An Englishman once came to Frederick the Great for the purpose of giving him some specimens of his extraordinary art. Frederick sent for Voltaire, who read to his Majesty a pretty long poem, which he had just finished: the Englishman immediately declaimed the whole with perfect correctness.
These instances are sufficiently remarkable; but let us relate, in his own words, what Antonius Muretus tells us respecting the wonderful art of a young Corsican, which is still more astonishing: "At Padua there dwelt a young Corsican, who was in possession of an art, by means of which he could perform things which no one could believe without being an eye-witness. I once dictated to him words from the Latin, Greek, and other languages with which he was less familiar; sometimes with and sometimes without meaning, so different, so unconnected, and in such numbers, that I was abundantly fatigued with dictating. This wonderful man repeated the whole in the very same order: he began, then, with the last, and repeated them backwards to the first; and afterwards, the first, third, and fifth word, &c., or in any given order. Franciscus Molinus, a patrician of Venice, who was exceedingly ardent in the study of the sciences, impressed with the feeling of the weakness of his memory, entreated the Corsican to teach him this art, to which the latter consented, and in the course of seven days the scholar could repeat, without difficulty, more than five hundred words, in the same or any other given order. Gisbert Voetius, a reformed divine of the 17th century, considers the performance of this Corsican as a proof of his intercourse with the devil."
In modern times the art of memory was revived by Raymond Lully, Lambert Schenkel, Martin
