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a godly man, in a vain ostentation of his memory, repeated Christ's genealogy by heart in his sermon, but being out about the captivity of Babylon, I see, saith he, God resisteth the proud, and so betook himself to his book.

Abuse not thy memory to be sin's register, nor make advantage thereof for wickedness. Excellently* Augustine, “Quidam vero pessimi memoria sunt mirabili, qui tanto pejores sunt, quanto minus possunt, quæ male cogitant, oblivisci."

OF FANCY.†

It is an inward sense of the soul, for a while retaining and examining things brought in thither by the common sense. It is the most boundless and restless faculty of the soul; for whilst the understanding and the will are kept as it were in "libera

* In the Novum Organum of Lord Bacon, the subject of memory is under the article "Constituent Instances," beautifully analyzed. It may be thus exhibited: The Art of Memory consists, 1st. In making a strong impression. 2nd. In recalling the impression when made.

In the art of making strong impressions, the state of the mind of the patient, and the conduct of the agent, are to be duly regarded. The state of the patient's mind apt to receive impressions, is when the mind is free, as in youth; or when the mind is exerted by some powerful cause excluding all alien thoughts, as boys to remember the boundaries of a parish are struck by the officer. The art of the agent in producing strong impressions, depends, 1st. Upon variety of impression, as by verse and prose; algebraic and geometric proofs of the same proposition; and 2ndly. Slowness of impressions, as great wits have short memories.

The art of recalling a given impression consists, 1st. In cutting off infinity, as in hunting the fallow deer in a park instead of a forest; and 2nd. By reducing intellectual to sensible things: as the image of a huntsman pursuing a hare for invention.

Infinity is cut off first by order: according to the 6th maxim of Fuller. 2nd. By places for artificial memory: as painted windows of birds, beasts, plants, men, &c., for different sorts of natural history. 3rd. By technical memory, according to maxim 2 of Fuller, as the word vIBGYOR for the prismatic colors.

There are also some valuable observations upon memory in Bacon's Advancement of Learning, where he divides the science of the understanding into, 1. Invention. 2. Judgment. 3. Memory. 4. Delivery.

† See note IV. at the end on the Pleasures of Imagination.

custodia," to their objects of "verum et bonum," the fancy is free from all engagements; it digs without spade, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotence creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in nature are married in fancy, as in a lawful place. It is also most restless whilst the senses are bound and reason in a manner asleep, fancy like a sentinel walks the round, ever working, never wearied. The chief diseases of the fancy are, either that they are too wild and high-soaring, or else too low and grovelling, or else too desultory and over voluble. Of the first,

1. If thy fancy be but a little too rank, age itself will correct it. To lift too high is no fault in a young horse, because with travelling he will mend it for his own ease. Thus lofty fancies in young men will come down of themselves, and in process of time the overplus will shrink to be but even measure. But if this will not do it, observe these rules.

2. Take part always with thy judgment against thy fancy in anything wherein they shall dissent. If thou suspectest thy conceits too luxuriant, herein account thy suspicion a legal conviction, and damn whatsoever thou doubtest of. Warily Tully, "bene monent, qui vetant quicquam facere, de quo dubitas, æquum sit an iniquum."

3. Take the advice of a faithful friend, and submit thy inventions to his censure. When thou pennest an oration, let him have the power of "index expurgatorius," to expunge what he pleaseth; and do not thou, like a fond mother, cry if the child of thy brain be corrected for playing the wanton. Mark the arguments and reasons of his alterations, why that phrase least proper, this passage more cautious and advised, and after a while thou shalt perform the place in thine own person, and not go out of thyself for a censurer. If thy fancy be too low and humble,

4. Let thy judgment be king but not tyrant over it, to condemn harmless, yea, commendable conceits. Some for fear their orations should giggle will not let them smile. Give it also liberty to rove, for it will not be extravagant.

There is no

danger that weak folks if they walk abroad will straggle far, as wanting strength.

5. Acquaint thyself with reading poets, for there fancy is in her throne; and in time the sparks of the author's wit will catch hold on the reader, and inflame him with love, liking, and desire of imitation. I confess there is more required to teach one to write than to see a copy: however, there is a secret force of fascination in reading poems to raise and provoke fancy. If thy fancy be over voluble, then

6. Whip this vagrant home to the first object wherein it should be selected. Indeed nimbleness is the perfection of this faculty, but levity the bane of it. Great is the difference betwixt a swift horse and a skittish, that will stand on no ground. Such is the ubiquitary fancy, which will keep long residence on no one subject, but is so courteous to strangers that it ever welcomes that conceit most which comes last; and new species supplant the old ones, before seriously considered. If this be the fault of the fancy, I say, whip it home to the first object, wherein it should be settled. This do as often as occasion requires, and by degrees the fugitive servant will learn to abide by his work without running away.

