Chapter II: Part 2

'Yes, since you could observe; but not at first, Fred--not at first. I had no heart for any one or anything just at that time but mayhap for a little child like yourself, who was motherless and needed tenderness. It was just such an uncared-for flower which alone could have saved me then, for I had gone through a bitter sorrow, born of my own caprice and foolishness; and through it I lost what could never be mine again. I must have died of despair, had I not set myself the task of working out my wrong-doing in atonement, if not to the person--that was impossible--at least to some one of God's creatures who might need me; and it was at that very time I took up the paper containing your father's advertisement for a governess. It served me for a suggestion and a field wherein I might find that for which I sought. I had never been a governess; but I determined to become one, notwithstanding the opposition of my family, who could not comprehend, and strongly disapproved of my taking such a step; but I carried my point through our doctor telling my mother she was wrong to oppose me, as my mind needed distraction after all I had gone through; and that my choice, so far from being reproved, ought rather to be commended, since I had preferred it to the injurious remedy of a round of amusements, so invariably prescribed for distraught spirits; which need instead the healthy medicine of some reasonable duty to restore them to their former mental composure. Thus I became free to answer your poor father's advertisement, and was accepted by him for the post, oddly enough. And that is how I became your mother, Fred. I have tried to fulfil my trust; perhaps that has atoned.'

'Atoned for what?'

'Ah, never mind! I was only a young girl then, vain and imperious, because I found I possessed a most dangerous power--the power of making whom I would love me--a precious gift, which I did not know how to value rightly until---- But never mind. I hate recalling by-gones. Life is such a perpetual stumbling up hill with most of us, it is no use retarding our journey by useless retrospection; so when I am inclined to indulge in vain regrets, I always think of that heart-stirring line of the poet's, "Act, act in the _living_ present;" and therefore, Fred, please to cut me another slice of bread and butter and give me another cup of tea, my child;' and she laughed at the application she had given to her words, which was commonplace enough to destroy all their poetry.

The way in which the boy watched and waited on her, and the look of quiet amusement and interest on his face as she spoke, shewed how thoroughly she had won his heart, and was indeed his mother, sister, friend, all in one. Yes; whatever might have been the fault of her girlhood, her subsequent years had fully atoned for it; she had used her gifts rightly in the case of her step-son, and his father, who had died about a year ago, blessing her for her unwearied devotion, and the happiness she had given him, leaving her the undisputed guardianship of his only child.

As soon as their meal was concluded she went into the adjoining room, divided by folding-doors from the one in which they had been sitting. It bore no traces of a previous occupant like the other, save for a few perfectly executed pictures which hung above the mantel-piece. She had her travelling bag in her hand as she entered, which she was about to deposit upon a table, when her eye caught sight of one of the pictures, and the bag fell to the ground as she started forward to examine the pencil-sketch.

'Impossible!' she exclaimed; and she gazed around the room helplessly, to see if she could by any means find aught therein that would throw a light upon the mystery before her; but all was void: tables, chairs, wardrobe, and dressing appliances were what met her gaze; while, like one fascinated, she continued standing before the sketch as if spell-bound.

'Are you coming soon?' inquired Fred, knocking, who, notwithstanding his disinclination to free converse, could never bear her long out of his sight when they were together.

'I will be with you in a moment,' she returned, recalling herself with no slight effort.

'What is the matter?' he exclaimed as soon as she joined him. 'You look as white as a ghost; you are over-tired, I suspect: had you not better get to sleep as soon as you can?' he inquired with concern, as he noticed that she was suffering from an amount of nervous exhaustion that alarmed him.

'It is nothing,' she returned: 'the journey was fatiguing;' and then her eye stole round the room with suppressed interest.

'Is that the pretty girl you wanted me to admire, Fred, just now when I was too hungry to oblige you?'

'Yes. Is she not a picture? What I should call a "stunner!"'

'When shall I ever knock the school-boy out of you, Fred?' she cried, laughing. 'You are a long way off from that refined phraseology I am labouring to inculcate. But you are right in this case. It is a beautiful picture, of what I should call a detestable character. She is, as you remark, a "stunner." There is not the least soul in her face; nothing but proud self-consciousness, as if she were saying: "I am a beauty, and I know it." Poor thing! she is to be pitied, if that is a true picture, and it looks as if it were.'

