| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti: With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern
Author: Russell, Charles William
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti: With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern" ***
MEZZOFANTI ***
THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.
[Illustration: J. Card. Mezzofanti
Perugini, del. H. Adlard, sc.]
THE LIFE
OF
CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI;
WITH
AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR
OF
EMINENT LINGUISTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.
BY
C. W. RUSSELL, D.D.
PRESIDENT OF ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, AND CO.
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1858.
[_The Right of Translation is reserved._]
PREFACE.
The following Memoir had its origin in an article on Cardinal Mezzofanti,
contributed to the Edinburgh Review in the year 1855. The subject
appeared at that time to excite considerable interest. The article was
translated into French, and, in an abridged form, into Italian; and I
received through the editor, from persons entirely unknown to me, more
than one suggestion that I should complete the biography, accompanied by
offers of additional information for the purpose.
Nevertheless, the notices of the Cardinal on which that article was
founded, and which at that time comprised all the existing materials
for a biography, appeared to me, with all their interest, to want the
precision and the completeness which are essential to a just estimate of
his attainments. I felt that to judge satisfactorily his acquaintance
with a range of languages so vast as that which fame ascribed to
him, neither sweeping statements founded on popular reports, however
confident, nor general assertions from individuals, however distinguished
and trustworthy, could safely be regarded as sufficient. The proof of his
familiarity with any particular language, in order to be satisfactory,
ought to be specific, and ought to rest on the testimony either of
a native, or at least of one whose skill in the language was beyond
suspicion.
At the same time the interest with which the subject seemed to be
generally regarded, led me to hope that, by collecting, while they
were yet recent, the reminiscences of persons of various countries and
tongues, who had known and spoken with the Cardinal, it might be possible
to lay the foundation of a much more exact judgment regarding him than
had hitherto been attainable.
A short inquiry satisfied me that, although scattered over every part
of the globe, there were still to be found living representatives of
most of the languages ascribed to the Cardinal, who would be able, from
their own personal knowledge, to declare whether, and in what degree, he
was acquainted with each; and I resolved to try whether it might not be
possible to collect their opinions.
The experiment has involved an extensive and tedious correspondence;
many of the persons whom I have had to consult being ex-pupils of the
Propaganda, residing in very distant countries; more than one beyond the
range of regular postal communication, and only accessible by a chance
message transmitted through a consul, or through the friendly offices of
a brother missionary.
For the spirit in which my inquiries have been met, I am deeply grateful.
I have recorded in the course of the narrative the names of many to
whom I am indebted for valuable assistance and information. Other
valued friends whom I have not named, will kindly accept this general
acknowledgment.
There is one, however, to whom I owe a most special and grateful
expression of thanks—his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.
From him, at the very outset of my task, I received a mass of anecdotes,
recollections, and suggestions, which, besides their great intrinsic
interest, most materially assisted me in my further inquiries; and
the grace of the contribution was enhanced by the fact, that it was
generously withdrawn from that delightful store of Personal Recollections
which his Eminence has since given to the public; and in which his
brilliant pen would have made it one of the most attractive episodes.
Several of the autographs, also, which appear in the sheet of
fac-similes, I owe to his Eminence. Others I have received from friends
who are named in the Memoir.
CONTENTS.
PREFACE, pp. v-vii.
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.
ANCIENT PERIOD:—
History of Linguists little known—Legendary Linguists—The
Jews—The Asiatics—The Greeks—Mithridates—Cleopatra—The
Romans—Prevalence of Greek under the Empire—The Early
Christians—Decline of the Study—Separation of the two
Empires—The Crusaders—Frederic II—The Moorish Schools
in Spain—Council of Vienne—Roderigo Ximenes—Venetian
travellers—Fall of Constantinople—Greeks in
Italy—Complutensian Polyglot, pp. 5-18.
MODERN PERIOD:—
I. _Linguists of the East._ Dragomans—Genus Bey—Jonadab
Alhanar—Interpreters in the Levant—Ciceroni at Mecca—Syrian
Linguists—The Assemani—Greeks—Armenians—The Mechitarists, pp. 18-24.
II. _Italian Linguists._ Pico della Mirandola—Teseo
Ambrosio—Pigafetta—Linguistic Missionary
Colleges—The Propaganda—Schools of the Religious Orders—
Giggei—Galani—Ubicini—Maracci—Podestà—Piromalli—Giorgi—De
Magistris—Finetti—Valperga de Galuso—The De Rossis, pp. 25-34.
