of it take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memorable; being above fourscore years of age, he perfectly could say by heart any Greek chapter in St. Paul's epistles, or any thing else which he had learnt long before, but forgot whatsoever was newly told him ; his memory, like an inn, retaining old guests, but having no room to entertain new.

Spoil not thy memory by thine own jealousy, nor make it bad by suspecting it. How canst thou find that true which thou wilt not trust? St. Augustine tells us of his friend Simplicius, who being asked, could tell all Virgil's verses backward and forward, and yet the same party avowed to God, that he knew not that he could do it till they did try him. Sure there is concealed strength in men's memories, which they take no notice of.

Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than when it lies untoward flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most portable.

Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it betwixt thy memory and thy notebooks. He that with Bias carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be beggared and bankrupt, if a violent disease, a merciless thief, should rob and strip him. I know some have a common-place against common-place-books, and yet perchance will privately make use of what

they publicly declaim against. A common-placebook contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning.

Moderate diet and good air preserve memory; but what air is best I dare not define, when such great ones differ. Some say a pure and subtle air is best, another commends a thick and foggy air. For the Pisans scited in the fens and marshes of Arnus have excellent memories, as if the foggy air were a cap for their heads.

Thankfulness to God for it continues the memory ;* whereas some proud people have been visited with such oblivion, that they have forgotten

* Dr. Fuller had an extraordinary memory. He could name in order the signs on both sides the way from the beginning of Paternoster-row at Ave-Maria-Lane to the bottom of Cheapside. He could dictate to five several amanuenses at the same time, and each on a different subject. The doctor making a visit to the committee of sequestrators sitting at Waltham, in Essex, they soon fell into a discourse and commendation of his great memory; to which he replied; "'Tis true, gentlemen, that fame has given me the report of a memorist, and, if you please, I will give you an experiment of it." They all accepted the motion, and told him they should look upon it as an obligation, praying him to begin. "Gentlemen," says he, "I will give you an instance of my memory in the particular business in which you are employed. Your worships have thought fit to sequester an honest, but poor cavalier parson, my neighbour, from his living, and committed him to prison; he has a large family of children, and his circumstances are but indifferent; if you will please to release him out of prison, and restore him to his living, I will never forget the kindness while I live?"

their own names. Staupitius, tutor to Luther, and a godly man, in a vain ostentation of his memory, repeated Christ's genealogy by heart in his sermon, but being out about the captivity of Babylon, I see, saith he, God resisteth the proud, and so betook himself to his book.

Abuse not thy memory to be sin's register, nor make advantage thereof for wickedness. Excellently Augustine, "Quidam vero pessimi memoria sunt mirabili, qui tanto pejores sunt, quanto minus possunt, quæ male cogitant, oblivisci."

+ In the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, the subject of memory is under the article" Constituent Instances," beautifully analyzed. It may be thus exhibited: The Art of Memory consists, 1st. In making a strong impression. 2nd. In recalling the impression when made.

In the art of making strong impressions, the state of the mind of the patient, and the conduct of the agent, are to be duly regarded. The state of the patient's mind apt to receive impressions, is when the mind is free, as in youth; or when the mind is exerted by some powerful cause excluding all alien thoughts, as boys to remember the boundaries of a parish are struck by the officer. The art of the agent in producing strong impressions, depends, 1st. Upon variety of impression, as by verse and prose; algebraic and geometric proofs of the same proposition: and 2ndly. Slowness of impression, as great wits have short memories.

The art of recalling a given impression consists, 1st. In cutting off infinity, as in hunting the fallow deer in a park instead of a forest and 2nd. By reducing intellectual to sensible things as the image of a huntsman pursuing a hare for invention.

Infinity is cut off first by order: according to the 6th maxim of Fuller. 2nd. By places for artificial memory: as painted windows of birds, beasts, plants, men, &c. for dif

OF FANCY.*

It is an inward sense of the soul, for a while retaining and examining things brought in thither by the common sense. It is the most boundless

verum et

and restless faculty of the soul; for whilst the understanding and the will are kept as it were in "libera custodia," to their objects of " bonum," the fancy is free from all engagements; it digs without spade, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotence creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in nature are married in fancy, as in a lawful place. It is also most restless: whilst the senses are bound and reason in a manner asleep, fancy like a sentinel walks the round, ever working, never wearied. The chief diseases of the fancy are, either that they are too wild and high-soaring, or else too low

ferent sorts of natural history. 3rd. By technical memory, according to maxim 2 of Fuller, as the word VIBGYOR for the prismatic colours.

There are also some valuable observations upon memory in Bacon's Advancement of Learning, where he divides the science of the understanding into, 1. Invention. 2. Judgment. 3. Memory. 4. Delivery.

* See note IV. at the end on the Pleasures of Imagination.

and grovelling, or else too desultory and over voluble. Of the first,

1. If thy fancy be but a little too rank, age itself will correct it. To lift too high is no fault in a young horse, because with travelling he will mend it for his own ease. Thus lofty fancies in young men will come down of themselves, and in process of time the overplus will shrink to be but But if this will not do it, observe

even measure.

these rules.

2. Take part always with thy judgment against thy fancy in anything wherein they shall dissent. If thou suspectest thy conceits too luxuriant, herein account thy suspicion a legal conviction, and damn whatsoever thou doubtest of. "Warily Tully, bene monent, qui vetant quicquam facere, de quo dubitas, æquum sit an iniquum."

When thou

3. Take the advice of a faithful friend, and submit thy inventions to his censure. pennest an oration, let him have the power of " index expurgatorius," to expunge what he pleaseth; and do not thou, like a fond mother, cry if the child of thy brain be corrected for playing the wanton. Mark the arguments and reasons of his alterations, why that phrase least proper, this passage more cautious and advised, and after a while thou shalt perform the place in thine own person, and not go out of thyself for a censurer. If thy fancy be too low and humble,

4. Let thy judgment be king but not tyrant over it, to condemn harmless, yea, commendable conceits. Some for fear their orations should giggle