'How is she to be pitied? I don't see that at all.'

'Because you can't see yet, Fred, from your brief study of her face, that a girl like that may learn to _feel_ at some time or another; and when she does, the lesson is generally such a painful one that few have the courage to rise above it. The artist who drew her was in no lenient mood; he could detect nothing in her but the stern facts which possibly made him suffer,' she added in an undertone, accompanied by a long-drawn sigh.--'I wish we had a book to read; try the bookcase; it may be unlocked.'

He did as she bade him; and shook his head negatively as he went first to the bookcase and then to the piano.

'"The gentleman," as our landlady calls him, is a cautious man evidently,' said Mrs Arlington. 'Well, we must not find fault with him, for his amiability towards his landlady has secured us a night's repose. I wonder if he is the artist of these pictures? I am ashamed of my curiosity, but I have a wish to know. Could you be diplomatic, Fred, and find out for me?'

'Why not ask the landlady straight out?'

'I dislike to appear so inquisitive, as it is of no moment to us who he is.'

'I don't know that. If he is an artist, he would no doubt be much obliged to us for asking. Act on that presumption. You admire the pictures, and may possibly wish to order some, or to sit for your portrait.'

'How magnificent you are, Fred! We look a likely pair--don't we?--to order pictures or sit for portraits! A hundred guineas or so are nothing to us; are they, my poor boy? Rein in your fancy. I am afraid of you in this respect, when you are once fairly launched on your own resources, as I cannot always be at your elbow, to control your lavish ideas, and our means are not large.'

'Well, I was only suggesting, you know, a ready mode of solving your difficulty about finding out who is the artist of these pictures,' said the boy as he wished her good-night.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs Arlington went cautiously round the room making a minute survey of every article, with a look of intense interest in her face, as though she were searching for a clue she could not find. Every vase on the mantel-piece she subjected to a close scrutiny, to see if possibly a card or old envelope lay concealed therein. But everything was dumb, and refused to bear the least witness as to the name or calling of the previous occupant. Quite foiled, she sat down and fell into a profound reverie, which continued until the landlady knocked at the door, and entered to inquire if there was anything more she wanted, and when she would like her breakfast in the morning.

'Thank you; nothing more to-night; and breakfast at nine. By the way, have you any other lodgers in the house?'

'Yes, ma'am; the first floors are taken by a lady and gentleman for a month, leastways so they told me when they came; but the lady has got a maid who is that vexing I can't abear her; and I would be glad to give them notice to go if I could be sure of another party for the same time; but you see, ma'am, we who live by letting can't afford to have our rooms empty.'

'You cannot let me have these rooms, you say, beyond a couple of days?'

'No, ma'am. Mr Meredith--the gentleman--takes them by the year on the condition that they are always to be ready for him when he writes; and only this afternoon he sent me a letter to say he would be here on Wednesday.'

'Mr Meredith, did you say, was his name? An artist, I suppose? if I may judge by the pictures and the easel.'

'Dear, no, ma'am!' exclaimed the landlady, as if a discreditable imputation had been cast upon the character of her lodger by the question. '_He's_ got no call to earn his living, not he! He's got a place in the country, which he has let for I don't know how many years, and he keeps himself free to come and go as he likes. Such a fine noble-looking gentleman as he is! He took these rooms of me some eight years back, when I first married and set up housekeeping, because he said he liked the quiet of the place; and he keeps them by the year; but he lets me take in lodgers when he is away, so long as I don't bring children into the rooms. He has been here for a whole year at a spell; and then again he is off, and maybe we won't see him for months at a time. He is a most excellent lodger as ever was; and his man a nice civil, handy fellow, with none of them airs and graces as these minxes of girls give themselves; but then, "Like master, like man," say I, and I've always found it so.'

'And your first floors, you tell me, you would be glad to re-let, were you sure of another tenant?'

'Yes, ma'am.'

