Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 701

Vervain and dill hinder witches of their will.

St John's wort, by virtue of its dedication to the saint, whose birthday, according to the religious calendar, is the anniversary of the summer solstice, was said to have the power of putting to flight ghosts, demons, and even Satan himself. Jeremy Taylor, in his Dissuasions from Popery, enumerating certain specifics used by the priests to discover the presence of the evil one, adds, 'and specially St John's wort, which therefore they call "Devil's Flight,"' which is an anglicised rendering of the old pagan name Fuga Demonium, which Pliny tells us it received from its property of scaring demons; and retained in more modern times in allusion to its supposed virtues in the cure of distraction and melancholy. The Irish peasant at the present day firmly believes in the powers of St John's wort which his Church originally endorsed; and on the vigil of the saint's day, gathers bunches of the bright yellow, starry, almost scintillating flowers, and after sprinkling them with holy water, hangs them at the bed's head, and over the door, with a firm faith in the potency of the plant to preserve him and his household from evil spirits, fairies, and witchcraft. Armed with this floral charm, the wanderer through the most solitary places is as safe as on the fire-lit hill, amidst the youth of a whole village, who are dancing and making merry, and leaping through the fire to Moloch – without an idea that the revels of the sainted summer's night once meant the worship of the sun-god Belus. In days when the occult powers of certain plants were universally believed, it made part of the champion's oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell, or enchantment, by which he might procure the victory.

Nowadays, the mistletoe generally affects old crab and apple trees, and the boughs of beech and ash; but in so-called Druidical times it appears to have flourished in the oak-groves, which these strange worshippers are said to have made their temples, and under the name of the 'All-heal plant,' was, we are told, severed from these trees with solemn ceremonies. The mystery of its appearance – its aërial place of growth – the pale green antlered branches putting forth their pearly berries in honour, as it were, of the high festival of the winter solstice, 'the mother of the nights' – probably conduced to render it a miraculous plant. Long after Druidism was but a name, the plant retained its healing and protective properties for the populace, whose teachers strengthened their superstitious reverence for it, by calling it Lignum Sanctæ Crucis (wood of the holy cross). Amulets were made of it, and worn round the neck, to defend the wearer from enchantment and other dangers; and in more modern times, as a charm against the falling-sickness and the plague.

The yew, like the oak, was sacred to the Druids. Branches of it were anciently carried by the mourners at funeral processions, and were thrown into the grave before the coffin was lowered. The awe in which it was originally held is traceable in the traditions yet extant of its dangerous and even deadly properties. The beautiful crimson drupes scattered amongst its dark-green linear leaves were reputed poisonous if eaten. In clipping the tree, the greatest care was necessary that the operator might not inhale its dangerous fumes; while to sleep under the shade of its widespread branches, ragged and dusky as a raven's wing, was to risk sickness and even death.

The mountain-ash or rowan-tree has for ages been endowed with mystical properties in Scotland. The custom of carrying sprigs of it in the pocket still obtains in the Isle of Man, where it is extensively grown and cherished for warding off demons, witchcraft, and the evil-eye. There, on St John's Eve, crosses are made of it and hung upon the cattle, and placed over the doors, and in the eaves of barns and houses, to avert the evil influences supposed to be preternaturally active on that night. Not such the reputation of the Lunaria, described by Chaucer, Spenser, and Drayton as one of the most powerful of vegetable charms, and an ingredient in the most subtle spells of night-hags and enchanters. This, the homely 'Honesty' of the cottage garden, the satin flower that our grandmothers cherished, is a plant than which none more apparently harmless is to be found in the floral calendars of herbmen and gardeners. But in days when plants were supposed to bear witness in many instances to their own attributes, when certain features were sought for and believed in, as affording a key to the sympathies and properties of herbs, its round flat silvery frond shewed it to be under the dominion of the moon, and endowed with magic influences.

