A remarkable library of pilgrims’ accounts of Palestine, from the fourth century to the fifteenth, translated from Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Old French.
Our page of Ancient Roman History includes the massive histories of Edward Gibbon and Victor Duruy. Gibbon’s is, of course, one of the great literary masterpieces of the English language, and one of the greatest histories ever written; our copies are from early editions, which were printed to the highest standards of the age. Duruy’s includes more than a thousand excellent pictures, and we have taken care to find well-scanned copies.
We have added this monumental work to our page of Latin references. It was published in six huge volumes by Firmin Didot Frères in 1840–1846, and it is still the most comprehensive dictionary of mediaeval and late Latin in existence.
We have added quite a stack of books by the great Irish classicist and conversationalist John Pentland Mahaffy to our page of Classical Studies.
Collections
of model letters for various occasions, meant to be imitated by inexpert
correspondents. Our new page
arranges both French and English letter-writers chronologically.
Our new page of original sources collects books and pamphlets for and against slavery, slave narratives, and anything else that illuminates the subject.
Our new page of children’s literature begins with a fine selection of Mother Goose in many different illustrated editions.
We have added a page on Memory, which includes a number of treatises on developing a prodigious memory through various means. In collecting these, we have discovered a forgotten celebrity of the early 1600s, and we should like to introduce him to you in the words of the author of The New Art of Memory, published in 1813.
Lambert, or Lamprecht Schenckel, born at Bois-le-Duc, in 1547, was the son of an apothecary and philologist. He went through his academical course at Lyons and Cologne, and afterwards became a teacher of rhetoric, prosody, and gymnastics, at Paris, Antwerp, Malines, and Rouen: not forgetting, as the custom of the age required, to claim his title to scholarship, by writing Latin verses. From these, however, he acquired no celebrity proportionate to that which was reared on his discoveries in the Mnemonic Art. The more effectually to propagate these discoveries, he travelled through the Netherlands, Germany, and France; where his method was inspected by the great, and transmitted from one university to another. Applause followed every where at his heels. Princes and nobles, ecclesiastics and laymen, alike took soundings of his depth; and Schenckel brought himself through every ordeal, to the astonishment and admiration of his judges. The rector of the Sorbonne, at Paris, having previously made trial of his merits, permitted him to teach his science at the university; and Marillon, Maitre de Requetes, having done the same, gave him an exclusive privilege for practising Mne- monics throughout the French dominions. His auditors were, however, prohibited from communicating this art to others, under a severe penalty. As his time now became too precious to admit of his making circuits, he delegated this branch of his patent to the licentiate Martin Sommer, and invested him with a regular diploma, as his plenipotentiary for circulating his art, under certain stipulations, through Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the neighbouring countries. Sommer now first published a Latin treatise on this subject, which he dispersed in every place he visited [Brevis Delineatio de utilitatibus et effectibus admirabilibus Artis Memoriæ, c. 1610]. In this he announces himself as commissioned by Schenckel, to instruct the whole world.
“A lawyer, (says he) who has a hundred causes and more to conduct, by the assistance of my Mnemonics, may stamp them so strongly on his memory, that he will know in what wise to answer each client, in any order, and at any hour, with as much precision, as if he had but just perused his brief. And in pleading, he will not only have the evidence and reasonings of his own party, at his fingers’ ends, but all the grounds and refutations of his antagonist also! Let a man go into a library, and read one book after another, yet shall he be able to write down every sentence of what he has read, many days after at home. The proficient in this science can dictate matters of the most opposite nature, to ten, or thirty writers, alternately. After four weeks’ exercise he will be able to class twenty-five thousand disarranged portraits within the saying of a paternoster:—aye, and he will do this ten times a day, without extraordinary exertion, and with more precision than another, who is ignorant of the art, can do it in a whole year! He will no longer stand in need of a library for referring to. This course of study may be completed in nine days,—and an hour’s practice daily, will be sufficient: but, when the rules are once acquired, they require but half an hour’s exercise daily. Every pupil, who has afterwards well-grounded complaints to allege, shall not only have the premium paid in the first instance, returned to him, but an addition will be made to it. The professor of this art, makes but a short stay in every place. When called upon, he will submit proofs, adduce testimonials from the most eminent characters, and surprise the ignorant, after four or six lessons, with the most incredible displays.” Here follow testimonials from the most celebrated universities. Nine alone are produced from learned men at Leipzic, and precede others from Marpurg, and Frankfort on the Oder.
