Note 110 — MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LINGUISTS. (continued 2)

Perhaps I ought to mention Renaudot’s contemporary, the Jesuit, Father Claude Francis Menestrier, (1631-1704), who although not a great linguist, is at least notable for the rather rare accomplishment of speaking Greek with remarkable propriety and fluency, and still more for his prodigious memory, which Queen Christina of Sweden tried by a very singular ordeal. She had a string of three hundred words, the oddest and most unconnected that could be devised, written down without the least order or connexion, and read over once in Menestrier’s presence. He repeated them in their exact order, without a single mistake or hesitation!—Biographie Univ., Vol. XXVIII., p. 293.

A still more extraordinary example of this power of memory is related by Padre Menocchio (the well-known Biblical commentator, Menochius) of a young Corsican whom Muret met at Padua, and who was not only able to repeat in their regular order a jumble of words similar to that described above, but could repeat them backwards, and with various other modifications! The youth assured Muret that he could retain in this way 36,000 words, and that he would undertake to keep them in memory for an entire year! See Menocchio’s Stuore, Part III., p. 89. The Stuore is a miscellaneous collection, compiled by this learned Jesuit during his hours of recreation. He called the work by this quaint title (Ang. “Mats”) in allusion to the habit of the ancient monks, who used to employ their leisure hours in weaving mats, in the literal sense of the word. This fanciful title is not unlike that chosen by Clement of Alexandria for a somewhat similar miscellany, his Στρώματα [Tapestry], or perhaps the more literal one “Patchwork,” assumed by a popular writer of our own time.