'Very well then; as I have no maid likely to disturb you, I will take them for a month certain, if I can have them on Wednesday morning; and I will further pay you the week's rent you will have to forfeit by giving the present lodgers notice to quit summarily; but remember I only take them on this one condition. It is now Monday night, and I must move in on Wednesday morning.'

'I'll manage it for you, ma'am, even if I get a summons for it.'

'You shall be no loser in any case; I will pay all expenses;' and she drew out her purse to deposit a week's rent in advance.

'Never mind it, ma'am; you look a lady as one may trust, and I'll see that you are in the rooms on Wednesday morning. I can easily put the blame on Mr Meredith, if they become very unpleasant, by saying he takes the rooms by the year; they are not to know whether he may not want the first floors this time.'

Mutually satisfied with their bargain, landlady and lodger parted for the night. On the face of the latter could be discerned a compression of the lips, which bespoke a sudden resolve she was bent upon carrying out, even though it failed in the end to prove successful.

MYSTICAL PLANTS.

Human cunning and human credulity have dowered with mystery certain plants which are worthy of being considered the most beautiful and passive of created objects. One plant at least has been said to utter shrieks on being torn from the earth, and to have avenged the violence by causing the death of him who removed it. This plant was the mandragora of the poets, the mandrake of Scripture, a species of the _Solanæ_ or Nightshade tribe; the belief in whose qualities as a sedative or a charm was as old as the days of the childless Rachel. Indigenous to the East, where probably its uses as an anodyne and soporific were early known to the initiated, it may be that in order to enhance the wonder of its effects, and prevent the extirpation of the root by its too common use, miraculous powers were imputed to it, and superstition hedged it round with fabled terrors.

The evil reputation of the plant procured it subsequently the name of _Atropa mandragora_, by which our oldest botanists distinguish it; a name borrowed from the most terrible of the Fates, _Atropos_, and since transferred to its relative _Atropa belladonna_ (_Dwale_, or 'Deadly Nightshade'). So potent and valuable were the medical uses of the root at a time when few anodynes were known, that the ancient Romans made it the subject of a weird ritual, without which they would have deemed it impious to have taken it from the earth. The operator stood with his back to the wind, drew three circles round the root with the point of a sword, poured a libation on the ground, and turning to the west, began to dig it up.

The root of the mandrake, a plant with a tap-root, frequently forked, as we see that of the radish, and covered with fibrous rootlets, was easily convertible into a grotesque likeness of the human form. In the times of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, little images made of mandrake roots, called _abrunes_, were imported in large numbers from Germany, and found a ready sale in England. The fable of the wondrous powers of these vegetable idols was easily accepted by our superstitious ancestors; and the pedlers who travelled about from place to place with cases of them drove a brisk trade. Sir Francis Bacon had them in his mind's eye when he wrote: 'Some plants there are, but rare, that have a mossy or downy root, and likewise that have a number of thread-like beards, as the mandrake, whereof witches and impostors make an ugly image, giving it the form of a face at top of the root, and leave those strings to make a broad beard to the foot.' It is to the credit of the old herbalists Gerard and Turner, that they both essayed, without fear of consequences, to dig up and examine for themselves the dreaded mandrake, and lost no time in publishing the fallacy of the weird stories told of it.

Saturnine and poisonous plants were those most affected by necromancers and witches--plants dwelling in shady groves like that described by Dryden in _Œdipus_:

Nor tree nor plant
Grows here but what is fed with magic juices,
All full of human souls, that cleave the bark
To dance at midnight by the moon's pale beams;

or on wild heaths, like the potent moonwort, which opened locks and unshoed horses; or amidst solitary churchyards and old ruins, like the deadly nightshade and fetid henbane, hound's-tongue, and digitalis. Plants with dusky or sad-green leaves, and lurid-coloured flowers for the most part, and an ill-favoured soporific scent. Nature herself distinguishes hemlock from all others of the umbelliferous tribe by the pink or purplish spots with which its tall smooth stem is variegated. It grows by hedgerows and in waste places; its large-winged, finely-cut leaves and white umbels of flowers give no indication of its dangerous nature; but its speckled cuticle betrays it, and prevents its being rashly meddled with by rustic herb-gatherers and children.