On the 29th and 30th of Sept. and on the 1st of Oct. [O. S.] 1602, Schenckel exhibited some specimens of his art at Marpurg in Hesse. [This account of Schenckel’s experiments is taken from his Memoria artificialis, edited by Buckhusy.] The first experiment took place on the 29th of Sept. at eight o’clock in the morning, before a large assemblage of Divines, Lawyers, Physicians, and Philosophers. Schenckel having re- quested some one to dictate 25 Latin sentences, he wrote them down with a pen, and numbered them. He next read them aloud twice, with scarcely any pause, and having sat for a short time in silence, he repeated the whole, from beginning to end, backwards and forwards, and in any order desired, without the slightest hesitation. It happened, however, that once or twice, Schenckel substituted one word for another, as, limits for ends; but being reminded of this, he immediately gave the word required. Afterwards, any particular number being given, he repeated its appropriate sentence; and, on the first word of a sentence being named, gave the proper number. Schenckel being asked to repeat 25 doctrinal sentences, replied, that he thought 15 would be sufficient; and, accordingly, that number having been dictated, written down, and read, he united them to the former 25 sentences, and answered to the whole 40 in any order desired.
On the 30th of Sept. another meeting was held at the house of a medicine-vender, when fifty words were given and numbered from 1 to 50. Schenckel having considered for a short time, repeated the whole from beginning to end, in regular order,—from the last to the first, and in any order required. On any number being given, he named the appropriate word,—and vice-versa. Having asked the persons present to double the number of words, some of the literati replied, that he had given sufficient proof of his abilities, and that they had no doubt he would be able to repeat many more words by the same method. A learned auditor expressed his regret to Schenckel, that he was not allowed to repeat fifty sentences, and a hundred words, being fully persuaded that he was capable of greater things. Schenckel having presented to his auditory two hundred sentences, in which a pupil of his, taken from the last meeting, had been exercised, together with the 40 sentences then given, the pupil, on any number being asked, repeated the appropriate sentence, and vice-versa, to the astonishment of all present:—more especially at the unconnected manner in which the numbers were proposed; as 235, 27, 9, 240, 128, 19, 184, 3, 225, 2, 176, 36, 7, etc. etc. This same pupil offered to the assembly 250 written words, which he had learned by some tuition from Schenckel, and by his own application. To these 250 words were added 50 others ; and, in a short time, the pupil answered to the whole 300, in the same manner as had been done before by the professor himself. In repeating the sentences, the pupil, once or twice, did not give the words regularly:—when this was intimated to him, he immediately corrected himself, and repeated the words in their appropriate order.
On the following day, the 1st of October, similar experiments were tried, greatly to the satisfaction of all present; and, in consequence, Schenckel received (without asking for it) a certificate of approbation, under hand and seal, from a learned physician, and some professors. This certificate concludes by observing, that ‘the deponents’ were present at the different examinations,—that there was not a possibility of fraud or collusion—that they thought it but justice, thus unsolicited, to express their approbation,—and to bear witness to the truth of the facts stated in the document.
The student, destitute of oral instruction, cannot expect to reap much benefit from a perusal of Schenckel’s system in the Gazophylacium, or in Schenckelius detectus: he might as well seek for a knowledge of Mnemonics, by gazing at the hieroglyphics of an Egyptian obelisk. It is pretty evident that this Gazophylacium was designedly intended as a labyrinthal series: the author indeed closes his labors by confessing, that the work was to be entrusted only to his scholars, and referring for further elucidation to oral precepts. The very basis of his art is concealed beneath a jumble of signs and abbreviations : thus, sect. 9. d. a sect. 99; “videlicet, locus, imago ordo locorum, memoria loci, imagines.” And further, in setting forth the most important points, he amuses himself by evincing a multitude of jingling, and unintelligible words.…
The work of Schenckel is a singular production. His development of the art does not confine itself to mechanical ideas alone. It sets the technical, symbolical, and logical faculties of the memory, in equal activity; and requires that its powers should be at once ingenious and perceptive. Its acquirement is founded on the association of ideas: nor does it fail to call wit and imagination in aid of natural memory. Sommer’s Compendium, consisting of eight sections, was printed for the use of his auditors. After his departure, permission is given to his scholars to communicate their mnemonistic doubts, observations, and discoveries, to each other; but no one can be present without legalizing himself previously, as one of the initiated, by prescribed signs: and he who fails in this, is excluded as a profaner.