III. _Spanish and Portuguese Linguists._ Fernando di
Cordova—Covilham—Libertas Cominetus—Arias Montanus—Del
Rio—Lope de Vega—Missionaries—Antonio Fernandez—Carabantes—
Pedro Paez—Hervas-y-Pandura, pp. 34-41.
IV. _French Linguists._
Postel—Polyglot-Pater-Nosters—Scaliger—Le
Cluse—Peiresc—Chasteuil—Duret—Bochart—Picquet—Le Jay—De la
Croze—Renaudot—Fourmont—Deshauterayes—De Guignes—Diplomatic
affairs in the Levant—De Paradis, Langlés—Abel Remusat—Modern
School, Julien, Bournouf, Renan, Fresnel, the d’Abbadies, pp. 41-58.
V. _German, Dutch, Flemish, and Hungarian Linguists._
Müller—(Regiomontanus)—Bibliander—Gesner—Christmann—Drusius—
Schultens—Maes—Haecx—Gramaye—Erpen—The
Goliuses—Hottinger—Kircher—Ludolf—Rothenacker—Andrew
Müller—Witzen—Wilkins—Leibnitz—Gerard
Müller—Schlötzer—Buttner—Michaelis—Catholic
Missionaries—Richter, Fritz, Widmann, Grebmer, Dobritzhofer,
Werdin—Berchtold, Adelung, Vater, Pallas, Klaproth, Niebuhr,
Humboldt and his School—Castrén, Rask, Bunsen, Biblical
Linguists—Hungarian Linguists—Csoma de Körös, pp. 59-81.
VI. _British and Irish Linguists._ Crichton—Andrews—Gregory—
Castell, Walton, Pocock, Ockley, Sale, Clarke, Wilkins,
Toland, “Orator” Henley, Carteret, Jones, Marsden, Colebrooke,
Craufurd, Lumsden, Leyden, Vans Kennedy, Adam Clarke, Roberts
Jones, Young, Pritchard, Cardinal Wiseman, Browning, Lee,
Burritt, pp. 81-99.
VII. _Slavonian Linguists._ _Russians_—Scantiness of
Materials—Early Period—Jaroslav, Boris—The Romanoffs—Beründa
Pameva, Peter the Great, Catherine I., Mentschikoff,
Timkoffsky, Bitchourin, Igumnoff, Giganoff, Tchubinoff,
Goulianoff, Senkowsky, Gretsch, Kazem-Beg—_Poles_—Meninski,
Groddek, Bobrowski, Albertrandy, Rzewuski,
Italinski—_Bohemians_—Komnensky, Dobrowsky, Hanka, pp. 99-110.
Miraculous gift of tongues—Royal Linguists—
Lady-Linguists—Infant Phenomena—Uneducated Linguists, pp. 110-121.
LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.
CHAPTER I. (1774-98.)
Birth and family history—Legendary tales—Early
education—First masters—School friends—Ecclesiastical
studies—Illness and interruption of studies—Study of
languages—Anecdote—Ordination—Appointment as Professor of
Arabic—Deprivation of professorship, pp. 125-147.
CHAPTER II. (1798-1802.)
Straitened circumstances—Private tuition—The Marescalchi
family—The military hospitals—Manner of study—The Magyar,
Czechish, Polish, Russian, and Flemish languages—Foreigners—The
Confessional—Intense application—Examples of literary
labour, pp. 148-161.
CHAPTER III. (1803-1806.)
Appointed as Assistant Librarian of the _Istituto di
Bologna_—_Catalogue Raisonné_—Professorship of Oriental
Languages—Paper on Egyptian obelisks—De Rossi—Correspondence
with him—Polyglot translations—Caronni’s account of him—Visit
to Parma, Pezzana, Bodoni—Persian—Illness—Invitation to settle
at Paris—Domestic relations—Correspondence—Translations, pp. 162-190.
CHAPTER IV. (1807-14.)
Labour of compiling Catalogue—His skill as linguist tested by
the Russian Embassy—Deprivation of Professorship—Death of his
mother—Visit to Modena and Parma—Literary friends—Giordani’s
account—Greek scholarship—Bucheron’s trial of his
Latinity—Deputy Librarianship of University—Visitors—Lord
Guildford—Learned societies—Academy of Institute—Paper on
Mexican symbolic Paintings, pp. 191-204.
