GREAT

HISTORY furnishes many incidents of persons remarkable for the strength of their memories, which, when we reflect on the limited extent of that faculty in the generality of mankind, might be considered as fabulous, were not some of them too well attested to be doubtful.

Mithridates, who ruled over twenty-two nations, was acquainted with all their languages, and could express himself fluently in each. Quintus Hortensius, one of the most celebrated orators of ancient Rome, had a memory so tenacious, that after studying a discourse, although he had not written down a single word of it, he could repeat it exactly in the same manner in which he had composed it. We are told that in consequence of a wager with one Sienna, he spent a whole day at an auction, and when it was ended, he recapitulated every article that had been sold, together with the prices, and the names of the purchasers, in their proper order, without erring in one point, as was proved by the clerk, who followed him with his book. The erudite Justus Lipsius remembered the whole history of Tacitus, and pledged himself to recite, word for word, any passage that might be required, consenting at the same time to allow a person to stand by him with a dagger, and to plunge it into his body if he made a single trip, or did not faithfully repeat the words of the author.

Muret relates that he dictated one day to a young Corsican an innumerable multitude of Greek, Latin, and barbarous words, all distinct from each other; and that when he was tired of dictating, the Corsican repeated them without hesitation, in the same order, and then in a reversed order, beginning at the last. The faculty possessed by Philidor, and in our own days by Morphy, of playing several games of chess at the same time, and without seeing the boards, is almost as extraordinary.

Antonio Magliabechi, librarian to Cos

mo III., Grand Duke of Florence, is quoted as possessing such a memory, that his head was called by one who knew him, "a universal index, both of titles and matter." The following trial, it is said,* was once made of his powers of retention: A gentlemen of Florence, who had written a piece which was to be printed, lent the manuscript to Magliabechi, and some time after it had been returned with thanks, came to him with a melancholy face, and told him of some invented accident, by which, he said, he had lost his only copy of the work. The author seemed almost inconsolable, and entreated Magliabechi, whose reputation for remembering what he had read was already very great, to try and recollect as much of it as he possibly could, and write it down for him against his next visit. Magliabechi assured him he would do so, and on setting about it, transcribed the whole manuscript without missing a word, or even varying in any manner from the spelling. When consulted by the learned writers of the day on any particular subject, he could tell them at once, and sometimes to the number of a hundred authors, all who had ever treated of the same, naming the book, the words, and often the very number of the page in which their remarks were to be found. Magliabechi, too, although he never traveled beyond Florence, had a local knowledge of the places where every important book stood, in the great collections of different countries. He studied the plans and sections of the libraries and their catalogues, as generals study the ground on which they are to campaign. One day, the Grand Duke sent for him to ask whether he could get a book that was particularly scarce, marked with four Rs, rarissimus, as Dominie Sampson would have described it. "No, sir," answered Magliabechi, without a moment's hesita

*See Spence's Parallel between Magliabechi and Hill, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758.

tion; "it is impossible. Your Highness's treasury would not buy it for you; for there is but one in the world-that is in the Grand Signor's library at Constantinople, and is the seventh book on the second shelf, on the right-hand side as you go in." This extraordinary man, without exercise, and dieted, by his own choice, on hard eggs and water, lived up to his eightyfirst year, dying on the fourteenth of July,

1714.

William Lyon, an itinerant actor, known in Edinburgh about a hundred years ago, one evening over a bottle with some of his theatrical brethren, wagered a crown bowl of punch that the following day at rehearsal he would repeat the whole of a Daily Advertiser. The players, who considered this as mere bravado, paid little attention to it; but as Lyon was positive, one of them accepted the wager. The next morning, at rehearsal, he reminded Lyon of his bet, imagining as he was drunk the night before, he must certainly have forgotten it, and rallied him on the ridiculous boasting of his memory. Lyon produced the paper, desired the other to look at it, and decide the wager. Notwithstanding the want of connection in the paragraphs, the variety of advertisements, and the general chaos which forms the composition of a newspaper, he repeated it throughout without the least hesitation or mistake.

