I have read in some of Mr. Milton's writing a very beautiful simile, whereby he represents the books of the fathers, as they are called in the christian church. Whatsoever, saith he, old Time with his huge drag-net has conveyed down to us along the stream of ages, whether it be shells or shell-fish, jewels or pebbles, sticks or straws, sea weeds or mud, these are the ancients, these are the fathers. The case is much the same with the memorial possessions of the greatest part of mankind. A few useful things perhaps, mixed and confounded with many trifles and all manner of rubbish, fill up their memories and compose their intellectual possessions. It is a great happiness therefore to distinguish things aright, and to lay up nothing in the memory but what has some just value in it, and is worthy to be numbered as a part of our treasure.

Whatsoever improvements are to the mind of man from the wise exercise of his own reasoning powers, these may be called his proper manufactures; and whatsoever he borrows from abroad these may be termed his foreign treasures: both together make a wealthy and happy mind. How many excellent judgments and reasonings are framed in the mind of a man of wisdom and study in a length of years? How many worthy and admirable notions has he been possessed of in life, both by his own reasonings and by his prudent and laborious collections in the course of his reading? But alas! how many thousands of them vanish away again and are lost in empty air, for want of a stronger and more retentive memory? When a young practitioner of the law was once said to contest a point of debate with that great lawyer in the last age, Serjeant Maynard, he is reported to have answered him, Alas, young man, I have forgotten much more law than ever thou hast learnt or read.

What an unknown and unspeakable happiness would it be to a man of judgment, and who is engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, if he had but a power of stamping all his own best sentiments upon his memory in some indelible characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable paragraph and sentiment of the most excellent authors he has read, upon his mind, with the same speed and facility with which he read them? If a man of good genius and sagacity could but retain and survey all those numerous, those wise and beautiful ideas at once, which have ever passed through his thoughts upon any one subject, how admirably would he be furnished to pass a just judgment about all present objects and occurrences? What a glorious entertainment aud pleasure would fill and felicitate his spirit, if he could grasp all these in a single survey: as the skilful eye of a painter runs over a fine and complicated piece of history wrought by a Titian or a Raphael, views the whole scene at once, and feeds himself with the extensive delight? But these are joys that do not belong to mortality.

Thus far I have indulged some loose and unconnected thoughts and remarks with regard to the different powers of wit, memory, and judgment. For it was very difficult to throw them into a regular forin or method without more room. Let us now with more regularity treat of the memory alone.

Though the memory be a natural faculty of the mind of man, and belongs to spirits which are not incarnate, yet it is greatly assisted or hindered, and much diversified by the brain or the animal nature to which the soul is united in this present state. But what part of the brain that is, wherein the images of things lie treasured up, is very hard for us to determine with certainty. It is most probable that those very fibres, pores or traces of the brain, which assist at the first idea or perception of any object, are the same which assist also at the recollection of it: and then it will follow that the memory has no special part of the brain devoted to its own service, but uses all those parts in general, which subserve our sensations as well as our thinking and reasoning powers.

As the memory grows and improves in young persons from their childhood, and decays in old age, so it may be increased by art and labour, and proper exercise; or it may be injured and quite spoiled by sloth, or by a disease, or a stroke on the head. There are some reasonings on this subject, which make it evideat, that the goodness of a memory depends in a great degree upon the consistence and the temperature of that part of the brain, which is appointed to assist the exercise of all our sensible and intellectual faculties. So for instance, in children; they perceive and forget an hundred things in an hour; the brain is so soft, that it receives immediately all impressions like water or liquid mud, and retains scarcely any of them all the traces, formis or images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed up again, as though you wrote with your finger on the surface of a river or on a vessel of oil.

On the contrary, in old age, men have a very feeble remembrance of things that were done of late, that is, the same day or week, or year, the brain is grown so bard, that the present images or strokes make little or no impression, and therefore they immediately vanish: Prisco in his seventy-eighth year, will tell long stories of things done when he was in the battle at the Boyne almost fifty years ago, and when be studied at Oxford seven years before; for these impressions were made when the brain was more susceptive of them; and they have been deeply engraven at the proper season, and therefore they remain. But words or things which he lately spoke or did, they are immedi ately forgotten, because the brain is now grown more dry and salid in its consistence, and receives not much more impression, than if you wrote with your finger on a floor of clay, or a plaistered wall.

But in the middle stage of life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty years of age, the memory is generally in its happiest state, the brain easily receives and long retains the images and traces which are impressed upon it, and the natural spirits are more active to range these little infinite unknown figures of things in their proper cells or cavities, to preserve and recollect them. Whatsoever therefore keeps the brain in its best temper and consistence, may be a help to preserve the memory; but excess of wine or Juxury of any kind, as well as excess in the studies of learning or the businesses of life, may overwhelm the memory, by overstraining and weakening the fibres of the brain, overwasting the spirits, injuring the true consistence of that tender substance, and confounding the images that are laid up there.