CHAPTER V. (1814-17.)
Restoration of the Papal Government—Pius VII. at
Bologna—Invites Mezzofanti to Rome—Re-appointment as
Professor of Oriental languages—Death of his father—Notices
of Mezzofanti by Tourists—Kephalides—Appointed head
librarian—Pupils—Angelelli—Papers read at Academy, pp. 205-18.
CHAPTER VI. (1817-20.)
Tourists’ Notices of Mezzofanti—Society in Bologna—Mr.
Harford—Stewart Rose—Byron—The Opuscoli Letterarj di
Bologna—Panegyric of F. Aponte—Emperor Francis I. at
Bologna—Clotilda Tambroni—Lady Morgan’s account of
Mezzofanti—Inaccuracies—The Bologna dialect—M. Molbech, pp. 219-40.
CHAPTER VII. (1820-28.)
Illness—Visit to Mantua, Modena, Pisa, and Leghorn—Solar
Eclipse—Baron Von Zach—Bohemian—Admiral Smyth—The Gipsy
language—Blume—Armenian—Georgian—Flemish—Pupils—Cavedoni,
Veggetti, Rosellini—Foreigners—Daily duties—Correspondence—
Death of Pius VII.—Appointment as member of Collegio dei
Consultori—Jacobs’ account of him—Personal appearance—Cardinal
Cappellari—Translation of Oriental Liturgy—Mezzofanti’s
disinterestedness—Birmese, pp. 241-70.
CHAPTER VIII. (1828-30.)
Visit of Crown Prince of Prussia—Trial of skill in
languages—Crown Prince of Sweden—M. Braunerhjelm—Countess of
Blessington—Irish Students—Lady Bellew—Dr. Tholuck—Persian
couplet—Swedish—Cornish Dialect—Frisian—Abate
Fabiani—Letters—Academy of the Filopieri, pp. 271-86.
CHAPTER IX. (1831.)
Political parties at Bologna—M. Libri’s account of
Mezzofanti—Hindoo Algebra—Indian literature and history—Indian
languages—Manner of study—Revolution of Bologna—Delegates to
Rome—Mezzofanti at Rome—Reception by Gregory XVI.—Visit to the
Propaganda—Dr. Cullen—Polyglot conversation—Renewed Invitation
to settle at Rome—Consents—Calumnies of revolutionary party—Dr.
Wordsworth—Mr. Milnes—Removal to Rome, pp. 287-300.
CHAPTER X. (1831-33.)
Rome a centre of many languages—Mezzofanti’s pretensions
fully tested—Appointments at Rome—Visit to the Chinese
College at Naples—History of the College—Study of
Chinese—Its difficulties—Illness—Return to Rome—Polyglot
society of Rome—The Propaganda—Amusing trials of
skill—Gregory XVI.—Library of Propaganda rich in rare
books on languages—Appointed First Keeper of the Vatican
Library—Letters, pp. 301-17.
CHAPTER XI. (1834.)
The Welsh language—Dr. Forster—Dr. Baines—Dr. Edwards—Mr.
Rhys Powell—Flemish—Mgr. Malou—Mgr. Wilde—Canon Aerts—Pere
van Calven—Pere Legrelle—Dutch—M. Leon—Dr. Wap—Mezzofanti’s
extempore Dutch verses—Bohemian—The poet Frankl—Conversations
on German and Magyar Poetry—Maltese—Padre Schembri—Canonico
Falzou—Portuguese—Count de Lavradio, pp. 318-37.
CHAPTER XII. (1834-36.)
The Vatican Library—Mezzofanti’s colleagues—College of St.
Peter’s—Mezzofanti made Rector—His literary friends in
Rome—Angelo Mai—Accademia della Cattolica Religione—He reads
papers in this Academy—Gregory XVI.’s kindness—Cardinal
Giustiniani—Albani—Pacca—Zurla—Polyglot party at Cardinal
Zurla’s in his honour—Opinions regarding him—Number of
his languages—Mr. Mazzinghi—Dr. Cox—Dr. Wiseman—Herr
Fleck—Greek Epigram—Herr Fleck’s criticisms—Mezzofanti’s
Latinity—His English—Dr. Baines—Cardinal Wiseman—Mr. Monckton
Milnes—Mezzofanti’s style formed on books—Lady Morgan’s opinion
of his English—Swedish Literature—Professor Carlson—Count
Oxenstjerna—Armenian Literature—Mgr. Hurmuz—Padre Angiarakian
Arabic of Syria—Greek Literature—Mgr. Missir—Romaic—Abate
Matranga—Polish Literature—Sicilian—The poet Meli, pp. 338-54.
