Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), April 19, 1845, vol. 1, no. 16, p. ???-???

[page 253, column 2, continued:]

Phreno-Mnemotechny; or the Art of Memory: the series of Lectures explanatory of the Principles of the System, delivered in New York and Philadelphia, in the beginning of 1544, by Francis Fauvel Gouraud, D. E. S. of the University of France. Now first published without alterations or omissions, and with considerable additions in the practical application of the System. New York and London: Wiley and Putnam.

This is a very large volume of nearly 700 octavo pages, and to pronounce on it hastily would be something worse than folly. We merely mentioned, in our last paper, the fact of the publication. Since then we have given the whole a careful perusal, and have no hesitation in declaring the work one of the most extraordinary ever issued in this country or elsewhere. M. Gouraud is of that class of men who, through intensity of enthusiasm, accomplish great things, but who again, through the very peculiarity, or markedness, of this enthusiasm, excite against them a thousand prejudices in the minds of the mass of man. kind — who have usually a dislike to be startled by new propositions, land cannot comprehend the possibility of a man's being at once great, and what they think proper to denominate “eccentric.”

The system of Mnemotechny invented by M. Gouraud compares with those of Grey and Feivagle as Hyperion to Satyrs — and yet it was the immortal Lalonde who said he knew of nothing so profoundly consequential as the system of Feinagle.

We are now merely speaking at random, for we intend to recur to this subject again, and perhaps even again. We shall endeavor to convey to our readers some idea of what this remarkable volume really is, without reference to any opinions of prejudiced persons respecting it.