Jedediah Buxton, a poor, illiterate English peasant, born about the year 1708, was singularly remarkable for his knowledge of the relative proportions of numbers, their powers, and progressive denominations. The faculty must have been instinctive, for he was destitute of even rudimentary education. To these subjects of calculation he applied the whole force of his mind, and upon them his attention was so completely riveted that he frequently lost sight of external objects; and when he recognized them it was only in respect to their numbers. If any space of time was mentioned before him, he would soon after say, that it contained so many minutes; and if any distance, he would assign the number of hair-breadths* in it, even when no question was asked him by the company..

he

Being required to multiply 456 by 378, gave the product by mental arithmetic, (for he could neither read nor write,) as

A hair's breadth is, in measurement, the fortyeighth part of an inch.

soon as another person present had completed it in the common way. He was then requested to work it audibly, that his method might be known. He began by multiplying 456 by 5, which produced 2280; this he again multiplied by 20, and found the product 45,600, which was the multiplicand multiplied by 100; this product he again multiplied by 3, which produced 136,800, the sum of the multiplicand multiplied by 300. It remained therefore to multiply this by 78, which he effected by multiplying 2280 (the product of the multiplicand multiplied by 5) by 15; five times 15 being 75. This product being 34,200, he added to 136,800, which was the multiplicand multiplied by 300, and this produced 171,000, which was 375 times 456. To complete his operation, therefore, he multiplied 456 by 3, which produced 1368, and having added this number to 171,000, he found the product of 456 multiplied by 378 to be 172,368.

By this it appears that Jedediah's method of arithmetic was entirely his own, and that he was so little acquainted with the common rules, as to multiply 456 first by 5, and the product by 20, to find what sum it would produce multiplied by 100; whereas, had he added two ciphers to the figures 456, he would have obtained the product at once. A person, who had heard of his astonishing performances, meeting him accidentally, in order to try his calculating powers, proposed to him the following question. Admit a field to be 423 yards long, and 383 broad, what is the area? After the figures were read to him distinctly, he gave the true product, 162,009 yards, in the space of two minutes; for the proposer observed by his own watch how long each operation took the respondent. The same person asked him how many acres the said field measured? And in eleven minutes he replied, thirty-three acres, one rood, thirty-five perches, twenty yards, and one quarter. He was then asked how many barleycorns would reach eight miles? In a minute and a half he answered, 1,520,640 barleycorns. The following question was put to him at the same time: Supposing the distance between London and York to be two hundred and four miles, how many times will a coach-wheel turn round in that space, allowing the circumference of the wheel to be six yards? In thirteen minutes he answered, 59,840 times.

Although these instances, which are

well authenticated, are sufficient proofs of Jedediah's astonishing powers of mental calculation, for the further satisfaction of the curious, we subjoin a few more. Being asked how long after the firing of the cannons at Retford the report might be heard at Haughton Park, the distance being five miles, and supposing the sound to move at the rate of eleven hundred and forty-two feet in one second of time; he replied, after a deliberation of about a quarter of an hour, in twenty-three and one eighth seconds, and that forty-six remained. He was then asked: admit that thirty-five hundred and eighty-four brocoli plants are set in rows, four feet asunder, and the plants seven feet apart, in a rectangular plot of ground, how much land will these plants occupy ? Within half an hour he said-two acres, one rood, eight perches and a half.

This extraordinary man would stride over a piece of land or field, and tell the contents with as much exactness as if he had measured it with a chain. In this manner he measured the whole lordship of Elmeton, (a small village near Chesterfield, and the place of his nativity,) of some thousands of acres belonging to Sir John Rhodes, and brought him the contents, not only in acres, roods, and perches, but even in square inches. After this he reduced them, for his own amusement, into hair-breadths, computing forty-eight to each side of the inch, which produced such an incomprehensible number as appeared altogether astounding. But, perhaps, his greatest feat in calculation was the answer to the following most complicated questions put to him suddenly in the field when walking with many other laborers. In a triangular body, whose three sides are, respectively, 23,145,789 yards, 5,642,732 yards, and 54,965 yards, how many cubical eighths of an inch are there? He gave the exact solution in five hours.

asked him several questions in arithmetic to prove his abilities, and being much gratified by his ready answers, dismissed him with a handsome gratuity.

