ee 
THE * 
‘MON NTHLY MAGAZI INE. 
—— 
No. 194. ] 
FEBRUARY 1, 
LOLs. hol of Vox. 29. 
#* As long as thofe who write are ambitious of making Converts, and of giving their Opinions a Maximum o 
‘* Infiuence and Celebrity, the moft extenfively circulated Mifcellany will repay with the ergarest Erect the 
it (Curiofity of thofe who read either for Amufement or Infruction.”—~ JOHNSON, ; 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
For.the Monthly Magazine. 
On theonicin and PROGRESS of MNEMO- 
Nics; and the QUACKERIES of ils 
PROFESSORS in. the SIXTEENTH CEN-_ 
TURY. 
M EMORY, or the power of retaining 
and reviving ideas once impressed . 
on the mind, is a faculty, whose fullness 
of vigour Is "rarely caeval a the for- 
mation ofthe human intellect. °. Man has 
therefore recourse to art, fox supplying 
those resources, which are denied to him 
by nature. As to the readiest means of 
effecting this end, so indispensably re- 
quisite to the acquisition and retention 
of knowledge, the philosophers i 
rhetoricians of .every age are found a 
ariance: nor do they Gin er less ae 
in pointing out the fittest mode of cul: 
tivating and improving the memory, than: 
awriculturists differ as to the mode of 
cultiv ating and improving the same soil. 
Sume contend for the natural aids of a 
well-directed - practice and constant ex- 
ercise: others scruple not to cail in me= 
dicine to the assistance of the retentive 
faculty ; and many insist upon the agency 
of impressions, derived from. external 
“objects, with which a certain association, 
of ideas is connected. In An sarge to the. 
first of these metbods, we find Quinc- 
ulian amoung its warmest. supporters: 
** If, (says he,) I should be. asked in what 
consists the real and greatest art for mm- 
proving the memory, I would say, in 
labour and exercise ; and that nothing Is 
so efficacious as learning much by heart e 
thinking much, and this daily, if pos- 
sible.”* 
forced by various modern writers; aud 
amongst those of oir own country, by 
Beattie and Knox, who may be consulted 
| such as feel an in- 
with adve 1D EARS by 
terest im this suf ject. The second 1 
thod I have mentioned, as being founded % 
* Si guis tamen unam msximamque a me 
attem Memeriz quieret, . exercitatio est et 
labor 5 muita ediscere, multa cogitare, et si 
fieri potest, quotidic, Satie eceyad a est. 
Inst. Orat. Nib. xi. c. 2. eh 
Moxytary Mac, No, 194. re ee 
’ 
These maxims are strongly en- 
on medicinal aids, I shall leave Horstius, 
Marsilias, Geis aud theig disciples, 
to éxplain for themselves. 
We now come to a consideration cf 
the third method, which forms indeed the 
chief object of my present cormminica- 
tion ; the Lopical: Memory, or Low of the 
Ancients, known ‘by the name of Mueé-. 
monics, und a-kin to the Ars Memora= 
tiva op. Artificial Memory of the Mo- 
derns. The principles on which this-art 
is grounded will be adverted to here- 
after; and its practice, at leasi im the 
_present day, [ shill abstain from enlarg- 
ing upon, as that has been: so ably ae. 
veloped ona former occasion.* I shall 
content myself, theref ore, with a sum-~ 
mary notice of the origin and progress of 
this art among the ancients, previous !y 
to entering upona wide: fcid ; the quack- 
erles of its professors, and the patroiave 
conferred .on. them in the sixteenth 
century. 
_The most important of human dis- 
coyeries owe their birth to accidental. 
causes; ahd I know vot t PSS why 
chance shauld not be deemed as fd itful 
a mother of invention, as necessity. 
Simonides, the Cean, was indebted for 
the invention’ of Mnemonics to a casu- 
alty. Weare told, that this mer Feenary 
poetf being hired at a sup pREr to eulosize 
the prowess of his patron, Scopas, _vic« 
tor in wrestling at the Olympic Gane. 
he was suddenly ec aller! AWAY one table, 
on being informed, that two vouths on 
white horses were waiting for lnm at 
= Vj ide, vol. xxiv. p. 105 3 et seq. Mss 
a signed COMMON SENSE, 
+, So Anacreon, Catlimachus, and: others, 
desiynate hi us from the ardour w ith “w! hich 
he prostituted the Muses for lucre: nor could 
the Romans brand the’ works of a fellaw-pcoet. 
with a more opprobrious epithet, than ¢ Si- 
monidis Cantilene.? To this charge, al- 
leged against, Simonkies. even in) his 
own times, Simondes more artfully than 
wittily pleaded : f© 1 hed rather leave 
wherewithal for my enemies to prey upon | 
when Lam dead, than become a burden to 
my friends in my life-time.” : Ag 
s A ‘he. 
‘ 