After all, a child's hand might have clasped the plants that were under the ban of our ancestors. Amongst the most potent of these herbal talismans were the trefoil and the wood-sorrel, the triple leaves of which symbolised the Trinity, and were on that account noisome to witches. Hence arose the custom in Ireland for the lord of the soil as well as the peasant to wear the shamrock as a preservative from evil influences, a custom annually returned to, without distinction of creed or rank, by all true Irishmen on the anniversary of St Patrick's Day – a saint it will be remembered so pure that all venomous things fled before him. In that country, as in this, there still lingers in shady, rustic places an aged moribund belief in the occult power of plants in the hands of weird women who know how to use them.

MEMORY

It is maintained by many psychologists that if an impression is once made upon the memory, it remains for ever. And it is undoubted that there are certain seasons of life or certain circumstances when memory is peculiarly susceptible, and when the impressions made are deep and sharp and definite. The objects familiar in childhood and youth, the texts, the hymns, and lessons then mastered become a lifelong bequest; the memory has petrified them on its tablet for ever. Sometimes the memory is in a state of spontaneous receptivity, and without any trouble on the part of the subject, the mind retains its interesting objects for years, perhaps through the whole life.

Memory develops in every sound mind almost as early as the powers of observation; and the objects about which it is employed in the earlier stage are much alike in all individuals. But very early we discern a difference in the natural affinities: one youthful reminiscent evinces a talent in finding his way to the infant school; whilst a bewildered companion of the same class uses leading-strings.

In glancing through the records of all ages and all nations, we meet with certain individuals who have been celebrated for their extraordinary powers of memory; and some of these would appear to us so wonderful, that we are tempted to disbelieve them, and place them in the list of human impossibilities. But it cannot be denied that there are numberless instances upon record, both ancient and modern, and also in our own day, of persons retaining an almost incredible recollection of a great diversity of matters, consisting in some cases of long lists of dates and names, or in others, countenances and circumstances, long since forgotten by the majority of mankind, through a lapse of time intervening.

We propose in this paper to submit to the reader a few of the many most authentic examples of retentive memory on record.

Within the range of their own experience, many of our readers must have noticed examples of quick or retentive memory. Frequently, however, these powerful memories are filled with matters of questionable value. Of such we may mention an individual well known in London by the name of 'Memory-Corner Thompson,' who was remarkable for an astonishing local memory. In the space of twenty-four hours and at two sittings, he drew from memory a correct plan of the whole parish of St James. This plan contained all the squares, streets, lanes, courts, passages, markets, churches, chapels, houses, stables, angles of houses; and a great number of other objects, as wells, parapets, stones, trees, &c., and an exact plan of Carlton House and St James's Palace. He made out also an exact plan of the parish of St Andrew; and he offered to do the same with that of St Giles, St Paul, Covent Garden, St Clement, and Newchurch. If a particular house in any given street was mentioned, he would tell at once what trade was carried on in it, the position and appearance of the shop, and its contents. In going through a large hotel completely furnished, he was able to retain everything and make an inventory from memory. He possessed a most mechanical memory; and he could, by reading a newspaper overnight, repeat the whole of it next morning. He died in February 1843, at the age of eighty-six. Mr Paxton Hood knew a man in London who could repeat the whole of Josephus; and William Lyon, like Thompson, could read the Daily Advertiser overnight, and repeat it word for word next morning.

As a contrast to this, on the other hand we know an individual who travelled through a considerable extent of country, and passed through several towns he had visited before, yet was ignorant of the fact until informed of it by another traveller!

Pliny, in the seventh book of his Natural History, makes mention of one Charmidas or Charmadas, a native of Greece, who was the possessor of so singular a memory that he was able to deliver word for word the entire contents of any book which might be called out of a library, without having read it. This, however, we should be inclined to take cum grano salis.

