present system. In this respect, it is analogous to the scheme of Mnemonics practised by the antients, but it is here applied much more extensively and advantageously than it was by them.
A room having generally four walls, the most obvious division of it is, into four sides, and each wall or side may be subdivided into pannels or compartments. Accordingly, the antient system divided a wall into five spaces. Thus, suppose the letter M to be represented on a wall as under:
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Five spaces are thus gained in the places marked by the figures 1, 2, etc. Every wall of the room was, in imagination, divided in this manner; and this plan was applied to as many rooms as were found necessary to the extent of each particular scheme—every room being similarly divided into four sides,—and every side being subdivided into five compartments. Thus, any idea which, according to this method, had been associated in the mind with the forty-eighth compartment, would be placed in the third compartment of the second wall, in the third room.
