IN THE STUDY OF ANALYSIS. 



46 



Mechanics, on Natural Philosophy, and on the higher Mathema- 

 tics, although the power of the devices to which I have resorted 

 for the study and retention of these subjects, is equally advan- 

 tageous in the leading topics of them all. Nor do I regret the 

 omission of what I might further have to say. The example of 

 Dr. Richard Grey, rector of Hinton, in Northamptonshire, shows 

 how little honour, either from students or masters, awaits the 

 inventor of mnemonical aids. Great as is the value of the 

 " Memoria Technica," unrivalled for the simplicity and power of 

 its devices, it is yet, after the lapse of more than a century, but 

 little known, and less admired. Ask the first M.A. or D.D. 

 that you meet with, what day of the month Cesar's augur ex- 

 actly meant by the ides of March, and it is a hundred to one 

 that you will be none the wiser. He will tell you of some little 

 book in which you will meet with the information ; but he will 

 have long forgotten the Roman Calendar. If any person points 

 out to him the single mnemonical hexameter into which the 

 philosophical Richard Grey has compressed both the Roman and 

 the modern calendars, he will forthwith find it a laughable 

 conceit of the learned Doctor, that the remembrance of jargon 

 such as that can fail to be incomparably more difficult than the 

 retention of the matter to be suggested thereby! He must be 

 either a very greats or a very little man, who can indulge the 

 hope, that any suggestion of his, for the improvement of estab- 

 lished methods of tuition, wiUbe favourably received, or confessed 

 to have any value. 