Wolf's-bane or monk's-hood, a herb of Saturn, sacred to Hecate, and which has since figured in the floral calendar of witchcraft, had its first name from the use the Anglo-Saxons made of the juice, in which they dipped their arrows, and literally kept the wolf from the doors of their wattled huts. It was and is a brave herb for all evil purposes. Its root resembles the tail of a scorpion; its flowers, of lurid purple, have the form of a helmet; features sufficiently significant for those who sought such dangerous simples. The very scent of the flowers on some sensitive persons has produced swooning and loss of sight for several days; others it has deprived of speech; and there are instances on record of persons who have eaten of the root being seized with all the symptoms of mania. Imagine such powers in the hands of a reputed witch, malevolent enough to exercise them for reward or malice, in days when medical science itself was not without faith in magic! Dreadful as are its proved effects, the monk's-hood is a common plant in cottage gardens, where we have seen it flourishing three feet in height, crowned with its handsome spikes of purplish flowers, and little children playing with them.

Black hellebore had also a place in the category of mystical plants; the Romans removed the root with the same ceremonies as were observed in taking up the mandrake, with this distinction, that prayers were humbly offered to Apollo and Æsculapius for permission, and the operator turned to the east instead of to the west, on commencing to dig it up.

No wayside plant is more simple in appearance than the vervain, the 'holy herb' of so many nations. Its pale lilac spike of minute flowers scarcely attracts attention, except from those who know its ancient history and uses. In the sun-worship of the ancient Persians, their magi carried branches of vervain in their hands when approaching the altar. So did the pagan priests of ancient Greece and Rome; and ages subsequently, the Druids in the forest temples of Gaul and Britain. With the Greeks and Romans, it was never absent from their religious rites. The plant was long considered to be good against witchcraft and the bites of venomous creatures; and being under the dominion of Venus, was a great beautifier; and when used in the baths of delicate women, made a fair face and took away freckles. It were 'perhaps well,' as Lord Bacon would say, to notice the agreement between various writers as to the cephalic virtues of the plant, and its remedial efficacy in taking away headache, and the 'pin and web,' or clouds and mists which darken the optic nerve. From medical to magical uses was but a step in those days, sometimes a very short one; and accordingly we find a spray of vervain used as a charm to keep houses and persons from harm, and especially from evil spirits and witchcraft. A relic of the later superstition lingers in the rhyme--

Vervain and dill hinder witches of their will.

St John's wort, by virtue of its dedication to the saint, whose birthday, according to the religious calendar, is the anniversary of the summer solstice, was said to have the power of putting to flight ghosts, demons, and even Satan himself. Jeremy Taylor, in his _Dissuasions from Popery_, enumerating certain specifics used by the priests to discover the presence of the evil one, adds, 'and specially St John's wort, which therefore they call "Devil's Flight,"' which is an anglicised rendering of the old pagan name _Fuga Demonium_, which Pliny tells us it received from its property of scaring demons; and retained in more modern times in allusion to its supposed virtues in the cure of distraction and melancholy. The Irish peasant at the present day firmly believes in the powers of St John's wort which his Church originally endorsed; and on the vigil of the saint's day, gathers bunches of the bright yellow, starry, almost scintillating flowers, and after sprinkling them with holy water, hangs them at the bed's head, and over the door, with a firm faith in the potency of the plant to preserve him and his household from evil spirits, fairies, and witchcraft. Armed with this floral charm, the wanderer through the most solitary places is as safe as on the fire-lit hill, amidst the youth of a whole village, who are dancing and making merry, and leaping through the fire to Moloch--without an idea that the revels of the sainted summer's night once meant the worship of the sun-god Belus. In days when the occult powers of certain plants were universally believed, it made part of the champion's oath, that he carried not about him any _herb_, spell, or enchantment, by which he might procure the victory.