During his residence in London he was carried to see the tragedy of King Richard III., at Drury lane. It was expected that the novelty of every thing in the place, together with the splendor of the surrounding objects, would have fixed him in astonishment, or that his passions would, in some degree, have been roused by the action of the performers, even if he did not fully comprehend the dialogue. But his thoughts were otherwise employed. During the dances, his attention was engaged in reckoning the number of steps. After a fine piece of music, he declared that the different sounds produced by the instruments, perplexed him beyond measure. But he counted the words uttered by Garrick in the whole course of his part, and affirmed that in this he had perfectly succeeded.

Born to no inheritance, and brought up to no particular calling, Jedediah Buxton supported himself by the labor of his hands; and although his talents, had they been properly cultivated, might have qualified him for acting a distinguished part on the theater of life, he pursued "the noiseless tenor of his way," sufficiently contented if he could gratify the wants of nature, and procure a daily subsistence for himself and family. But if his enjoyments were few, they seem to have been fully equivalent to his wishes. Favored by nature in a very singular manner, and raised by the powers of his mind far above his humble companions who earned their bread in the like manner by the sweat of their brow, yet ambitious thoughts never interrupted his repose; nor did he, on his return from London, regret the loss of any of those delicacies, so rarely witnessed or participated in, which he had left behind him. Fully satisfied with his accustomed rustic fare, he despised the luxuries of the great; and while his chief pleasure was to exercise his ingenuity by calculation, he was still of opinion that a slice of bacon afforded the most delicious repast.

generally a very crooked one, he would go to work. He usually wore a linen or woolen cap, with a handkerchief thrown carelessly round his neck.

POLITICAL prediction is proverbially rash. When the late Session of Parliament was at the birth the keen-eyed seers of journalism prophesied a season of uncommon stir, when pitched battles of party would occur upon questions of the first magnitude, and signal changes ensue in the relations of statesmen to each other and the country. Significant modifications were discernible in public opinion, and these had been reflected in elections for leading constituencies. A strengthened Opposition would make a bold push for preeminence. Among the followers of the Ministry an irremediable schism had already passed beyond the incipient stages. A revolt of the Irish Liberals, added to the impending secession of the English Radicals, had brought the Whigs almost to a state of wreck. Formidable grounds for attack would readily be found in a Budget which would again illustrate the ingenuity of Mr. Gladstone's tenuous genius. Contractors' jobs there were, monstrous in conception, and vast in their pecuniary enormity, which the heads of the departments would defend at their peril. Experiments in gunnery, prosecuted with a magnificent disregard of outlay, and a splendid reliance upon the fancy of the public for exorbitant taxation, were

IN 1862.

sure to be pronounced by practical critics futile and frivolous. Party collisions would also, without fail, arise upon such grave external problems as our attitude toward the American belligerents and the bearing of our ambassador in critical conjunctures at the Court of Turin. Seldom did a Session open with larger promise of earnest parliamentary conflict. The occupants of the Opposition benches had prepared themselves to pass over at any moment to the seats of power, and by anticipation divided the spoils of office. Even the profound calm of the earlier sittings seemed ominous of eventual tumult. Whenever the days sacred to loyal sympathy with the mourning Court were fulfilled, a fiery campaign would inevitably commence. Very much as happened else where, however, this "On to Richmond” ultimately became resolved into combats, bitter indeed and numerous, but ever short of victory for the assailants, or completely successful resistance upon the part of the assailed. Finally the "North" and "South" of this war stand pretty much as they stood in February, equally bruised, equally irritated, equally crestfallen. If irresolution, divided counsels, and want of proper sympathies and national insight, upon one side, have sacrificed opportu