Now, that verse far exceedeth prose in the knitting up
of the memory, the reason is manifest: the words, besides their
delight, which hath a great affinity to memory, being so set as one
cannot be lost, but the whole work fails: which accusing itself,
calleth the remembrance back to itself, and so most strongly
confirmeth it. Besides, one word so, as it were, begetting another,
as, be it in rhyme or measured verse, by the former a man shall have
a near guess to the follower. Lastly, even they that have taught
the art of memory, have showed nothing so apt for it as a certain
room divided into many places, well and thoroughly known; now that
hath the verse in effect perfectly, every word having his natural
seat, which seat must needs make the word remembered. But what
needs more in a thing so known to all men? Who is it that ever was
a scholar that doth not carry away some verses of Virgil, Horace, or
Cato, which in his youth he learned, and even to his old age serve
him for hourly lessons? as,
"Percontatorem fugito: nam garrulus idem est.
Dum sibi quisque placet credula turba sumus." {62}
But the fitness it hath for memory is notably proved by all delivery
of arts, wherein, for the most part, from grammar to logic,
mathematics, physic, and the rest, the rules chiefly necessary to be
borne away are compiled in verses. So that verse being in itself
sweet and orderly, and being best for memory, the only handle of
knowledge, it must be in jest that any man can speak against it.
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