Chap. 24.] MEMOET. 165 



Mithridates,™ who was king of twenty-two nations, adminis- 

 tered their laws in as many lang:uages, and could harangae 

 each of them, without employing an interpreter. There was 

 in Greece a man named Charmidas, who, when a person 

 asked him for any book in a library, could repeat it by heart, 

 just as though he were reading. Memory, in fine, has been 

 made an art ; which was first invented by the lyric poet, Si- 

 monides,"' and perfected by Metrodorus of Scepsis, so as to 

 enable persons to repeat word for word exactly what they have 

 heard."' Nothing whatever, in man, is of so frail a nature as 

 the memory ; for it is affected by disease, by injuries, and even 

 by fright ; being sometimes partially lost, and at other times 

 entirely so. A man, who received a blow from a stone, forgot 

 the names of the letters only ;°^ while, on the other hand, 

 another person, who fell from a very high roof, could not so 

 much as recollect his mother, or his relations and neighbours. 

 Another person, in consequence of some disease, forgot his 

 own servants even ; and Messala Corvinus, the orator, lost all 

 recollection of his own name. And so it is, that very often the 

 memory appears to attempt, as it were, to make its escape from 

 us, even while the body is at rest and in perfect health. 

 When sleep, too, comes over us, it is out off altogether ; so 

 much so, that the mind, in its vacancy, is at a 'loss to know 

 where we are."' 



" This account is similar to that given hy Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 7, 

 and by Aulus Gellius, B. xvii. c. 7. We have a learned dissertation by 

 Ajasson, in which he discusses the possibility of one individual under- 

 standing so great a number of languages, as well as the question, whether 

 it is possible that so great a number of languages were spoken by the sub- 

 jects of Mithridates. His conclusions greatly tend to prove both these 

 points; Lemaire, vol. iii. p. 295. — B. 



^ This invention is referred to by Cicero, De Nat. Deor., B. ii. c. 86. 

 Cicero also speaks of the remarkable powers of memory possessed by Char- 

 midas and Metrodorus, De Oratore, B. ii. c. 88, and Tusc. Qusest. B. i. c. 

 24.— B. 



" Ajasson gives an'account of some of the principal writers in what 

 has been termed the science of Mnemonics, or artificial memory : he par- 

 ticularly commends the lectures of Aimfi of Paris on the subject ; Lemaire, 

 vol. iii. p. 310, H aeq. — B. 



"2 This circumstance is related by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8. — B. 



" This is not always the case. In dreams we often recollect past events 

 and localities ; we know in what part of the world we are, and even re- 

 member the substance of former dreams, and the fact that we have dreamt 

 of a similar subject before. 



