78 M E M 
Hordius, Marfilius Ficintts, Johnfton, and others. That 
good health, a good digeftion, and a mind free from care, 
are helps in this refpedt, is an old obfervation. That 
attention, application, frequent recapitulation, are ne- 
celfary, is known to every one. But whether, befides 
■natural health and parts, and the exercife of our facul¬ 
ties, art may not give a farther affillance to memory, has 
been a quedion. Simonides is faid to have been the fird 
•who found out the art of memory, or at leaf! to have 
given the occafion for it. The dory they tell of him is 
this : Being once at a fead, he recited a poem which he 
liad made in honour of the perfon who gave the enter¬ 
tainment. Immediately after, Simonides was told that 
two young men were without, and mull needs fpeak 
with him. He had fcarcely got out of the houfe, when 
the room where the company was fell down, killed all 
the perfons in it, and fo mafhed the bodies, that, when 
the rubbifli was thrown off, they could not be known one 
from another: upon which, Simonides recollefting the 
place where every one had fat, by that means didinguifh- 
ed them. Hence it came to be obferved, that to fix a 
number of places in the mind, in a certain order, was a 
help to the memory. And we find by experience, that, 
upon returning to places once familiar to us, we not only 
remember them, but likewife many things w'e both faid 
and did in them. This aflion therefore of Simonides 
was afterwards improved into an art; and the nature of 
it is this : They bid you form in your mind the idea 
of fome large place or building, which you may divide 
into a great number of didindt parts, ranged and difpofed 
in a certain order. Thele you are frequently to revolve 
in your thoughts, till you are able to run them over one 
after another without hefitation, beginning at any part. 
Then you are to imprefs upon your mind as many images 
of living creatures, or any other fenfible objedls which 
are moll likely to aft’edl you, and be foonefl revived in 
vour memory. Thefe, like characters in Ihort-hand, or 
hieroglyphics, mull Hand to denote an equal number of 
other words, which cannot fo eafily be remembered. 
When therefore you have a number of things to commit 
fo memory in a certain order, all that you have to do is, 
to place thele images regularly in the feveral parts of 
your building. And thus they tell yott, that, by going 
over feveral parts of the building, the images placed in 
them will be revived in the mind ; which of courfe will 
give you the things or words themfelves in the order you 
defire to remember them. The advantage of the images 
!eems to be this 5 that, as they are more likely to affeft the 
imagination than the words for which they Hand, they 
will for that reafon be more eafily remembered. Thus, 
for inllance, if the image of a lion be made to fignify 
Jtrength, (and this word ftrength be one of thofe I am to 
remember,) and is placed in the porch ; when, in going 
over the feveral parts of the building, I come to the 
-porch, I lhall fooner be reminded of that image than of 
•the w ; ord Jirevgth. Of this artificial memory, both Cicero 
and Quintilian fpeak ; but we know not of any modern 
©rator that has ever made ufe of it. It fieems indeed to 
'have been a laborious way of improving the memory, if 
at ferves that end at all, and fitter for affdting us to re¬ 
member any number of unconnected words than a con¬ 
tinual difcourfe, unlefs fo far as the remembrance of one 
word may enable tis to recoiled more. It is, however, 
in allufion to it, that we It'll call the parts of a difcourfe 
places, or topics; and fay, “ in the JirJi place , in the J'econd. 
-place ,” &c. 
Among the moderns, the firll who made an attempt to 
form a fyltem of topical memory upon the plan of the 
ancients, feems to have been our countryman, Bradwar- 
dine, archbifliop of Canterbury, called the “ profound 
doCtor,” who was born about the clofe of the thirteenth 
century; but we have not been able to procure any 
account of the method he ufed. The “ Ars Memorativa” 
©f Publicius, probably printed before the year 14.82, treats 
#>f the arrangement of places, and the combination of 
A 
Q H Y. 
images, and has been the- fountain whence many fubfe-* 
quent writers have derived confuierable information. 