Acquaint thyself by degrees with hard and knotty studies, as school-divinity, which will clog thy over nimble fancy. True, at the first it will be as welcome to thee as a prison, and their very solutions will seem knots unto thee. But take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge. Taste it first as a potion for physic, and by degrees thou shalt drink it as beer for thirst: practice will make it pleasant. Mathematics are also good for this purpose: if beginning to try a conclusion, thou must make an end, lest thou loseth thy pains that are past, and must proceed seriously and exactly. I meddle not with those Bedlam-fancies, all whose conceits are antique, but leave them for the physician to purge with hellebore.*

*

Upon the art of obtaining mastery over the mind, which is of such importance in the conduct of the understanding, there are various observations in Lord Bacon's works, as follows:

Let the mind be daily employed upon some subjects from which it is

averse.

To clothe low-creeping matter with high-flown language is not fine fancy, but flat foolery. It rather loads than raises a wren, to fasten the feathers of an ostrich to her wings. Some

Bear ever toward the contrary of that whereunto you are by nature inclined, that you may bring the mind straight from its warp. Like as when we row against the stream, or when we make a crooked wand straight, by bending it the contrary way.

INSTANTLY STUDY WHEN THE DISPOSITION TO STUDY APPEARS.

As in the improvement of the understanding, the mind ought always to be employed on some subject from which it is averse, that it may obtain the mastery over itself: so two seasons are chiefly to be observed, the one when the mind is best disposed to a business, the other when it is worst, that by the one we may be well forward on our way: by the latter we may by a strenuous contention work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make it pliant for other occasions.

ENGAGE IN STUDIES OPPOSITE TO THE FAVORITE PURSUIT.

Histories make men wise: poetry, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. “Abeunt studia in mores." Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies. Like as diseases of the body may have appropriated exercises; bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head and the like. So if a man's wits be wandering, let him study mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; for they are Cymini sectores." If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases; so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

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STUDY BY TIME.

In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself let him set hours for it; but whatsoever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set hours, for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves.

Dr. Johnson said, "If a man never has an eager desire for instruction, he should prescribe a task for himself: if he has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance."

FORM THE HABIT OF FIXEDNESS.

Burke always read a book as if he were never to see it again. Newton used to say, that if there were any difference between him and other men, it consisted in his fixing his eye steadily on the object which he had in view, and waiting patiently for every idea as it presented itself, without wandering or hurrying.

men's speeches are like the high mountains in Ireland, having a dirty bog in the top of them: the very ridge of them in high words having nothing of worth, but what rather stalls than delights the auditor.*

ENGAGE IN STUDIES THAT WILL NOT ADMIT MENTAL ABERRATION.

Men do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it. So that, as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye and a body ready to put it into all postures; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and intervenient, is no less worthy than that which is principal and intended.

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This is to be exactly observed, that not only exceeding great progression may be made in those studies, to which a man is swayed by a natural proclivity but also that there may be found, in studies properly selected for that purpose, cures and remedies to promote such kind of knowledge to the impressions whereof a man may, by some imperfection of nature, be most unapt and insufficient. As for example, if a man be bird-witted, that is, quickly carried away, and hath not patient faculty of attention; the mathematics give a remedy thereunto; wherein, if the wit be caught away but for a moment, the demonstration is new to begin.

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* See Wordsworth's Preface to his Lyrical Ballads, in which he says, Long as I have detained my reader, I hope he will permit me to caution him against a mode of false criticism which has been applied to poetry, in which the language closely resembles that of life and nature. Such verses have been triumphed over in parodies, of which Dr. Johnson's stanza is a fair specimen :—

"I put my hat upon my head

And walked into the Strand,

And there I met another man

Whose hat was in his hand."

Immediately under these lines I will place one of the most justly-admired stanzas of the "Babes in the Wood:"

"These pretty babes, with hand in hand

Went wandering up and down;

But never more they saw the man

Approaching from the town."

In both these stanzas the words, and the order of the words, in no respect differ from the most unimpassioned conversation. There are words in both, for example," the Strand," and "the Town," connected with none but the most familiar ideas; yet the one stanza we admit as admirable, and the other as a fair example of the superlatively contemptible. Whence arises this difference? not from the metre, not from the language, not from the

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