Some cases are quoted of persons having a remarkable gift of learning any number of foreign languages in an incredibly short time. Mithridates king of Pontus had an empire in which two-and-twenty languages were spoken; yet it is asserted that he had not a subject with whom he could not converse in his own dialect. But in later times the royal linguist has been eclipsed by the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, who died in 1849. He had a wonderful memory for the retention of words, and with a grammatical intuition which has never been property explained, he went on acquiring languages, till at the age of seventy he could converse in upwards of fifty, besides having an acquaintance with at least twenty more. He was at home in both of the dialects of the Basque language, the most difficult in Europe; also in the different dialects of German; with Englishmen he never misapplied the sign of a tense. Besides the foregoing, he was so far master of at least one Chinese dialect that he delivered a set speech to Chinese students at the Vatican. So conversant was he with all the dialects of each tongue that he could at once detect the particular county, province, or district to which a speaker belonged. He himself was upon several occasions mistaken for a native of totally different countries. According to his own words, as related to his friend Cardinal Wiseman, his method of studying a new language was to read straight through the grammar, and when he had arrived at the end he was master of the whole. He never forgot anything he had once heard or read.

Sir William Jones, in spite of his many duties as a legal student, had before his death acquired so intimate a knowledge of fourteen languages, that he translated from the most difficult and obscure. Dr Alexander Murray, the learned author of The History of European Languages, was another of Britain's greatest linguists, who remembered every word he ever read; he had the whole of Milton by heart. The Emperor Claudius was another great memorist, also repeating by heart the Iliad and Odyssey.

It is recorded of Dr Leyden the distinguished oriental scholar, that when at Calcutta, a case occurred in which it was necessary, before deciding the issue, to know the exact wording of an act of parliament, of which, however, a copy could not be found in the Presidency. Leyden had had occasion before leaving home to read the act, and undertook to supply it from memory; and when nearly a year afterwards a printed copy was obtained from England, it was found to be identical with what Leyden had dictated.

Richard Porson had a remarkable memory. Being one day in the shop of Priestly the bookseller, a gentleman came in and asked for a particular edition of Demosthenes. Priestly did not possess it; and as the gentleman seemed a good deal disappointed, Porson inquired if he wished to consult any particular passage. The gentleman mentioned a quotation of which he was in search, when Porson opened the Aldine edition of Demosthenes, and after turning over a few leaves, put his finger on the passage. On another occasion he happened to be in a stage-coach; presently there entered into it a young undergraduate with two ladies. This young gentleman endeavoured to make himself seem very learned; presently quoting a Greek passage, which he said was from Euripides. The great Greek scholar, who was dozing at the other end of the coach, awoke at the familiar sounds, and drawing a copy of Euripides from the folds of his cloak, politely asked him to favour him with the passage. The student could not; and the ladies began to titter. Reddening, the youth said that on second thoughts, the passage he was sure was in Sophocles. Porson thereupon produced a copy of Sophocles, and again asked him to favour him with the passage. The undergraduate again failed; the ladies tittered greatly. 'Catch me!' said he, 'if ever I quote Greek in a coach again.' Stung by the laughter of his fellow-passengers, he said: 'I recollect now, sir; I perfectly recollect that the passage is in Æschylus.' His inexorable tormentor, diving again in the capacious folds of his cloak, produced a copy of Æschylus, and again asked him to favour him with the passage. The boiling-point was now reached. 'Stop! stop!' shouted he to the coachman. 'Let me out! There is a man inside who has got the whole Bodleian library in his pocket!' On another occasion, calling upon a friend, Porson found him reading Thucydides. Being asked casually the meaning of some word, he immediately repeated the context. 'But how do you know that it was this passage I was reading?' asked his friend. 'Because,' replied Porson, 'the word only occurs twice in Thucydides; once on the right-hand page in the edition which you are now using, and once on the left. I observed on which side you looked, and accordingly I knew to which passage you referred.'

Once when in the house of Dr Burney at Hammersmith, with some friends, examining some old newspapers which detailed the execution of Charles I., he came across various particulars thought by some of them to have been overlooked by Rapin and Hume; but Porson instantly repeated a long passage from Rapin in which these circumstances were all recounted. Upon one occasion he undertook to learn by heart the entire contents of the Morning Chronicle in a week; and he used to say he could repeat Roderick Random from beginning to end. His stupendous memory, however, on account of his excesses, failed at last.

