MONTHLY MAGAZINE, | 
No. (0. 161.) 
SEPTEMBER i; 
1807. 
[2 of ue 24. 
“As long as thofe who write are ambitious of making Converts, and of giving tq their Opinions a Maximum of 
* Tnfluence and Celebrity, the mof excenfively circulated Mifcellany will repay with the greateft Effect the 
** Curiofity of thufe who read either for meets or Infiruction.” JOHNSON, . 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magezine. 
STR, 
G 2E ZABLY to the promise which 
I wade you, and to the pledge which 
you have, in consequence made to 
your readers, I here communicate the 
principles of an Art of Short Memory, 
which I have practised for upwards of 
twenty years, and in occasional exhibi- 
tions of which Ihave frequently entertain- 
ed parties of my friends; to many of whom 
I have also, at times, communicated the 
principle on which 1 founded the practice, 
You may readily conceive that I have 
lately been a good ‘deal amused by various 
pompous notices in foreign journals, of 
the invention and practice of a new and 
mysterivus art, called Mnemonics, by 
some F renchman i in Paris, a city which of, 
late years, as we all unhappily know, has 
become the focus of every species o 
quackery and charlatanry, political, reh- 
gious, and scientific, 
We all recollect the famous phantas- 
magoria, a piece of optical conjuring of 
French invention, which consisted of no- 
thing more than giving opacity to the plain 
parts of the sliders. of the magic lantern, 
by which, however, a Frenchman con- 
trived to ‘realize a handsome fortune in 
London in a single winter! And we have 
none of us forgotten the scientific toy, 
the air-balloon, another wondrous French 
invention, by which various Frenchmen 
have realized large suins in England. — [t 
would, indeed, be ditficult to trace to that 
boasting and giddy people any discovery 
or vention of the slightest importance 
or benefit te mankind. 
Lest this art of mnemonics should also 
be converted into a meaus of picking the 
pockets of our Gountrymen, I feel it my 
duty to anticipate the developement of 
this mystery, by stating its obvious oat 
plesin: a popular way, so that it may bence- 
forward be practised without difficulty by 
all persons to whom it may be useful. 
The Art, as it is calied, of Mnemonics 
is founded simply on the powers of asso- 
ciation in the human mmd. Every per- 
‘son who has twice travellcd the same road, 
will have, brought to his recollection, du- 
wing the second journey, the feglings of 
Monrary Mac, vo. i61. 
his mind, the subjects of conversation and 
other trivial incidents w hich occurred 
during his first journey, the moment he 
comes again within sight of the successive 
objects. 
Aiese recollections will of course take. 
place in travelling along the road exactly 
in the same order as the objects which 
bring them again before the mind. It is’ 
evident, therefore, that all that is wanted. 
to enable us to retrace any set or suc-. 
cession of ideas, 1s an unvarying set or 
continuity of objects with which we can 
associate those ideas, 
Any person who wishes to try an exe 
periment on this’ power of association, 
need only make use of the succession of 
rooms, closets, stair-cases, landing-places, 
and other remarkable spots or divisions, 
of his own house, with all the parts of 
which he may be supposed to be very fa- 
miliar. Let him apply any word or auy 
idea to the several parts of the house, iia 
any determined order of their succession, 
and he will find it almost impossible, in 
recalling the same order of the parts of 
the house, not to associate the idea or 
word which he had previously annexed to 
each part. Thus, for example, a person 
may learn the succession of the Kings of 
England in ten minutes, by annexing the 
names of each succeeding monarch to 
the successive rooins, closets, anc princi 
pal parts of his own pee beginning at 
the upper story, and regularly descend 
ing, or at the lower story, and regularly 
ascending. 
_ Any other permanent and familiar class 
of objects will, in general, answer the 
purpose better than the rooms of a house. 
I was myself educated in the vicinity of 
Oxford-stveet, and thestreets running out 
of that street coebeand north (beginning at 
Charles-street, Soho-square, and proceeds 
ing to Dean-street, Chapelkstreet, and so 
on to Park-lane, and down on the other side 
» Rathbone-place and Henway- -yard) 
are the permanent and familiar set of 
objects, ‘which I make use of for 
my own purpose of successive asso- 
ciation, The counties in England, the 
kingdoms and the countries throuste 
out the world, the villages, dud otlier db= 
P jects 
