CHAPTERL XVII. 123 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 copra 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 me- mory of a child, or any infirm person, should not be overbur- dened, for a limb or a joint maybe 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 multi, tude of documents or ideas at any one time; this is the way to remember nothing ; one idea effaces another. An over- greedy grasp does not retain the largest handful. But it is the exercise of memory with a due moderation, that is one ge- neral 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 theyhear, 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 remem- brance 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 them- selves 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. Mario will spend whole mornings in runningover loose and unconnected pages, and with fresh curiosity is ever glancing over new words and ideas that strike his present fancy ; be is fluttering over a thousand objects of art and science, and
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