BOOK VII.] History of Nature. 207 



chief honour therein, considering how many have excelled 

 in its Glory. King Cyrus called every Soldier in his Army 

 by his own Name. L. Scipio could do the like by all the 

 Citizens of Rome. Cineas, Ambassador of King Pyrrhus, 

 the next Day after he came to Rome, saluted by Name the 

 Senate and Equestrian Order. Mithridates, the King of two- 

 and-twenty Nations of different Languages, ministered Justice 

 to them in that Number of Tongues : and when he made a 

 Speech in the public Assembly respectively to every Nation, he 

 performed it without an Interpreter. A certain Charmidas^ 

 a Grecian, rehearsed as if he was reading whatever any Man 

 would call for out of any of the Volumes in the Libraries. 

 At length the Practice of this was reduced into an Art of 

 Memory, which was invented by Simonides Melicus, and 

 afterwards brought to Perfection by Metrodorus Scepsius; by 

 which a Man might learn to rehearse the same Words of any 

 Discourse after once hearing. And yet there is nothing in 

 Man so frail ; for it is injured by Diseases, Accidents, and by 

 Fear, sometimes in part, and at other Times entirely. One 

 who was struck with a Stone forgot his Letters only. Ano- 

 ther, by a Fall from the Roof of a very high House, lost 

 the Remembrance of his own Mother, his near Relations, 

 and Neighbours. Another when sick forgot his own Ser- 

 vants ; and Messala Corvinus, the Orator, forgot even his 

 own Name. 2 So also it often endeavoureth to lose itself, even 

 while the Body is otherwise quiet and in Health. But let 

 Sleep creep upon us, and it reckoneth, as an empty Mind 

 inquireth, what place it is in. 



1 Carneades, according to Cicero and Quintilian. 



2 A sudden loss of memory on a particular subject is common, though 

 unaccountable. We are told that Curio, the orator, was much given to 

 this ; so that, offering to divide a subject into three heads, he would forget 

 one of them, or perhaps make four. He was to plead on behalf of Sextus 

 Naevius, opposed to Cicero, who was on the side of Titania Corta ; when 

 he suddenly forgot the whole cause, and ascribed the fact to the witchcraft 

 of Titania. Wern. Club. 