Dr Thomas Fuller, the worthy historian and divine, was said to have been able to repeat five hundred and nine strange names correctly after having twice heard them; and he was known to make use of a sermon verbatim if he once heard it. He once undertook to name exactly backwards and forwards every shop-sign from Temple Bar to the extremity of Cheapside, on both sides of the way – a feat of no ordinary magnitude, when we consider that in his day every house had its sign.

'Memory' Thompson boasted he could remember every shop from Ludgate Hill to the end of Piccadilly; and another person who had earned for himself the prefix of 'Memory' was William Woodfall, the printer of the famous Letters of Junius, who used to relate how he could put a speech away upon a shelf in his mind for future reference; and he was known to be able to remember a debate for a fortnight, after many nights' speaking upon other matters.

Dr Johnson was in the habit of writing abridged reports of debates for the Gentleman's Magazine from memory.

Two noted frequenters of the Chapter Coffee-House in Paternoster Row, in the last century, were Murray and Hammond. Murray had read through every morning and evening paper published in London for thirty years, and his memory was such that he was always applied to for dates and facts by literary men and others.

Jedediah Buxton, who resided for some weeks at St John's Gate Clerkenwell, in 1754, had such a memory that 'he could conduct the most intricate calculations by his memory alone, and such was his power of abstraction that no noise could disturb him.' Singular to relate, he never learned to read or write, though he was the son of a schoolmaster.

Eugenia Jullian, a precocious child, well known to the writer of this, at the age of five years had a book given her to read; and looking through it, she at length read a poem of several hundred lines (it must be mentioned she knew her alphabet at eleven months old, and could read at three years of age) once through; and being asked what she had read, she handed her mother the book, and repeated the whole without a mistake. Unfortunately, like most precocious children, her mind proved too powerful for a delicate constitution, and she died at an early age.

Among other possessors of very retentive memories may be mentioned the learned Pope Clement VI.; Dr Monsey, who died at Chelsea at the age of ninety-five; and Mozart, who almost in every case composed his pieces before he committed them to paper.

At the present time, Elihu Burritt possesses a remarkable memory. Born in America in 1811, he had, at the age of twenty-seven, and while working at his trade, learned fifty languages. In 1846 he came to England, and was for some time United States consul at Birmingham. Gustave Doré is the owner of a good memory; and we have it from a reliable authority, that Thomas Carlyle, 'the philosopher of Chelsea,' lays a book aside when he has read it, it being of no more use to him, having abstracted and stored up in his mind all the contents which he deems worthy of retention.

Every one has a memory, but every one has not the same natural affinities, and therefore every one does not retain with equal facility the same sort of thing. One man, from taking a glance at an object, will sketch it correctly; another could not give a correct representation were he to labour for a month. The mind of another is more for living objects, and like Cuvier or Knox, he carries in his memory the names and forms of hundreds of plants and animals. A third has a propensity for the faces of his fellow-creatures, and like Themistocles, he can name each of the twenty thousand of his fellow-citizens; or like Cyrus, he could remember the name of every soldier in his army; the like being related of L. Scipio and the Romans. The day following the arrival of Cinaes, ambassador of King Pyrrhus, in Rome, he saluted by name all the senate and the gentlemen of the city. Our own George III. had an extraordinary power of recollecting faces. The taste of a fourth is for languages, and like Mezzofanti or Alexander Murray, every word he hears or reads in a foreign tongue becomes a lifelong heritage. Another retains mathematics, the symbols of which require a peculiar cast of memory. Such a mind is generally destitute of love of colour, music, &c.; it wrestles with the artificial symbols that express the most extensively important truths of the world. The natural history memory has to do with artificial symbols, but with these it mixes the consideration of actual appearances to the senses. The taste of another is for choice, emphatic, and sublime diction; like Wakefield, he can repeat the whole of Virgil and Horace, Homer and Pindar.

The faculty of recollecting places is very large in some of the inferior animals; pigeons and some sorts of dogs have it very prominently. The falcon of Iceland returns to its native spot from a distance of several thousands of miles. And it seems likely that this has at least something to do with reference to those birds which migrate from one country to another. It seems indispensable to a successful traveller. Columbus, Cook, Park, and Livingstone must have been largely endowed with this faculty. These diversities have not been sufficiently kept in view in the important business of education, and the principle of cramming the same things into every sort of memory still too extensively prevails.

