brown, member
for Mayo, had the same useful faculty.
He would dictate speech to an aman-
uensis, and twenty-four hours alter
wards, without looking at it or thinking
of the matter in the meantime, could re-
peat it word for word. Woodfall, the
editor of the Morning Chronicle, and
brother Of Junius' publisher, was able to
report accurately in the morning the
debate of the previous evening without
taking any notes. In some cases the
mental action involved in teats of this
nature would seem to be quite mecbani-
cal and unintelligent. In the newspa-
pers of January, 1920, there are &C
counts of an extraordinary man, who
son." This man, although he could
hardly remember anything he
heard, could yet retain perfectly the
names and descriptions of large collec-
tons of objects that met his eye. He
could take an inventory of the contents
of house from cellar to attic merely by
surveying them, and could afterWard
write it out from memory. He could
draw from recollection accurate plans
of many London parishes and districts,
with every street, alley, public building,
public house, etc.. duly noted, down to
the minutest Typographical detail, such
as pumps, trees, bow-windows and
posts, all correctly marked. Conspicu-
Gus instances OF LnlS mechanical KIND or
memory are to be found among the
famous mental calculators. Jedediah
Buxton was a celebrity of this kind
about the middle of the last century.
He had but little education, and indeed
was not able to write his own name.
But in arithmetic and in abstruse calcu-
lations his powers were wonderful.
The following is a specimen of the
problems which, when put to the test,
he solved mentally in a few minutes:
Find how many cubical Fights of an inch
there are in quadrangular mass meas
uring 23,145,7 09 yards long. 2.642. 732
yards wide, and 1885 yards thick.
When in London in 1854 he was taken
to see Garrick as Richard IL. at D1ury
Lane. The play did not interest him,
but he occupied himself in reckoning
the number of words he heard, and in
counting the number of steps made by
the dancers. The American boy, zerah
Colburn, who came to London in 1872,
was similar phenomenon. He had no
knowledge of the rules of arithmetic,
and was quite unable to explain how he
arrived at the answers to the problems
submitted to him. Mental power of
his nature would seem to imDlv an nm