which he was perfectly acquainted. He would begin at some fixed point of that house, suppose the right side of the door, and he would proceed round it in a circular line, till he arrived at the point from which he set out. He would divide the circumference of the house into as many parts as there were different topics, or paragraphs, in the discourse. He would distinguish each paragraph by some symbol of the subject it contained; that on government, by the symbol of the crown, or a sceptre; that on finances, by the symbol of some current coin; that on naval affairs, by the figure of a ship; that on wisdom, by the figure of the goddess who presided over it. He would either actually transfer, or suppose transferred, these symbols to the different compartments of the house, and then all he had todo, in order to recollect the subject of any paragraph, was, either to cast his eye on the symbol during delivery, or to remember upon what division the symbol was placed. The memory, by this contrivance, easily recalled the discourse. The orator either saw, or could not fail to remember the compartments, because he was perfectly familiar with them. Neither could he forget the symbols of each paragraph, because they were no more than hieroglyphical paintings of the sense.
"In the place of a house, we may assume, according to Quinctilian, a public building, the