Nowadays, the mistletoe generally affects old crab and apple trees, and the boughs of beech and ash; but in so-called Druidical times it appears to have flourished in the oak-groves, which these strange worshippers are said to have made their temples, and under the name of the 'All-heal plant,' was, we are told, severed from these trees with solemn ceremonies. The mystery of its appearance--its aërial place of growth--the pale green antlered branches putting forth their pearly berries in honour, as it were, of the high festival of the winter solstice, 'the mother of the nights'--probably conduced to render it a miraculous plant. Long after Druidism was but a name, the plant retained its healing and protective properties for the populace, whose teachers strengthened their superstitious reverence for it, by calling it _Lignum Sanctæ Crucis_ (wood of the holy cross). Amulets were made of it, and worn round the neck, to defend the wearer from enchantment and other dangers; and in more modern times, as a charm against the falling-sickness and the plague.

The yew, like the oak, was sacred to the Druids. Branches of it were anciently carried by the mourners at funeral processions, and were thrown into the grave before the coffin was lowered. The awe in which it was originally held is traceable in the traditions yet extant of its dangerous and even deadly properties. The beautiful crimson drupes scattered amongst its dark-green linear leaves were reputed poisonous if eaten. In clipping the tree, the greatest care was necessary that the operator might not inhale its dangerous fumes; while to sleep under the shade of its widespread branches, ragged and dusky as a raven's wing, was to risk sickness and even death.

The mountain-ash or rowan-tree has for ages been endowed with mystical properties in Scotland. The custom of carrying sprigs of it in the pocket still obtains in the Isle of Man, where it is extensively grown and cherished for warding off demons, witchcraft, and the evil-eye. There, on St John's Eve, crosses are made of it and hung upon the cattle, and placed over the doors, and in the eaves of barns and houses, to avert the evil influences supposed to be preternaturally active on that night. Not such the reputation of the _Lunaria_, described by Chaucer, Spenser, and Drayton as one of the most powerful of vegetable charms, and an ingredient in the most subtle spells of night-hags and enchanters. This, the homely 'Honesty' of the cottage garden, the satin flower that our grandmothers cherished, is a plant than which none more apparently harmless is to be found in the floral calendars of herbmen and gardeners. But in days when plants were supposed to bear witness in many instances to their own attributes, when certain features were sought for and believed in, as affording a key to the sympathies and properties of herbs, its round flat silvery frond shewed it to be under the dominion of the moon, and endowed with magic influences.

After all, a child's hand might have clasped the plants that were under the ban of our ancestors. Amongst the most potent of these herbal talismans were the trefoil and the wood-sorrel, the triple leaves of which symbolised the Trinity, and were on that account noisome to witches. Hence arose the custom in Ireland for the lord of the soil as well as the peasant to wear the shamrock as a preservative from evil influences, a custom annually returned to, without distinction of creed or rank, by all true Irishmen on the anniversary of St Patrick's Day--a saint it will be remembered so pure that all venomous things fled before him. In that country, as in this, there still lingers in shady, rustic places an aged moribund belief in the occult power of plants in the hands of weird women who know how to use them.

MEMORY.

It is maintained by many psychologists that if an impression is once made upon the memory, it remains for ever. And it is undoubted that there are certain seasons of life or certain circumstances when memory is peculiarly susceptible, and when the impressions made are deep and sharp and definite. The objects familiar in childhood and youth, the texts, the hymns, and lessons then mastered become a lifelong bequest; the memory has petrified them on its tablet for ever. Sometimes the memory is in a state of spontaneous receptivity, and without any trouble on the part of the subject, the mind retains its interesting objects for years, perhaps through the whole life.

Memory develops in every sound mind almost as early as the powers of observation; and the objects about which it is employed in the earlier stage are much alike in all individuals. But very early we discern a difference in the natural affinities: one youthful reminiscent evinces a talent in finding his way to the infant school; whilst a bewildered companion of the same class uses leading-strings.

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.

Dr Thomas Fuller, the worthy historian and divine, was said to have been able to repeat five hundred and nine strange names correctly after having twice heard them; and he was known to make use of a sermon verbatim if he once heard it. He once undertook to name exactly backwards and forwards every shop-sign from Temple Bar to the extremity of Cheapside, on both sides of the way--a feat of no ordinary magnitude, when we consider that in his day every house had its sign.

