to finish.

Common-place Books.

Very numerous methods have been suggested whereby memory may be assisted and the assimilation of our reading proceed without indigestion. A reader is often pictured with note-book in hand, supposed to be memorising what he is reading. There is no doubt that note-books are very useful, but no note-book or commonplace-book should take the place of the natural memory—and every one has a good memory for something.

Thomas Fuller has wittily said, 'Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it between thy memory and thy note-books. . . . . A commonplace-book contains many notions in garrison, whence an owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning.'

Every one has his and her own way of keeping a commonplace-book. Mr. Sala, I remember, once gave a minute account of his jottings in this way:[23] 'Todd's Index Rerum was, in its day, very little else than an alphabeted book—a forerunner of what stationers now sell in various sizes called Where is it? The simplest form of commonplace-book is a plain quarto MS. book ruled in an ordinary way, and in this entries may be made without being alphabeted. Do not write extracts or notes right across the line, but make your entries thus, having the keyword clear and easy to be seen:—