A few days after, being on his rounds at the same battery, Bonaparte asked for some one who could write well.  Junot stepped out of the ranks and presented himself.  Bonaparte recognised him as the sergeant who had already fixed his attention.  He expressed his satisfaction at seeing him, and desired him to place himself so as to write under his dictation.  Hardly was the letter done, when a bomb, projected from the English batteries, fell at the distance of ten yards, and, exploding, covered all present with gravel and dust.  “Well,” said Junot, laughing, “we shall at least not require sand to dry the ink.”

Bonaparte fixed his eyes on the young sergeant; he was calm, and had not even quivered at the explosion.  That event decided his fortune.  He remained attached to the commander of artillery, and returned no more to his corps.  At a subsequent time, when the town surrendered, and Bonaparte was appointed General, Junot asked no other recompense for his brave conduct during the siege, but to be named his aide-de-camp.  He and Muiron were the first who served him in that capacity.—­Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes.

* * * * *

EFFECT OF DISEASE ON MEMORY.

Failure of memory takes place in a variety of ways.  It is sometimes general, and extends to every subject; but it is frequently far more manifest on some subjects than on others.  Salmuth mentions a case in which the affected person had forgotten to pronounce words, but could nevertheless write them.  Mr. J. Hunter was suddenly attacked with a singular affection of this kind in December 1789, when on a visit at the house of a friend in town.  “He did not know in what part of the house he was, not even the name of the street when told it, nor where his own house was:  he had not a conception of any thing existing beyond the room he was in, and yet was perfectly conscious of the loss of memory.  He was sensible of impressions of all kinds from the senses, and therefore looked out of the window, although rather dark, to see if he could be made sensible of the situation of the house.  The loss of memory gradually went off, and in less than half an hour his memory was perfectly recovered.”  This might possibly be connected with a gouty habit to which Mr. Hunter was subject, though not at this time labouring under a paroxysm.  The late Bishop of Landaff, Dr. Watson, gives a singular case of partial amnesia in his father, the result of an apoplectic attack.  “I have heard him ask twenty times a-day,” says Dr. Watson, “What is the name of the lad that is at college?” (my elder brother); and yet he was able to repeat, without a blunder, hundreds of lines out of classic authors.  And hence, there is no reason for discrediting the story of a German statesman, a Mr. Von B. related in the seventh volume of the Psycological Magazine, who having called at a gentleman’s house, the servants of which did not know him, was under the necessity of giving in his name; but unfortunately at that moment he had forgotten it, and excited no small laughter by turning round to a friend who accompanied him, and saying with great earnestness, “Pray tell me who I am, for I cannot recollect.”