REMARKABLE MEMORIES.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1887, Page 3

REMARKABLE MEMORIES.

It is nob afc all strange to find a memory retentive on some subjects and e.vticmely defective on otheis. A lady of my acquuinbanco could tell the number of staii.s contained in each ilig-hb in the houses where she had lived, and it seemed almost impossible for her to retain tor any length of time a remembrance of things more important. Mic-ii Addison, daughter of the celebrated Addiaon, seemed to inherit her father's memory without his sound power of understanding. She could repeat any part of her father's works ; in fact, the whole of many, but could not speak or write an intelligent sentence of hor own. She was a periect imbecile. The power of calculation entirely from memory is surprising. The famous mathematician, Wallis, could extract the cube root fiom a sum of thirty figures in bed and in the dark. It is said George 111. never forgot a face once seen or a name once heard. Carolan had a quick and retentive memory. On one occasion he met a celebiatcd musician at the house of an Irish nobleman and urged him to a trial of skill. The musician played the iifth concerto of Viraldi on hi-. -^ iolin. Carolan had never heard it and listened with deep attention, and, when it was finished, took hi.s harp and played the same concerto from beginning to end, not missing a note. Cases of forgettulnc^s on matters of interest are on record. When Dr. JMestly was preparing his woik, entitled " Harmony of, the Gospels," he had taken great pains to inform himself on a subject which had been under discussion, relating to the Jewish passover. He wrote out the result of his research, s and laid the paper away. His attention and time being taken with something else, some little time elapsed before the subject occurred to his mind again. Then the same time and pains were given the subject that had been given the subject befoie, and they were again put upon paper and laid aside. .So completely had lie forgotten he had copied the same paragraph and reflections before, that it was only when he found the papeis on which he had transcribed them that it was called to hi* recollection. Many times ho had lead his own published writings and not recognised them. John Hunter's memory once failed him in the houso of a friend. He totally forgot where ho was or where his own home was. He was conscious of the weakness, and tiied to restore his recollections by looking out of the window to ascertain wheie he was. After a little lest, memory gradually returned. An actor once performing in a play which had had a long run, all at once forgot entirely the speech he was to make. When ho got behind the scenes, he said : " How could I bo expected to remember it for ever ? Have I not repeated it every night for the last thirty nights ?" On one occasion a gentleman had to turn to his companion, when about to leave his name at a door where they had called, to a.sk him what it was, so completely had memory of it left him. After severe illness, and after enduring hardship", loss of memory is not unusual. Thucydides relates that some who recovered from the plague at Athens 10-,b their memory so completely that no friend or relation and nothing connected A\ith their ]>ersonal identity was remembered. Mental shocks frequently interrupt, or in some cases utterly put an end to that exercise which the union of body and mind produces. A fall, a sudden blow, may suddenly obliterate all recollection.