CHAPTER XIII. (1836-38.)
Californian students in Propaganda—Californian
language—Mezzofanti’s success in it—Nigger Dutch of
Curaçoa—American Indians in Propaganda—Augustine
Hamelin—“The Blackbird”—Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Indian
languages—Dr. Kip—Algonquin—Chippewa Delaware—Father
Thavenet—His studies in the Propaganda—Arabic—Albanese—Mr.
Fernando’s notice of him—Cingalese—East Indian
languages—Hindostani—Mahratta—Guzarattee—Dr. M’Auliffe—Count
Lackersteen—M. Eyoob—Chinese, difficulty of—Chinese
students—Testimony of Abate Umpierres—Cardinal Wiseman—West
African languages—Father Brunner—Angolese—Oriental
languages—Paul Alkushi—“Shalom”—Letter, pp. 355-72.
CHAPTER XIV. (1838-41.)
Created Cardinal—The Cardinalate—Its history, duties,
emoluments, congregations, offices—Mezzofanti’s
poverty—Kindness of Gregory XVI.—Congratulations
of his Bolognese friends—The Filopieri—Polyglot
congratulations of the Propaganda—Friends among the
Cardinals—His life as Cardinal—Still continues to acquire
new languages—Abyssinian—M. d’Abbadie—His visit to
Mezzofanti—Basque—Amarinna—Arabic—Ilmorma—Mezzofanti’s
failure—Studies Amarinna—Abyssinian Embassy to Rome—Their
account of the Cardinal—The Basque language—M. d’Abbadie—Prince
L.L. Bonaparte—M. Dassance—Strictures on Mezzofanti—Mrs.
Paget—Baron Glucky de Stenitzer—Guido Görres—Modesty of
Mezzofanti—Mr. Kip—Görres—Cardinal Wiseman—Mezzofanti among
the pupils of the Propaganda, pp. 373-97.
CHAPTER XV. (1841-43.)
Author’s recollections of Mezzofanti in 1841—His personal
appearance and manner; his attractive simplicity—Languages
in which the author heard him speak—His English
conversation—Various opinions regarding it—Impressions of
the author—Anecdotes—Cardinal Wiseman—Rev. John Smyth—Father
Kelleher—His knowledge of English literature—Mr. Harford—Dr.
Cox—Cardinal Wiseman—Mr. Grattan—Mr. Badeley—Hudibras—Author’s
own conversation with the Cardinal—The Tractarian movement—Mr.
Grattan—Baron Bunsen—Author’s second visit to Rome—The
Polyglot Academy of the Propaganda—Playful trial of
Mezzofanti’s powers by the students—His wonderful versatility
of language—Analogous examples of this faculty—Description
of it by visitors—His own illustration—The Irish
language—Mezzofanti’s admission regarding it—The Etruria
Celtica—The Eugubian Tables—Amusing experiment suggested
by Mezzofanti—Dr. Murphy—The Gælic language—Mezzofanti’s
extempore Metrical compositions—Specimens—Rapidity with which
he wrote them—Power of accommodating his pronunciation of
Latin to that of the various countries—National interjectional
sounds—Playfulness—Puns, pp. 398-431.
CHAPTER XVI. (1843-49.)
Death of his nephew Mgr. Minarelli—His sister
Teresa—Letter—Visitors—Rev. Ingraham Kip—English
conversation—English literature—American literature—The
American Indian languages—Scottish dialect—Burns and Walter
Scott—Rev. John Gray—Mezzofanti as a philologer—Baron
Bunsen—The Abbé Gaume—French patois—Spanish—Father
Burrueco—Mexican—Peruvian—New Zealand language—Armenian
and Turkish—Father Trenz—Russian—M. Mouravieff—The
Emperor Nicholas—Polish—Klementyna z Tanskich
Hoffmanowa—Makrena, Abbess of Minsk—Her history—Her account
of Mezzofanti—His occupations—House of Catechumens—First
communion—_Fervorini_—The confessional—Death of Gregory
XVI.—Election of Pius IX.—Mezzofanti’s epigrams on the
occasion—His relations with the new Pope—Father Bresciani’s
account of him—The revolution of 1848—Its effect on Cardinal
Mezzofanti—His illness—Death and funeral, pp. 432-56.
