Britain, at least: he learns it all at once, and leaves us to learn a great deal from him. All this, of course, may be explained—by his head having been made by nature purposely bigger than his chest; but more naturally thus: he knows, with a vengeance, that "knowledge is power." But he knows, also, that knowledge is a too vast and tedious element to work in for long years, without losing that energy which he feels will be indispensable for the business of passing a Rubicon: in this dilemma, some one slips the word mnemonics; he immediately looks into it, embraces it, and works upon it, with the fury peculiar to a republican who aspires after universal dominion. He soon excels in this art; and thus the greatest of all stumbling-blocks in the way of similar men—knowledge—is left behind, easily, and without exhaustion. A few bold and lucky casts of the die account for the rest.
As a contemporary with the times when mnemonics were a favourite study among the Romans, we find Mithridates, who speaks the languages of twenty-two nations, over whom he has time and talent enough to rule during a continual war with the Roman republic.
We will mention a few examples more. Seneca, who died A. D. 68, is capable of pronouncing two thousand given words in their proper order; and thus has visibly the means of becoming a Seneca. We know that mnemonics in the hands of any man may perform similar wonders; and we need not, therefore, have recourse to the gratuitous supposition, that he did it as a favourite of nature.
The German poet, Klopstock, could repeat the Iliad from the end to the beginning. This can be imitated by nobody; but easily achieved by those exercised in our art, without, for all that, making poetry the business of their life.