Grataroli, in his “ Cailel of Memorie,” a tranflation of 
which by W. Fulwood was publilhed at London in 1562, 
and Thomas Watfon of Oxford, in his MS. entitled 
“ Artificiofae Memorise Libellus,” dated 1583, preferved 
in the Britidi Mufeum, have referred to the ancient 
plan of dividing houfes and walls for the affillance of the 
memory. J. Baptilla Porta, in his “ Ars Reminifcendi,’* 
printed at Naples in 1602, treats, like the authors already 
mentioned, of places and images ; exchanges figures for 
lymbols ; reprefents letters by fymbols; and gives two 
alphabets, one confiding of letters formed from various 
objeCls, and another, in which they are deduced from 
the different pofitions of the human body. Schenckel, 
a native of Bois-le-Duc, in 1547, and the author of 
Gazophylacium Artis Memorise, publilhed in 1610, pro¬ 
pagated his dilcoveries in the mnemonic art through the 
Netherlands, Germany, and France ; and they were re¬ 
ceived with great applaule. The performances of this 
author excited adonilhment; he repeated forty fentences 
of fome length, without any connection, and after merely 
writing them down and reading them twice, backward* 
and forwards, and in any order that was delired. Some 
of his pupils alfo didinguilhed themfelves in a dill more 
furprifing manner. A German trandation of Schenckel’s 
work was publiflied by Dr. Kliiber, in 1804, under the 
title of “ Compendium der Mnemonik, &c.” The trea- 
tife of John Willis, entitled “ Mnemonica, &c.” Lond. 
1618, and a trandation of which by Sowerlby was pub- 
lilhed at London in 1661, contains many curious parti¬ 
culars. His plan is that of a topical memory, or of a 
memory to be affided by fome luitable edifice, and its 
appropriate divifions. The “ Ars Memorise localis,” 
publilhed at Leipfic in 1620, and written by one of the 
profedors of the univerfity, merits preference, according 
to Morhof in his Polyhidor, to all the treadles on mne¬ 
monics, for perlpecuity and arrangement. The fame 
Morhof has preferved an elaborate account of Raymund 
Lully’s fydem of artificial memory, which had become d> 
famous as to have acquired the name of “ Lully’s art 
and Morhorf’s differtation is entitled De Arte Lulliancs. 
Lully is fuppofed to have been the fird among the mo¬ 
derns who praCtiled this art; as to the excellence of 
which, fee vol. xiii. p. 767, 8. D’Adigny’s “Art of Me¬ 
mory,” a third edition of which was publilhed in London, 
in 1706, contains many ufeful obfervations on the im¬ 
portance of a retentive memory, and on the mode of aid¬ 
ing the exercife of it; but it doles with fome fanciful 
receipts for “ comforting the memory,” principally 
taken from early writers on this fubjedl, and hardly de- 
ferving to be refcuedfrom oblivion. 
Buffer’s “ Pratique de la Memoire Artificielle, &c.’* 
Svo. Paris, 3 tom. 1719-1723, is intended to facilitate the 
acquifition of chronology and univerfal hidory, and his- 
fydem is faid to be ingenious and fimple. The chief arti¬ 
fice is to form an artificial word, the letters of which (hall 
fignify numbers. Hence a date or era may more eafily be. 
recapitulated and remembered than without fuch a con¬ 
trivance. This invention is mentioned as a fecret known 
to few, by Pafchius. It was prolecuted in England by 
Dr. Grey, in his well-known work, entitled “ Memoria 
Technica,” by means of which a great mafs of hillorical, 
chronological, and geographical, knowledge is compriled 
in a fet of verl'es, Which the lludent is fuppofed to make 
familiar to himfelf as fchool-boys do the rules of gram¬ 
mar. The method is this: To remember any thing in 
hidory, chronology, geography, &c. a word is formed, the 
beginning of which, being the fird lyllable or fyllables of 
the thing to be remembered, does, by frequent repeti¬ 
tion, of courfe draw after it the latter parts, which is fo 
contrived as to give the anfwer. Thus, in hidory, the 
deluge happened in the year before Chrid 2348. Thi* 
may be fignified by the word Del etok ; Del danding for 
deluge, aud etok for 2348. How thefe words came to 