CHAPTER XVII. (RECAPITULATION.)
Plan pursued in preparing this Biography—Points of
inquiry—Number of languages known to Mezzofanti—What is meant
by knowledge of a language—Popular notion of it—Mezzofanti’s
number of languages progressive—Dr. Minarelli’s list of
languages known by him—Classification of languages according
to the degrees of his knowledge—Languages spoken by him with
great perfection—Languages spoken less perfectly—Languages in
which he could initiate a conversation—Languages known from
books—Dialects—Southern and central American languages—Total
number known to him in various degrees—His speaking of
languages not literally faultless, but perfect to a degree
rare in foreigners—Comparison with other linguists—His plan
of studying languages—Various systems of study—Mezzofanti’s
method involved much labour—Habit of thinking in foreign
languages—His success a special gift of nature—In what this
consisted—Quickness of perception—Analysis—Memory—Peculiarity
of his memory—His enthusiasm and simplicity—Mezzofanti as a
philologer, as a critic, a historian, a man of science—Piety
and charity, liberal and tolerant spirit—Social virtues, pp. 457-493.
APPENDIX, pp. 495-502.
CORRIGENDA.
Page 35, Line 5, for “yards” read “feet.”
52, last, after “(1704),” supply “who.”
57, 21, for “Bourmouf,” read “Bournouf.”
59, 8, for “John and,” read “and John.”
76, 2nd last, for “Boehthingk,” read “Boehtlingk.”
117, 4th last, (and three other places,) for “marvelous,”
read “marvellous.”
119, 2nd last, for “months,” read “years.”
121, 2nd last, for “Hall,” read “Hill.”
281, 22, for “Grüner,” read “Grüder.”
283, 17, for “Rabinical,” read “Rabbinical.”
312, 10, for “unable,” read “able.”
426, 4th last, for “seneeta,” read “senecta;” also
interchange ; and !
Transcriber’s Note: The corrections have been made.
[Illustration: _Fac-similes in Sixteen Languages._]
MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LINGUISTS.
In the Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti I have attempted to ascertain, by
direct evidence, the exact number of languages with which that great
linguist was acquainted, and the degree of his familiarity with each.
Eminence in any pursuit, however, is necessarily relative. We are
easily deceived about a man’s stature until we have seen him by the
side of other men; nor shall we be able to form a just notion of the
linguistic accomplishments of Cardinal Mezzofanti, or at least to bring
them before our minds as a practical reality, until we shall have first
considered what had been effected before him by other men who attained to
distinction in the same department.
I have thought it desirable, therefore, to prefix to his Life a summary
history of the most eminent linguists of ancient and modern times. There
is no branch of scholarship which has left fewer traces in literature,
or has received a more scanty measure of justice from history. Viewed in
the light of a curious but unpractical pursuit, skill in languages is
admired for a time, perhaps indeed enjoys an exaggerated popularity; but
it passes away like a nine days’ wonder, and seldom finds an exact or
permanent record. Hence, while the literature of every country abounds
with memoirs of distinguished poets, philosophers, and historians, few,
even among professed antiquarians, have directed their attention to the
history of eminent linguists, whether in ancient or in modern times. In
all the ordinary repositories of curious learning—Pliny, Aulus Gellius,
and Athenæus, among the ancients; Bayle, Gibbon, Feyjoo, Disraeli,
and Vulpius, among the moderns—this interesting chapter is entirely
overlooked; nor does it appear to have engaged the attention even of
linguists or philologers themselves.
The following Memoir, therefore, must claim the indulgence due to a first
essay in a new and difficult subject. No one can be more sensible than
the writer of its many imperfections;—of the probable omission of names
which should have been recorded;—of the undue prominence of others with
inferior pretensions; and perhaps of still more serious inaccuracies of
a different kind. It is only offered in the absence of something better
and more complete; and with the hope of directing to what is certainly a
curious and interesting subject, the attention of others who enjoy more
leisure and opportunity for its investigation.
