In glancing through the records of all ages and all nations, we meet with certain individuals who have been celebrated for their extraordinary powers of memory; and some of these would appear to us so wonderful, that we are tempted to disbelieve them, and place them in the list of human impossibilities. But it cannot be denied that there are numberless instances upon record, both ancient and modern, and also in our own day, of persons retaining an almost incredible recollection of a great diversity of matters, consisting in some cases of long lists of dates and names, or in others, countenances and circumstances, long since forgotten by the majority of mankind, through a lapse of time intervening.
We propose in this paper to submit to the reader a few of the many most authentic examples of retentive memory on record.
Within the range of their own experience, many of our readers must have noticed examples of quick or retentive memory. Frequently, however, these powerful memories are filled with matters of questionable value. Of such we may mention an individual well known in London by the name of 'Memory-Corner Thompson,' who was remarkable for an astonishing local memory. In the space of twenty-four hours and at two sittings, he drew from memory a correct plan of the whole parish of St James. This plan contained all the squares, streets, lanes, courts, passages, markets, churches, chapels, houses, stables, angles of houses; and a great number of other objects, as wells, parapets, stones, trees, &c., and an exact plan of Carlton House and St James's Palace. He made out also an exact plan of the parish of St Andrew; and he offered to do the same with that of St Giles, St Paul, Covent Garden, St Clement, and Newchurch. If a particular house in any given street was mentioned, he would tell at once what trade was carried on in it, the position and appearance of the shop, and its contents. In going through a large hotel completely furnished, he was able to retain everything and make an inventory from memory. He possessed a most mechanical memory; and he could, by reading a newspaper overnight, repeat the whole of it next morning. He died in February 1843, at the age of eighty-six. Mr Paxton Hood knew a man in London who could repeat the whole of Josephus; and William Lyon, like Thompson, could read the Daily Advertiser overnight, and repeat it word for word next morning.
As a contrast to this, on the other hand we know an individual who travelled through a considerable extent of country, and passed through several towns he had visited before, yet was ignorant of the fact until informed of it by another traveller!
Pliny, in the seventh book of his Natural History, makes mention of one Charmidas or Charmadas, a native of Greece, who was the possessor of so singular a memory that he was able to deliver word for word the entire contents of any book which might be called out of a library, without having read it. This, however, we should be inclined to take cum grano salis.
Some cases are quoted of persons having a remarkable gift of learning any number of foreign languages in an incredibly short time. Mithridates king of Pontus had an empire in which two-and-twenty languages were spoken; yet it is asserted that he had not a subject with whom he could not converse in his own dialect. But in later times the royal linguist has been eclipsed by the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, who died in 1849. He had a wonderful memory for the retention of words, and with a grammatical intuition which has never been property explained, he went on acquiring languages, till at the age of seventy he could converse in upwards of fifty, besides having an acquaintance with at least twenty more. He was at home in both of the dialects of the Basque language, the most difficult in Europe; also in the different dialects of German; with Englishmen he never misapplied the sign of a tense. Besides the foregoing, he was so far master of at least one Chinese dialect that he delivered a set speech to Chinese students at the Vatican. So conversant was he with all the dialects of each tongue that he could at once detect the particular county, province, or district to which a speaker belonged. He himself was upon several occasions mistaken for a native of totally different countries. According to his own words, as related to his friend Cardinal Wiseman, his method of studying a new language was to read straight through the grammar, and when he had arrived at the end he was master of the whole. He never forgot anything he had once heard or read.
Sir William Jones, in spite of his many duties as a legal student, had before his death acquired so intimate a knowledge of fourteen languages, that he translated from the most difficult and obscure. Dr Alexander Murray, the learned author of The History of European Languages, was another of Britain's greatest linguists, who remembered every word he ever read; he had the whole of Milton by heart. The Emperor Claudius was another great memorist, also repeating by heart the Iliad and Odyssey.
It is recorded of Dr Leyden the distinguished oriental scholar, that when at Calcutta, a case occurred in which it was necessary, before deciding the issue, to know the exact wording of an act of parliament, of which, however, a copy could not be found in the Presidency. Leyden had had occasion before leaving home to read the act, and undertook to supply it from memory; and when nearly a year afterwards a printed copy was obtained from England, it was found to be identical with what Leyden had dictated.
Richard Porson had a remarkable memory. Being one day in the shop of Priestly the bookseller, a gentleman came in and asked for a particular edition of Demosthenes. Priestly did not possess it; and as the gentleman seemed a good deal disappointed, Porson inquired if he wished to consult any particular passage. The gentleman mentioned a quotation of which he was in search, when Porson opened the Aldine edition of Demosthenes, and after turning over a few leaves, put his finger on the passage. On another occasion he happened to be in a stage-coach; presently there entered into it a young undergraduate with two ladies. This young gentleman endeavoured to make himself seem very learned; presently quoting a Greek passage, which he said was from Euripides. The great Greek scholar, who was dozing at the other end of the coach, awoke at the familiar sounds, and drawing a copy of Euripides from the folds of his cloak, politely asked him to favour him with the passage. The student could not; and the ladies began to titter. Reddening, the youth said that on second thoughts, the passage he was sure was in Sophocles. Porson thereupon produced a copy of Sophocles, and again asked him to favour him with the passage. The undergraduate again failed; the ladies tittered greatly. 'Catch me!' said he, 'if ever I quote Greek in a coach again.' Stung by the laughter of his fellow-passengers, he said: 'I recollect now, sir; I perfectly recollect that the passage is in Æschylus.' His inexorable tormentor, diving again in the capacious folds of his cloak, produced a copy of Æschylus, and again asked him to favour him with the passage. The boiling-point was now reached. 'Stop! stop!' shouted he to the coachman. 'Let me out! There is a man inside who has got the whole Bodleian library in his pocket!' On another occasion, calling upon a friend, Porson found him reading Thucydides. Being asked casually the meaning of some word, he immediately repeated the context. 'But how do you know that it was this passage I was reading?' asked his friend. 'Because,' replied Porson, 'the word only occurs twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page in the edition which you are now using, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly I knew to which passage you referred.'
Once when in the house of Dr Burney at Hammersmith, with some friends, examining some old newspapers which detailed the execution of Charles I., he came across various particulars thought by some of them to have been overlooked by Rapin and Hume; but Porson instantly repeated a long passage from Rapin in which these circumstances were all recounted. Upon one occasion he undertook to learn by heart the entire contents of the Morning Chronicle in a week; and he used to say he could repeat Roderick Random from beginning to end. His stupendous memory, however, on account of his excesses, failed at last.