'Memory' Thompson boasted he could remember every shop from Ludgate Hill to the end of Piccadilly; and another person who had earned for himself the prefix of 'Memory' was William Woodfall, the printer of the famous Letters of Junius, who used to relate how he could put a speech away upon a shelf in his mind for future reference; and he was known to be able to remember a debate for a fortnight, after many nights' speaking upon other matters.

Dr Johnson was in the habit of writing abridged reports of debates for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ from memory.

Two noted frequenters of the Chapter Coffee-House in Paternoster Row, in the last century, were Murray and Hammond. Murray had read through every morning and evening paper published in London for thirty years, and his memory was such that he was always applied to for dates and facts by literary men and others.

Jedediah Buxton, who resided for some weeks at St John's Gate Clerkenwell, in 1754, had such a memory that 'he could conduct the most intricate calculations by his memory alone, and such was his power of abstraction that no noise could disturb him.' Singular to relate, he never learned to read or write, though he was the son of a schoolmaster.

Eugenia Jullian, a precocious child, well known to the writer of this, at the age of five years had a book given her to read; and looking through it, she at length read a poem of several hundred lines (it must be mentioned she knew her alphabet at eleven months old, and could read at three years of age) once through; and being asked what she had read, she handed her mother the book, and repeated the whole without a mistake. Unfortunately, like most precocious children, her mind proved too powerful for a delicate constitution, and she died at an early age.

Among other possessors of very retentive memories may be mentioned the learned Pope Clement VI.; Dr Monsey, who died at Chelsea at the age of ninety-five; and Mozart, who almost in every case composed his pieces before he committed them to paper.

At the present time, Elihu Burritt possesses a remarkable memory. Born in America in 1811, he had, at the age of twenty-seven, and while working at his trade, learned fifty languages. In 1846 he came to England, and was for some time United States consul at Birmingham. Gustave Doré is the owner of a good memory; and we have it from a reliable authority, that Thomas Carlyle, 'the philosopher of Chelsea,' lays a book aside when he has read it, it being of no more use to him, having abstracted and stored up in his mind all the contents which he deems worthy of retention.

Every one has a memory, but every one has not the same natural affinities, and therefore every one does not retain with equal facility the same sort of thing. One man, from taking a glance at an object, will sketch it correctly; another could not give a correct representation were he to labour for a month. The mind of another is more for living objects, and like Cuvier or Knox, he carries in his memory the names and forms of hundreds of plants and animals. A third has a propensity for the faces of his fellow-creatures, and like Themistocles, he can name each of the twenty thousand of his fellow-citizens; or like Cyrus, he could remember the name of every soldier in his army; the like being related of L. Scipio and the Romans. The day following the arrival of Cinaes, ambassador of King Pyrrhus, in Rome, he saluted by name all the senate and the gentlemen of the city. Our own George III. had an extraordinary power of recollecting faces. The taste of a fourth is for languages, and like Mezzofanti or Alexander Murray, every word he hears or reads in a foreign tongue becomes a lifelong heritage. Another retains mathematics, the symbols of which require a peculiar cast of memory. Such a mind is generally destitute of love of colour, music, &c.; it wrestles with the artificial symbols that express the most extensively important truths of the world. The natural history memory has to do with artificial symbols, but with these it mixes the consideration of actual appearances to the senses. The taste of another is for choice, emphatic, and sublime diction; like Wakefield, he can repeat the whole of Virgil and Horace, Homer and Pindar.

The faculty of recollecting places is very large in some of the inferior animals; pigeons and some sorts of dogs have it very prominently. The falcon of Iceland returns to its native spot from a distance of several thousands of miles. And it seems likely that this has at least something to do with reference to those birds which migrate from one country to another. It seems indispensable to a successful traveller. Columbus, Cook, Park, and Livingstone must have been largely endowed with this faculty. These diversities have not been sufficiently kept in view in the important business of education, and the principle of cramming the same things into every sort of memory still too extensively prevails.

