walls of a city, a well known road, or a picture, to divisions of which we may refer our symbols. Metrodorus assumed the circle of the zodiac, which he divided into 360 compartments, equal to the number of degrees of which it consists, making a compartment of each degree.
"Some people carried this art so far as to comprehend the words of a discourse, by constructing symbols for each of them, and referring in like manner, these symbols to compartments. This seems to have constituted nearly what we call short-hand writing, except that our short-hand writers oblige themselves to commit to memory the meaning of their symbols, and pretend not to refer these to any more familiar objects. Quinctilian accordingly observes, that this pretended improvement terminated in confusion, and embarrassed, much more than it assisted recollection. However much, therefore, he might prize the scheme of Simonides, he rejected this supplement as nugatory, or detrimental."
This system of Mnemonics was a favourite pursuit with the Greeks;—and was cultivated with success by the Romans, among whom Crassus, Julius Cæsar, and Seneca, are said to have particularly excelled in this art.
Such were the origin and principles of the celebrated topical memory of the ancients: from which source are derived all the various modern systems of local and symbolical memory, that
