But whatever be said about such rules, there can be no doubt at all of the excellence of the arrangements which the rules produced.

It is greatly to be regretted that we have not in English a system of arrangement enabling the student to discover quickly all that has been written upon a particular subject--such as roses, for example, or pine trees, or doves, or the beauties of the autumn season.

There is nobody to tell you where to find such things; and as the whole range of English poetry is so great that it takes a great many years even to glance through it, a memorized knowledge of the subjects is impossible for the average man.

I believe that Macaulay would have been able to remember almost any reference in the poetry then accessible to scholars,--just as the wonderful Greek scholar Porson could remember the exact place of any text in the whole of Greek literature, and even all the variations of that text.

But such men are born only once in hundreds of years; the common memory can not attempt to emulate their feats.