Chap. 24.] 
MEMOET. 
165 
Mithridates,^^ who was king of twenty-two nations, adminis- 
tered their laws in as many languages, and could harangue 
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 Ij^ric poet, Si- 
monides,^^ and perfected by Metrodorus of Scepsis, so as to 
enable persons to repeat word for word exactly what they have 
heard.^^ JSTothing 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 cut off altogether ; so 
much so, that the mind, in its vacancy, is at a loss to know 
where we are.^ 
^9 This account is similar to that given by Val. Maximus, B. viii. c. 7, 
and by Aulus GelUus, 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. 
6^ 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. Quaest. 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 Aim6 of Paris on the subject; Lemaire, 
vol. iii. p. 310, et seq. — B. 
^2 This circumstance is related by Val. Maximus, B. i. c. 8. — B. 
63 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. 