The memory may be strong where the intellect is weak; but without the former faculty there can be no intellectual growth; for is not memory the power of the mind by which it retains its possessions? If Sensation, Perception, and Attention are the collecting faculties, Memory is 'the conservative faculty' – the retainer of the collected treasures.

With the power of throwing our whole mental vigour into any given act for the time being, a strong will can generally insure a strong memory; and for understanding then and retaining afterwards, half an hour of such absorption and concentration is worth more than the longest day of day-dreaming – though day-dreaming, as an occasional relaxation, is not to be despised.

Nowadays we are not at all surprised to see placarded about our towns large announcements of an 'eminent professor' about to arrive, under whose tuition we may be initiated into the 'Art of Memory,' whereby we may be taught to remember at will the heights of mountains, rows of dates, chronological events, and all things coming within the range of memory. It may be interesting to learn that this is no new art, for by reference to Pliny we find that the Art of Memory was invented by Simonides des Melicus, and afterwards perfected by Metrodorus Sepsius, 'by which a man might learne to rehearse againe the same words of any discourse whatsoever after once hearing.'

It does not fall within the scope of this paper to enter upon the merits or demerits of this art; but we may conveniently bring our subject to a close by relating a couple of anecdotes that bear upon it.

Upon one occasion, Fuller said: 'None alive ever heard me pretend to the art of memory, who in my book have decried it as a trick, no art; and indeed, is more fancy than memory. I confess, some years since, when I came out of the pulpit of St Dunstan's East, one (who since wrote a book thereof) told me in the vestry, before credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had taught me the art of memory. I returned unto him: That it was not so, for I could not remember that I had ever seen him before! which I conceive was a real refutation.'

Not very long ago, a lecturer upon the art of memory, whilst dining at an hotel in one of our provincial towns, was inquired for and called away suddenly; upon which he immediately finished his repast and hurried from the room. A moment or two afterwards, the waiter coming round to the chair lately occupied by the professor, held up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment: 'Goodness gracious, the memory man has forgotten his umbrella!'

GOSSIP ABOUT TAILS

Everybody knows that tails serve a great variety of purposes. To mention a few: The horse and ox use their tail to drive off troublesome insects. Some kinds of apes have long prehensile tails with which they swing themselves from branches or reach distant fruit. The kangaroo's tail forms a kind of extra leg, and is also serviceable in jumping. The beaver is said to beat with its tail the mud of which its house or dam is built, as well as to use the organ in swimming. The tails of fishes act like rudders, and in whales, for example, they are powerful propellers, as also a means of attack or defence. Birds of high flight have their tail feathers adapted as a steering apparatus; while the tails of parrots, toucans, and climbers generally, incline downwards, and aid in laying hold of trees. The tail in some reptiles is important for locomotion. Scorpions have in their tail a formidable weapon; and the noise made by the rattlesnake when roused is given from its tail.

There is a good deal of expression in tails. A cat when unexcited has her tail bent towards the ground and quiet; but when the animal is under lively emotion, the tail shews movements which are not of chance character, but predetermined by nature – such and such an emotion causing such and such a movement. When the cat feels afraid when seized, for example by the neck, the tail goes down between her legs. On sight of an agreeable morsel of meat, the tail is raised straight up. When angry, the cat bends her tail into two curves of opposite direction – the greater curve at the base, the lesser at the extremity – while the fur is erect throughout. When on the alert for prey, she lashes her tail from side to side. On the other hand, the dog wags his tail to testify joy; while (as with the cat) fear sends it down between his legs. We are all familiar, again, with the comical appearance of a herd of cattle, driven to despair by insects, rushing about a field on a hot day with their tufted tails erect as posts. Dr John Brown, in one of his racy sketches, tells of a dog of his whose tail had rather a peculiar kind of expressiveness. This tail of Toby's was 'a tail per se; it was of immense girth, and not short, equal throughout like a policeman's baton; the machinery for working it was of great power, and acted in a way, as far as I have been able to discover, quite original. We called it his ruler. When he wished to get into the house, he first whined gently, then growled, then gave a sharp bark, and then came a resounding mighty stroke, which shook the house. This, after much study and watching, we found was done by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon the door with a sudden and vigorous stroke. It was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue, and he was perfect in it at once, his first bang authoritative having been as masterly and telling as his last.'

