The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-12
WONDERFUL MEMORIES.


 To every one is not given the prodig- ious memory of the ancient Grotius, of whom it is said that he had never forgot anything that he had ever read or thought. Whatever truth there may be in that statement, there seems to be little doubt that Tertullian was so con- versant with the Scriptures that he could recite them from beginning to end, indicating their very punctuation. A modern linguist would stand aghast at the performance of the famous Mez- zofanti, who could converse in more than fifty tongues. What pity Them istocles had not a larger city than an- cient Athens to conquer. It had but population of 10000, and Themistocles prided himself upon the fact that he could recite the name of every citizen by heart Evidently, conversation in the days of Demosthenes did not chiefly consist of explosives about the weather. for that gentlman as soon as he had left his friends, invariably retired to his study and repeated the recent conversa- ton with the accuracy of a photograph, exactly in the order as it passed. Jus tin the Monk, of later times, was able to recite the whole of Tacitus and he openly declared that he was prepared to do so with dagger held upon his throat, and if he should even so much as stumble, from the first word to the last, the weapon should be driven in. Lord Bacon possessed a wonderful memory, and it is also said of him that he could recite the whole of Tacitus Dictionaries are proverbially hard things to master. but the Rev Orlando Hyam felt so convinced, as he read | through Liddell and Scott's Greek Die 1 tionary, that he had mastered the con- | tents that he tore out the successive pages Many natives of the east know the Samhita and Tada text by heart, 1 and there are Brahnins 'innumerable who can recite the whole of the Rig Veda," Poem twice as long as Para disc Lost.' The hustle and activity of | the present day, together with the ever increasing supply of books of reference, ] does not tend to cultivate extraordinary | powers of memory. And yet the nine | teenth century is by no means barren | of examples of prodigious memory. Lord Macaulay, everyone will remem- Der, was the possessor of one of the strongest memories the world has ever known. He could recite from beginning to end the whole of Milton's Paradise Lost" and he declared that if every copy of Pilgrims Progress" was de- stroyed by fire in single day, he would reproduce it from memory
 Undoubtedly the finest memory pos l ht, E,yir1 to- ic | MT. Gladstone's. Many of his best 1 speeches in the house of commons, bristling with quotations, together with dates and figures, have been made on l the spur of the moment, when reference to records was impossible. Despite his advanced years, Mr Gladstone can still l recite any page of his Homer, if given the number and the first word. The next position of merit must undoubted- l ly be assigned to MT. Chamberlain. The member for West Birmingham seems to | know by heart every speech he has l ever made, for he often quotes from them without referring to reports. He i has remarkable memory for days to this fact that Mr. Chamberlain made a great Init" in the house of commons a few years ago. The occasion was an Irish debate MT. John Dillon had beer trying to show from a former speech of the colonial secretary's, that he had | altered his views upon a certain Irish question. Mir Dillon made quotation after quotation from the speech of a most striking kind, and the Irish mem bers cheered uproariously. Tie only gentleman who regarded the affair with untroubled air was MT. Chamberlain himself, who sat unmoved amidst the cheers of the one side and the depres- sion of the other. When MT. Dillon had finished, MT. Chamberlain rose to his feet and calmly informed the astonish- ed house that he had not made a speech on the day named on the subject Mir
 Dillon protested (having the speech in his hands), but the member from Bir- mingham "stood to his guns" Finally Mr. Chamberlain quite turned the tables on his opponent, by giving the exact date on which the speech in question was made, which was two years after the event with which MT. Dillon had connected it, and thus all the Irish leaders arguments were destroyed The statement was challenged at the time
 but it was found, on subsequent search
 ing, to be absolutely correct.-Londor | Ctondord