Such individuals, when called into court to give testimony, are sometimes exceedingly amusing, from the pertinacity with which they detail all, even the most minute circumstances, and when interrupted because of the irrelevancy or illegality of their testimony, they are very apt to begin again at the very beginning of their narrative. In the minuteness of their remembrances they are like Mrs. Quickly in the play, when she wishes to make Falstaff remember the time when he promised to marry her.[10] The _Cicerone_ of Italy have generally memories of the same description. [Footnote 10: This has generally been adduced by the metaphysicians since the time of Lord Kames, as an exemplification of this minute memory, and it illustrates so well the remarks which I have been making above, that I cannot forbear to add it in a foot note. _Falstaff_. What is the gross sum that I owe thee? _Hostess_. Marry, if thou wast an honest man, thyself and thy money too. Thou didst swear to me on a parcel gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin Chamber, at the round table, by a sea coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince broke thy head for likening him to a singing man of Windsor, thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not good wife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me gossip Quickly? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar; telling us she had a good dish of prawns; whereby thou didst desire to eat some; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound. And didst not thou when she was gone down stairs desire me to be no more familiarity with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me Madame! and didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book oath, deny it if thou canst.--_Sec. Part, Hen. 4, Act 2d. Scene 2_.] Individuals of this character are the little chroniclers of the day. They are the little historians of the little events transpiring around them. They form a sort of cement for society--they furnish a species of connecting link between the past and the present. They embalm for a few years the memory of those who would otherwise have passed away and been forgotten. The smallest and greatest of the human race love fame. The temple at Ephesus was burnt down for fame, and it is the character which I have just been describing that gives a little fame to classes that would never have been heard of, and in old age such a being can tell the young around him of the deeds and achievements of their sires and grandsires and great grandsires. Such individuals as these are remarkable for very exact memories, and as they are never persons of much comprehension of mind, it has been generally imagined that good memories are rarely accompanied with good understandings. Hence the couplet of Pope, "When in the mind the Memory prevails, The more solid power of the understanding fails."