* * * * *
The diversity of languages which prevails among the various branches
of the human family, has proved, almost equally with their local
dispersion, a barrier to that free intercommunion which is one of
the main instruments of civilization. “The confusion of tongues, the
first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man,” says Bacon, in
the Introductory Book of his “Advancement of Learning,” “hath chiefly
imbarred the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge.”[1]
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that these two great impediments
to intercourse have mutually assisted each other. The divergency of
languages seems to keep pace with the dispersion of the population.
Adelung lays it down as the result of the most careful philological
investigations, that where the difficulties of intercourse are such as
existed among the ancients and as still prevail among the less civilized
populations, no language can maintain itself unchanged over a space of
more than one hundred and fifty thousand square miles.[2]
It might naturally be expected, therefore, that one of the earliest
efforts of the human intellect would have been directed towards the
removal of this barrier, and that one of the first sciences to invite
the attention of men would have been the knowledge of languages. Few
sciences, nevertheless, were more neglected by the ancients.
It is true that the early literatures of many of the ancient nations
contain legends on this head which might almost throw into the shade the
greatest marvels related of Mezzofanti. In one of the Chinese stories
regarding the youth of Buddha, translated by Klaproth, it is related
that, when he was ten years old, he asked his preceptor, Babourenou, to
teach him all the languages of the earth, seeing that he was to be an
apostle to all men; and that when Babourenou confessed his ignorance
of all except the Indian dialects, the child himself taught his master
“fifty foreign tongues with their respective characters.”[3] A still
more marvellous tale is told by one of the Rabbinical historians, Rabbi
Eliezer, who relates that Mordechai, (one of the great heroes of Talmudic
legend), was acquainted with seventy languages; and that it was by means
of this gift he understood the conversation of the two eunuchs who were
plotting in a foreign tongue the death of the king.[4] Nor is the Koran
without its corresponding prodigy. When the Prophet was carried up to
Heaven, before the throne of the Most High, “God promised that he should
have the knowledge of all languages.”[5]
But when we turn to the genuine records of antiquity, we find no ground
for the belief that such legends as these have even that ordinary
substructure of truth which commonly underlies the fables of mythology.
Neither the Sacred Narratives, nor those of the early profane authors,
contain a single example of remarkable proficiency in languages.
It is true that in the later days of the Jewish people, interpreters
were appointed in the synagogues to explain the lessons read from the
Hebrew Scriptures for the benefit of their foreign brethren; that in
all the courts of the Eastern monarchs interpreters were found, through
whom they communicated with foreign envoys, or with the motley tribes of
their own empire; and that professional interpreters were at the service
of foreigners in the great centres of commerce or travel,[6] who, it
may be presumed, were masters of several languages. The philosophers,
too, who traversed remote countries in pursuit of wisdom, can hardly be
supposed to have returned without some acquaintance with the languages
of the nations among whom they had voyaged. Solon and Pythagoras are
known to have visited Egypt and the East; the latter also sojourned for
a considerable time in Italy and the islands; the wanderings of Plato
are said to have been even more extensive. Nay, in some instances these
pilgrims of knowledge extended their researches beyond the limits of
their own ethnographical region. Thus, on the one hand, the Scythian
sages, Anacharsis and Zamolxis, themselves most probably of the Mongol
or Tartar tongue, sojourned for a long time in countries where the
Indo-European family of languages alone prevailed; on the other, the
merchants of Tyre were in familiar and habitual intercourse with the
Italo-Pelasgic race; and the Phœnician explorers, in their well-known
circumnavigation of Africa described by Herodotus, must have come
in contact with still more numerous varieties both of race and of
tongue. Nevertheless it may fairly be doubted whether these or similar
opportunities among the ancients, resulted in any very remarkable
attainments in the department of languages. The absence of all record
furnishes a strong presumption to the contrary; and there is one example,
that of Herodotus, which would almost be in itself conclusive. This acute
and industrious explorer devoted many years to foreign travel. He visited
every city of note in Greece and Asia Minor, and every site of the
great battles between the Greeks and Barbarians. He explored the whole
line of the route of Xerxes in his disastrous expedition. He visited in
succession all the chief islands of the Egean, as well as those of the
western coast of Greece. His landward wanderings extended far into the
interior. He reached Babylon, Ecbatana, and Susa, and spent some time
among the Scythian tribes on the shores of the Black Sea. He resided
long in Egypt, from which he passed southwards as far as Elephantine,
eastwards into Arabia, and westwards through Lybia, at least as far as
Cyrene. And yet Dahlmann is of opinion that, with all his industry, and
all the spirit of inquiry which was his great characteristic, Herodotus
never became acquainted even with the language of Egypt, but contented
himself with the service of an interpreter.[7]
In like manner, it would be difficult to shew, either from the Cyropædia,
or the Expedition of Cyrus, that Xenophon, during his foreign travel,
became master of Persian or any kindred Eastern tongue. Nor am I aware
that there has ever been discovered in the writings of Plato any evidence
of familiarity with the language of those Eastern philosophers from whose
science he is believed to have drawn so largely.
