The new enterprise., 1905-04-20

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goNr petition they would be too
incredible for belief,
Paruus Latro, says Seneca, retained
to the last a 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 N1ithridates, who
could repeat the names of his vast
army Of eighty thousand men.
Scipio knew by name all the inhabi-
tants of Rome; and it is said, likewise,
Of George ILL.,, that he never forgot a
face be had once seen, or 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 n certain stonecutter,
he was able to tell at once the rank
he held in the army, the exact corps
and regiment he belonged to, where
he had served, and the individual char
acter he had borne for bravery.
Napoleon III. 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 season Of i'm
pMsonment, when it was perilous for
him to carry written memoranda about
him. But never daring to trust solely
10 the sense OF hearing in its action
upon his memory, it was a fixed habit
of his life to write in a notebook what
ever he wished TO preserve, and then
destroy the leaf.
Seneca complained Of old age, when
he could not, as formerly. repeat two
thousand words in the order in which
they were read. At a certain recita'
tion of his class when a student, two
hundred verses had been unconnected-
~ recited by the different pupils. when
he repeated them, from the last to the
first, in a perfectly reversed order, and
without misplacing a word,
The Druds taught their whole circle
Of sciences in twenty thousand verses,
which students were called up to com.
NIT TO memory, and which frequently
occupied a space Of twenty years.
Blind Tom, the famous negro pianist,
affords an example Of marvellous mem
ory, All that he knows or performs he
has either heard or improvised. His
repertoire embraces the vast number
of five thousand distinct pieces. Esti-
mating the average number of notes
in a single bar to be eight, and the
average number of bars in n single per-
Torrance to be two hundred, we dis
cover that the facts retained by this
musical prodigy amount to the aston
ishing number of eight millions.
Liszt and Rubinstein, the gifted plan-
lists, were both accredited with the
possession Of great memories. 1t is
related also of Wiegis, a German vio-
linlst, that upon the discovery that the
score of a certain valuable opera had
been lost, he volunteered to write it
from memory. This he successfully
did, to the incest details, and was paid
therefor a handsome sum Of money.
Upon many an occasion Wiegis accur-
ately performed his part at the opera
when he was so intoxicated as to make
it necessary to provide him with his
instrument and rightly adjust it in
his hands.
Rollin tells us of the remarkable
memory possessed by Adrien, John
Wilson, the painter; Queen Elizabeth
and Julius Caesar were about equally
endowed with this valuable faculty.
The conversation of the historian Ma
cauley exhibits an infinite store Of per-
fectly appropriate and correct quota
tions, while Prof. Parson could recite
very many lengthy poems with aston
ishing accuracy.
Racine could recite all the tragedies
of Eurlpides. Euler, the mathemati-
clan, could repeat the Euclid. Lord
Granville repeated the New Testament
from beginning to end in the original
Greek; and Cooke the tragedian. is
said to have committed to memory all
the contents Of a large daily newspa-
per.
Strazniliy was said to know the name
and place Of every one Of the hundred
thousand volumes Of the Astor Ii.
brary. The same was said of old H.
brarian Magliabecchi who, besides
knowing the name of every book of
his vast library, could repeat the con-
tents of a great number of them, and