A good memory has these several qualifications, 1. It is ready to receive and admit with great ease, the various ideas both of words and things which are learned or taught. 2. It is large and copious to treasure up these ideas in great number and variety 3. It is strong and durable to retain for a considerable time those words or thoughts which are committed to it. 4. It is faithful and active to suggest and recollect upon every proper occasion, all those words or thoughts which have been recommended to its care, or treasured up in it. Now in every one of these qualifications a memory may be injured, or may be improved; yet I shall not insist distinctly on these particulars, but only in general propose a few rules or directions, whereby this noble faculty of memory in all its branches and qualifications may be preserved or assisted, and shew what are the practices that both by reason and experience have been found of happy influence to this purpose.

There is one great and general direction which belongs to the improvement of other powers as well of the memory, and that is, to keep it always in due and proper exercise. Many acts by degrees form a habit, and thereby the ability or power is strengthened and made more ready to appear again in action.Our memories should be used and inured from childhood to bear a moderate quantity of knowledge let into them early, and they will thereby become strong for use and service. As any limb well and duly exercised grows stronger, the nerves of the body are corroborated thereby. Milo took up a calf, and daily carried it on his shoulders; as the calf grew, his strength grew also, and he at last arrived at firmness of joints enough to bear the bull.

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 wont to converse or read about a few things only will but retain a few in their memory; those who are used to remember things

13 but for an hour, and charge their memories with it no longer, will retain them but an hour before they vanish, and let words be remembered as well as things, that so you may acquire a copia verborum as well as rerum, and be more ready to express your mind on all occasions.

Yet there should be a caution given in some cases; the memory of a child, or any infirm person, should not be overburdened, for a limb or a joint may be overstrained by being too much loaded, and its natural power never to be recovered.— Teachers should wisely judge of the power and constitution of youth, and impose no more on them than they are able to bear with cheerfulness and improvement. And particularly they

should take care, that the memory of the learner be not too much crowded with a tumultuous heap or overbearing multitude of documents or ideas at any one time; this is the way to remember nothing; one idea effaces another. An overgreedy grasp does not retain the largest handful. But it is the exercise of memory with a due moderation, that is one general rule towards the improvement of it. The particular rules are such as these;

1. Due attention and diligence to learn and know things which we would commit to our remembrance, is a rule of great necessity in this case. When the attention is strongly fixed to any particular subject, all that is said concerning it, makes a deeper impression upon the mind. There are some persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human discourses which they hear, when in truth their thoughts are wandering half the time, or they hear with such coldness and indifferency and a trifling temper of spirit, that it is no wonder the things which are read or spoken make but a slight impression on the brain, and get no firm footing in the seat of memory, but soon vanish and are lost.

It is needful therefore, if we would maintain a long remembrance of the things which we read or hear, that we should engage our delight and pleasure in those subjects, and use the other methods which are before prescribed, in order to fix the attention. Sloth, indolence, and idleness, will no more bless the mind with intellectual riches, than it will fill the hand with gain, the field with corn, or the purse with treasure. Let it be added also, that not only the slothful and the negligent deprive themselves of proper knowledge for the furniture of their memory, but such as appear to have active spirits, who are ever skimming over the surface of things with a volatile temper, will fix nothing in their mind. Vario will spend whole mornings in running over loose and unconnected pages, and with fresh curiosity is ever glancing over new words and ideas that strike his present fancy; he is fluttering over a thousand objects of art and science, and

yet treasures up but little knowledge, there must be the labour and the diligence of close attention to particular subjects of thought and enquiry, which only can impress what we read or think of upon the remembering faculty in man.

2. Clear and distinct apprehension of the things which we commit to memory, is necessary, in order to make them stick and dwell there. If we would remember words, or learn the names of persons or things, we should have them recommended to our memory by clear and distinct pronunciation, spelling or writing. If we would treasure up the ideas of things, notions, propositions, arguments and sciences, these should be recommended also to our memory by a clear and distinct perception of them. Faint glimmering and confused ideas will vanish like images seen in twilight. Every thing which we learn, should be conveyed to the understanding in the plainest expressions without any ambiguity, that we may not mistake what we desire to remember. This is a general rule whether we would employ the memory about words or things; though it must be confest, that mere sounds and words are much harder to get by heart than the knowledge of things and real images.

For this reason take heed (as I have often before warned) that you do not take up with words instead of things, nor mere sounds instead of real sentiments and ideas. Many a lad forgets what has been taught him, merely because he never well understood it; he never clearly and distinctly took in the meaning of those sounds and syllables which he was required to get by heart. This is one true reason why boys make so poor a proficiency in learning the Latin tongue, under masters who teach them by grammars and rules written in Latin, of which I have spoken before. And this is a common case with children when they learn their catechisms in their early days. The language and the sentiments conveyed in those catechisms are far above the understanding of creatures of that age, and they have no tolerable ideas under the words. This makes the answers much harder to be remembered, and in truth they learn nothing but words without ideas; and if they are ever so perfect in repeating the words, yet they know nothing of divinity.

And for this reason it is a necessary rule in teaching children the principles of religion, that they should be expressed in very plain, easy, and familiar words, brought as low as possible down to their understandings, according to their different ages and capacities, and thereby they will obtain some useful knowledge when the words are treasured up in their memory, because at the same time they will treasure up those divine ideas too.

3. Method and regularity in the things we commit to memory, is necessary, in order to make them take more effectual posses