The memory may be strong where the intellect is weak; but without the former faculty there can be no intellectual growth; for is not memory the power of the mind by which it retains its possessions? If Sensation, Perception, and Attention are the collecting faculties, Memory is 'the conservative faculty'--the retainer of the collected treasures.

With the power of throwing our whole mental vigour into any given act for the time being, a strong will can generally insure a strong memory; and for understanding then and retaining afterwards, half an hour of such absorption and concentration is worth more than the longest day of day-dreaming--though day-dreaming, as an occasional relaxation, is not to be despised.

Nowadays we are not at all surprised to see placarded about our towns large announcements of an 'eminent professor' about to arrive, under whose tuition we may be initiated into the 'Art of Memory,' whereby we may be taught to remember at will the heights of mountains, rows of dates, chronological events, and all things coming within the range of memory. It may be interesting to learn that this is no new art, for by reference to Pliny we find that the Art of Memory was invented by Simonides des Melicus, and afterwards perfected by Metrodorus Sepsius, 'by which a man might learne to rehearse againe the same words of any discourse whatsoever after once hearing.'

It does not fall within the scope of this paper to enter upon the merits or demerits of this art; but we may conveniently bring our subject to a close by relating a couple of anecdotes that bear upon it.

Upon one occasion, Fuller said: 'None alive ever heard me pretend to the _art_ of memory, who in my book have decried it as a trick, no art; and indeed, is more fancy than memory. I confess, some years since, when I came out of the pulpit of St Dunstan's East, one (who since wrote a book thereof) told me in the vestry, before credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had taught me _the art of memory_. I returned unto him: _That it was not so_, for I could not remember _that I had ever seen him before!_ which I conceive was a real refutation.'

Not very long ago, a lecturer upon the art of memory, whilst dining at an hotel in one of our provincial towns, was inquired for and called away suddenly; upon which he immediately finished his repast and hurried from the room. A moment or two afterwards, the waiter coming round to the chair lately occupied by the professor, held up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment: 'Goodness gracious, the memory man has forgotten his umbrella!'

GOSSIP ABOUT TAILS.

Everybody knows that tails serve a great variety of purposes. To mention a few: The horse and ox use their tail to drive off troublesome insects. Some kinds of apes have long prehensile tails with which they swing themselves from branches or reach distant fruit. The kangaroo's tail forms a kind of extra leg, and is also serviceable in jumping. The beaver is said to beat with its tail the mud of which its house or dam is built, as well as to use the organ in swimming. The tails of fishes act like rudders, and in whales, for example, they are powerful propellers, as also a means of attack or defence. Birds of high flight have their tail feathers adapted as a steering apparatus; while the tails of parrots, toucans, and climbers generally, incline downwards, and aid in laying hold of trees. The tail in some reptiles is important for locomotion. Scorpions have in their tail a formidable weapon; and the noise made by the rattlesnake when roused is given from its tail.

There is a good deal of expression in tails. A cat when unexcited has her tail bent towards the ground and quiet; but when the animal is under lively emotion, the tail shews movements which are not of chance character, but predetermined by nature--such and such an emotion causing such and such a movement. When the cat feels afraid when seized, for example by the neck, the tail goes down between her legs. On sight of an agreeable morsel of meat, the tail is raised straight up. When angry, the cat bends her tail into two curves of opposite direction--the greater curve at the base, the lesser at the extremity--while the fur is erect throughout. When on the alert for prey, she lashes her tail from side to side. On the other hand, the dog wags his tail to testify joy; while (as with the cat) fear sends it down between his legs. We are all familiar, again, with the comical appearance of a herd of cattle, driven to despair by insects, rushing about a field on a hot day with their tufted tails erect as posts. Dr John Brown, in one of his racy sketches, tells of a dog of his whose tail had rather a peculiar kind of expressiveness. This tail of Toby's was 'a tail _per se_; it was of immense girth, and not short, equal throughout like a policeman's baton; the machinery for working it was of great power, and acted in a way, as far as I have been able to discover, quite original. We called it his ruler. When he wished to get into the house, he first whined gently, then growled, then gave a sharp bark, and then came a resounding mighty stroke, which shook the house. This, after much study and watching, we found was done by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon the door with a sudden and vigorous stroke. It was quite a _tour de force_ or a _coup de queue_, and he was perfect in it at once, his first _bang_ authoritative having been as masterly and telling as his last.'

