Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/319

 9^ s. xii. O CT. IT, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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last, in reply to a criticism of his book, the author himself says :

"In tracing the career of Ralph Arnot I have made use of many of the incidents in the life of John Tawell, the Berkhampstead murderer. Tawell, a Quaker by education, was transported for forgery. He returned to England and attended Friends' meetings, and appeared to be a changed man. But he was leading a double life. He murdered his mistress, and was hanged. His trial was made memorable by the extraordinary defence set up by his counsel, Fitzroy Kelly, afterwards nicknamed to be arrested through the agency of the electric telegraph. Accounts of the supernatural warnings he received and disregarded are to be found in various Quaker memoirs."
 * Apple-pip' Kelly. Tawell was the first criminal

John Cleveland's hero, however, differs from his prototype in so far that his creator saves him the gallows, and makes Ralph Arnot die, on the eve of his execution, in the condemned cell. G. YARROW BALDOCK.

It is true that Tawell was the first criminal arrested by means of the electric telegraph ; but none of your correspondents mentions that the man to suggest its employment was the head master of Eton, Dr. Hawtrey.

W. T.

HARRY POLAND is so high an authority that in presence of his statement cadit qucestio. Our information was not from the same source as that of MR. PEACOCK, but from an eminent Fellow of the Royal Society. Other correspondents corroborate what we said.]

MEMORY (9 th S. xii. 224). I have just seen GENERAL MAXWELL'S interesting note on memory, and I must say I do not altogether agree with him, though what he says is very suggestive. To begin with, our memories are most certainly influenced by the channels of the senses through which facts reach the brain. For my own part I can say without hesitation that it would be absolutely im- possible for me to remember a piece of music I neard played through ; this is because I have no ear for music, and consequently no musical memory. It is not that I do not enjoy lis- tening to music, but the effect is like writing in water. My memory is to a very large extent dependent on the eye. When I re- member the dates of the kings of England, I think of them in their position on the page from which I learnt them as a child. That memory cannot be .dependent on the interest we take in a thing or otherwise may, I think, be proved by the fact that data concerning, the same subject would be remembered or forgotten by me, according to whether they had been presented visually or only orally. I must have some sort of mental picture to work from. Consequently, as to many people,

French is easy to learn from the book, diffi- cult to learn by ear so as to be spoken.

I believe that a great many more people have eye-memories than is commonly realized; but it would be interesting to learn further on the subject from others' experience.

G. E. MITTON.

There is no doubt a great deal of truth in what GENERAL MAXWELL writes concerning memories which are said to be good for certain things and bad for others. But when he explains that we remember those things which interest us and forget those which do not interest us, does he not rather justify the common phrase, which, however little it may bear psychological analysis, does in prac- tice express with accuracy a very real truth 1 And even GENERAL MAXWELL'S explanation, I would venture to suggest, is not quite uni- versally and punctiliously true. Some of us who have lost dear friends or relatives by death or distance know with pain that we find more difficulty in picturing before the mind's eye the features of the departed ones than those of very slight acquaintances, whom we have not seen for as long a time or longer. GENERAL MAXWELL, by the way, may find his view developed at some length in a sugges- tive little treatise by the late Charles Godfrey Leland, entitled 'Have You a Strong

It has been suggested, too, that there are actually at least two classes of memory the memory for things seen and that for facts and ideas conveyed to us by sound and that in ordinary cases the two are unequally de- veloped. If I may be pardoned the personal allusion, I may say that in my own case, if I am keenly desirous of remembering facts, figures, or ideas of any kind, I find it a great help to talk the matter over with a friend or friends. Even a very casual and desultory conversation seems to suffice ; but to remem- ber that which I have merely read, however carefully I may have read it, is a much harder process. This distinction between visual and auditory memory is made the basis of a system of memory-training in a little treatise which lately fell accidentally into my hands ; it is by Dr. Mortimer-Gran- ville, who outlines a series of experiments by which any person, it is said, may ascertain which particular avenue of the senses is in his case most sensitive and open to lasting impressions from without. L. H.

Miss CHARLOTTE WALPOLE (9 th S. xii. 128, 151, 171, 254). This lady made her first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, 2 October, 1777, as Rosetta in ' Love in a Village,' She