There seems to be good reason for believing that rats sometimes use their tails for feeding purposes where the food to be eaten is contained in vessels too narrow to admit the entire body of the animal. A rat will push down his tail into the tall-shaped bottle of preserves, and lick it after he has pulled it out. A gentleman put two such jars of preserves covered with a bladder, in a place frequented by rats; and afterwards found the jelly reduced in each to the same extent, and a small aperture gnawed in the bladder just sufficient to admit the tail. Another experiment was more decisive. Having refilled the jars to about half an inch above the level left by the rats, he put some moist paper over the jelly and let it stand in a place where there were no rats or mice, till the paper got covered by mould. Then he covered the jars with a bladder and put them where the rats were numerous; as before, next morning the bladder had again been eaten through, and on the mould there were numerous distinct tracings of rats' tails, evidently caused by the animals sweeping these appendages about, in the fruitless endeavour to find a hole in the circle of paper which covered the jelly.

An example of the practice of vivisection (which is happily less common in this country than on the continent) is presented in an experiment made lately by an eminent French physiologist with the tail of a young rat. Readers are doubtless aware of the curious results that may be obtained by skin-grafting. The experimenter referred to skinned a little portion of the tip of the rat's tail, made an incision in the back of the animal, inserted the skinned tip in this hole, and fixed it there. In course of time the wound healed, and the animal went about with its tail thus transformed into something like the handle of a teapot. After eight months the savant cut the handle in two; then on pinching the end of the part left in the back, the rat appeared to feel pain, and tried to escape. It was thus shewn that the sensitive nerves in the end of the tail had formed a true connection with the nerves in the back issuing from the spinal cord; and that they conveyed an excitation in an opposite direction to that in which they convey it normally.

The trick which came under the notice of the French correctional police will perhaps here recur to recollection. A person complained that he had been imposed upon by the purchase of an animal represented to be 'an elephant rat;' that is, a rat with a trunk and tusks resembling those of an elephant. The trunk was nothing more than part of a rat's tail stuck into the snout of the animal, where it grew as if natural. As for the tusks, they were two of the teeth in the upper jaw which had been suffered to grow by removing the two corresponding teeth in the lower jaw against which they used to grind and be kept short. More ingenious than honest, the fraud was duly punished.

Crocodiles have enormous tails; of sixty vertebræ there are more than forty which are caudal. The organ is rather cumbrous to them on land, and this fact affords an opportunity of escaping from them by making quick turns, which they do not readily follow. But their powerful tail must be of immense value to them in swimming.

There is strong probability that the tail of some animals covered with fur serves the purpose of a protection to the air-passages of mouth and nose during sleep, as also the retention of heat. This will be apparent to any one who observes the position into which the tail is curled in such cases, and the face brought into contact with it.

Frogs have no proper tails, but in the tadpole stage they have, and their locomotion by means of them is familiar to everybody. A similar mode of locomotion is observable in the minute animals termed Flagellata, which advance by lashing their tails from side to side. The motions of several of those microscopic organisms known as Bacteria, found in putrefying infusions of organic matter, are at present somewhat enigmatical. But they are to a certain extent explained by an interesting observation made lately by MM. Colin and Warming. With sufficient magnifying power these naturalists have found tails in several of the Bacteria. They vary in number from one to three, are situated at one end of the axis of length, and capable of rapid motion; by which the movements of these minute creatures may fairly be accounted for.

The last thing we have to say on the subject is to express our gratification at the change which has taken place in treating the tails of horses. The odious and cruel practice of, docking them, once so prevalent, has been happily abandoned, and the horse's tail is now left to attain its natural graceful dimensions.