There seems to be good reason for believing that rats sometimes use their tails for feeding purposes where the food to be eaten is contained in vessels too narrow to admit the entire body of the animal. A rat will push down his tail into the tall-shaped bottle of preserves, and lick it after he has pulled it out. A gentleman put two such jars of preserves covered with a bladder, in a place frequented by rats; and afterwards found the jelly reduced in each to the same extent, and a small aperture gnawed in the bladder just sufficient to admit the tail. Another experiment was more decisive. Having refilled the jars to about half an inch above the level left by the rats, he put some moist paper over the jelly and let it stand in a place where there were no rats or mice, till the paper got covered by mould. Then he covered the jars with a bladder and put them where the rats were numerous; as before, next morning the bladder had again been eaten through, and on the mould there were numerous distinct tracings of rats' tails, evidently caused by the animals sweeping these appendages about, in the fruitless endeavour to find a hole in the circle of paper which covered the jelly.

An example of the practice of vivisection (which is happily less common in this country than on the continent) is presented in an experiment made lately by an eminent French physiologist with the tail of a young rat. Readers are doubtless aware of the curious results that may be obtained by skin-grafting. The experimenter referred to skinned a little portion of the tip of the rat's tail, made an incision in the back of the animal, inserted the skinned tip in this hole, and fixed it there. In course of time the wound healed, and the animal went about with its tail thus transformed into something like the handle of a teapot. After eight months the savant cut the handle in two; then on pinching the end of the part left in the back, the rat appeared to feel pain, and tried to escape. It was thus shewn that the sensitive nerves in the end of the tail had formed a true connection with the nerves in the back issuing from the spinal cord; and that they conveyed an excitation in an opposite direction to that in which they convey it normally.

The trick which came under the notice of the French correctional police will perhaps here recur to recollection. A person complained that he had been imposed upon by the purchase of an animal represented to be 'an elephant rat;' that is, a rat with a trunk and tusks resembling those of an elephant. The trunk was nothing more than part of a rat's tail stuck into the snout of the animal, where it grew as if natural. As for the tusks, they were two of the teeth in the upper jaw which had been suffered to grow by removing the two corresponding teeth in the lower jaw against which they used to grind and be kept short. More ingenious than honest, the fraud was duly punished.

Crocodiles have enormous tails; of sixty vertebræ there are more than forty which are caudal. The organ is rather cumbrous to them on land, and this fact affords an opportunity of escaping from them by making quick turns, which they do not readily follow. But their powerful tail must be of immense value to them in swimming.

There is strong probability that the tail of some animals covered with fur serves the purpose of a protection to the air-passages of mouth and nose during sleep, as also the retention of heat. This will be apparent to any one who observes the position into which the tail is curled in such cases, and the face brought into contact with it.

Frogs have no proper tails, but in the tadpole stage they have, and their locomotion by means of them is familiar to everybody. A similar mode of locomotion is observable in the minute animals termed Flagellata, which advance by lashing their tails from side to side. The motions of several of those microscopic organisms known as _Bacteria_, found in putrefying infusions of organic matter, are at present somewhat enigmatical. But they are to a certain extent explained by an interesting observation made lately by MM. Colin and Warming. With sufficient magnifying power these naturalists have found tails in several of the Bacteria. They vary in number from one to three, are situated at one end of the axis of length, and capable of rapid motion; by which the movements of these minute creatures may fairly be accounted for.

The last thing we have to say on the subject is to express our gratification at the change which has taken place in treating the tails of horses. The odious and cruel practice of, docking them, once so prevalent, has been happily abandoned, and the horse's tail is now left to attain its natural graceful dimensions.

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Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

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_All Rights Reserved._

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[Transcriber's Note--The following correction has been made to this text: on page 348, "perternaturally" changed to "preternaturally".]