Reminiscences like these of his own lead one to speak of his memory, which was of all kinds, and wonderful in all. His memory for things was as remarkable as that for words,--a parallel I have known in very few men. In this double memory lay his power, which often excited the surprise of other speakers, of introducing into a discourse which he had written out, and, as men said, committed to memory, a passage purely extempore, so precisely that no patch could be observed at the junctures. The truth is, that it was not a matter of much account with him whether he had written out a statement of a fact or not. He was sure of the fact. And in simple narrative he was as willing to use extempore language as language prepared. Mr. Emerson says, in some not very flattering criticisms on him,--"It was remarked, for a man who threw out so many facts, he was seldom convicted of a blunder." I do not think he had any system of training memory, beyond that of using it and calling on it pitilessly, which is, I believe, the central rule regarding it. Here is a curious story of a feat of memory, in his sketch of his Sophomore year. "I have mentioned Metaphysics as a study in which I succeeded. I mean, of course, only that I prepared myself thoroughly in the text-books. Watts's Logic was the first book studied in this branch,--not a very inviting treatise, compared with that of Archbishop Whately, but easily comprehended, and not repulsive. The account of the syllogistic method amused me; and the barbarous stanza describing the various syllogistic modes and figures dwelt for a long time in my memory, and has not wholly faded away. Locke's 'Essay concerning Human Understanding' came next. This was more difficult. I recollect we used to make sport of the first sentence in the 'Epistle to the Reader,' which was, 'I here put into thy hands what has been the diversion of some of my idle and heavy hours: if it has the good luck to prove so of any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it, thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my pains, ill bestowed.' I cannot say that we any of us derived much diversion from it; but I overcame its difficulty by the resolute purpose to accomplish whatever was required. We recited from it three times a day, the four first days of the week, the recitation of Thursday afternoon being a review of the rest. We were expected to give the substance of the author's remarks, but were at liberty to condense them, and to use our own words. Although the style of Mr. Locke is not remarkably compact, it required a greater maturity of mind than is possessed by many boys of fourteen to abridge his paragraphs, or state his principles or their illustrations more concisely than he does himself. I had at that time a memory which recoiled from nothing; and I soon found that the shortest process was to learn the text by heart nearly _verbatim_. I recollect particularly, on