of different languages, assist us very materially in receiving what is proposed to our observation, and in preserving it longer in our remembrance. How many of the common affairs of human life taught in early years, are indelibly fixed in our memories by the aid of rhyme!

7. Initial Letters. It has sometimes been the practice to imprint names or sentences on the memory, by taking the first letters of every word of that sentence, or of those names, and making a new word out of them. The name of the Maccabees is borrowed from the first letters of the Hebrew words which make the sentence, Mi Camoka Beulim, Jehovah, that is, who is like thee among the gods which was written on their banners. So the word vibgyor teaches us to remember the order of the seven original colours as they appear by the sun-beams, cast through a prism on white paper, or formed by the sun in a rainbow, according to the different refrangibility of the rays, viz. violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red.

Common Place Book.

There have been many different modes of keeping this book offered to our attention, and almost every person has one peculiar to himself. That which MR. LOCKE found, after twenty years experience, to be the most convenient and advantageous, is thus described.

The first page of the book, or, for more room, the two first pages fronting each other, are to serve for a kind of index to the whole, and contain references to every place or matter therein; in the commodious contrivance of this, so as it may admit of a sufficient variety of materials, without confusion, all the secret of the method consists. The manner of it, as laid down by Mr. Locke, will be conceived from the following specimen, wherein what is to be done in the book for all the letters of the alphabet is here shown in the first four.

The index of the common place book being thus formed, it is ready for the taking down any thing therein.

In order to this, consider to what head the thing you would enter is most naturally referred, and under which one would be led to look for such a thing; in this head or word regard is to be had to the initial letter, and the first vowel that follows it; which are the characteristic letters whereon all the use of the index depends.

Suppose e. g. I would enter down a passage that refers to the head beauty; B, I consider, is the initial letter, and e the first vowel; then looking upon the index for the partition B, and therein the line e (which is the place for all words whose initial is B, and the first vowel e; as beauty, beneficence, bread, bleeding, blemishes, &c.) and finding no numbers already written to direct me to any page of the book where words of that characteristic have been

entered, I turn forward to the first blank page I find, which in a fresh book, as this is supposed to be, will be page 2, and here write what I have occasion for on the head beauty; beginning the head in the margin, and indenting all the other subservient lines, that the head may stand out and shew itself; this done, I enter the page where it is written, viz. 2, in the space B e; from which time the class Be becomes wholly in possession of the second and third pages, which are consigned to letters of this characteristic.

Note, If the head be a monosyllable beginning with a vowel, the vowel is at the same time both the initial letter and the characteristic vowel; thus the word Art is to be written in A a. Mr. Locke omits three letters of the alphabet in his index, viz. K, Y, and W, which are supplied by C, I, and U, equivalent to them: and as for Q, since it is always followed by an u, he puts it in the first place of Z; and so has no Z u, which is a characteristic that very rarely occurs. By thus making Q the last of the index, its regularity is preserved without diminishing its extent. Others choose to retain the class Z u, and assign a place for Qu below the index.

If any imagine these hundred classes are not sufficient to comprehend all kinds of subjects without confusion, he may follow the same method, and yet augment the number to 500, by taking in one or more characteristic to them.

But the inventor assures us, that in all his collections, for a long series of years, he never found any deficiency in the index as above laid down.

8. The most effectual method of improving the memory is by due and proper exercise. Our memories will be, in a great measure, moulded and formed, improved or injured, according to the exercise of them. If we never use them, they will be almost lost. Those who are accustomed to converse and read of a few things only, will retain but a few in their memory. Those who are used to remember an event for an hour, and to charge their memories with it no longer, will retain this event but an hour before it vanishes. But, on the other hand, especial care should be taken, that the memory of the learner be not crowded with too great a variety of ideas at one time. This is the way to remember nothing: one idea effaces another.

1

The memory can be improved only by moderate exercise. Such is the opinion of DR. WATTS, a high authority in matters of this nature, respecting the improvement of the natural memory, and such also is our conviction (after some experience) on this subject; yet, as so much curiosity has been excited respecting the different systems of artificial memory, we shall devote a few pages to an account of the principal of these contrivances."

SECT. III.-SYSTEMS OF ARTIFICIAL MEMORY.

1. Among the different methods which have, at various times been resorted to for the improvement of the memory, that most practised in modern times seems to have been the well known Memoria Technica of Dr. Grey. Of the efficacy of this system, the reader will be a sufficient judge when he has practised the following example. In Dr. Grey's scheme certain figures are made to represent vowels, diphthongs, and consonants, as in the following table:

2. This table must be learned perfectly; after which the reader may proceed to exercise himself in the formation and resolution of words, in this manner:

3. Dr. Grey has applied this to history, chronology, geography, astronomy, &c. We shall only give the following regal table from the conquest, which may be useful, if committed to memory, and at the same time, sufficiently illustrate the advantages of the plan. It is partly taken from the Memoria Technica. Y is pronounced like W, and 100 is to be added to each No.

MEMORIAL LINES.

NOR. Will-con sau. Ruf koi. Henr ag. Steph bil.

PLANT. Hen-sec. buf. Rich bein.

John anou.
Rich-sec. toip.
Hen-six fed.

doid. Ed-sec typ. Ed-ter tes. LANC. Hen-fo toun. Hen-fi fat.

Hen T. das. Ed.

YORK. Ed-quar fauz. Ed-fi. Rich-ter okt.
TUD. Hen sep feil. Hen oc lyn. Ed-sex lup.

luk.

STU. James syt. Carol-pri sel. Carol-sec sok.

OR. Will-Ma sein.
HAN. George paf.

Ann oize.

Mary lut. Eliz

James-sec seil.

4. Dr. Grey's system was much improved and enlarged by MR. SOLOMON LOWE in his 'Mnemonics 'Delineated,' the whole of which rare tract has been re-printed in a recent publication.*

5. Another system of artificial memory of more modern date, under the title of Mnemonica, is much studied on the continent. This science is said to have been originally taught and practised in Egypt and Greece. Cicero attributes the invention to Simonides. M. Aretin, who

THE NEW ART OF MEMORY, founded upon the principles taught by M. Gregor Von Feinaigle, and applied to chronology, history, geography, languages, systematic tables, poetry, prose, and arithmetic. To which are added some account of the principal systems of artificial memory, from the earliest period to the present time: and instances of the extraordinary powers of natural memory, illustrated by engravings, 12mo. second edition. (Sherwood and Co.)