It is strange that the two notable exceptions to this barrenness of
eminent linguists which characterizes the classic times, Mithridates
and Cleopatra, should both have been of royal rank. The former, the
celebrated king of Pontus, long one of the most formidable enemies of
the Roman name, is alleged to have spoken fluently the languages of all
the subjects of his empire; an empire so vast, and comprising so many
different nationalities as to throw an air of improbability over the
story. According to Aulus Gellius,[8] he “was thoroughly conversant”
(_percalluit_) with the languages of all the nations (_twenty-five in
number_) over which his rule extended.[9] The other writers who relate
the circumstance—Valerius Maximus,[10] Pliny,[11] and Solinus—make the
number only twenty-two. Some commentators have regarded the story as a
gross exaggeration; and others have sought to diminish its marvellousness
by explaining it of different dialects, rather than of distinct
languages. But there does not appear in the narrative of the original
writers any reason whether for the doubt or for the restriction. Pliny
declares that “it is quite certain;” and the matter-of-fact tone in which
they all relate it, makes it clear that they wished to be understood
literally. It was the king’s invariable practice, they tell us, to
communicate with all the subjects of his polyglot empire directly and in
person, and “never through an interpreter;” and Gellius roundly affirms
that he was able to converse in each and every one of these tongues
“with as much correctness as if it were his native dialect.”
The attainments of Cleopatra, although far short of what is reported
of Mithridates, are nevertheless described by Plutarch[12] as very
extraordinary. He says that she “spoke most languages, and that there
were but few of the foreign ambassadors to whom she gave audience through
an interpreter.” The languages which he specifies are those of the
Ethiopians, of the Troglodytes (probably a dialect of Coptic), of the
Hebrews, of the Arabs, the Syrians, the Medes, and the Persians; but
he adds that this list does not comprise all the languages which this
extraordinary woman understood.
Now the very prominence assigned to these examples, and the absence of
all allusion to any other which might be supposed to approximate to them,
may afford a presumption that they are almost solitary. Valerius Maximus,
in his well-known chapter _De Studio et Industria_, cites the case of
Mithridates as a very remarkable example “of study and industry.” It is
highly probable therefore, that, if he knew any other eminent linguists,
he would have added their names. Yet the only cases which he instances
are those of Cato learning Greek in his old age, of Themistocles
acquiring Persian during his exile, and of Publius mastering all the five
dialects of Greece during the time of his Prætorship. In like manner,
Aulus Gellius has no more notable linguist to produce, in contrast with
Mithridates, than the old poet Ennius, who used to boast that he had
three hearts,[13] because he could speak Greek, Latin, and his rude
native dialect, Oscan. And Pliny, with all his love of parallels, is even
more meagre:—he does not recite a single name in comparison with that of
Mithridates.
* * * * *
The Romans, especially under the early Republic, appear to have been
singularly indifferent or unsuccessful in cultivating languages; and
the bad Greek of the Roman ambassadors to Tarentum, for their ridicule
of which the Tarentines paid so dearly, is almost an average specimen
of the accomplishments of the earlier Romans as linguists. Nor can
this circumstance fail to appear strange, when it is remembered over
how many different races and tongues the wide domain of Rome extended.
The very multiplicity of languages submitted to her government would
seem to have imposed upon her public men the necessity of familiarizing
themselves, even for the discharge of their public office, with at least
the principal ones among them. But, on the contrary, for a long time they
steadily pursued the policy of imposing, as far as practicable, upon
the conquered nationalities the Latin language, at least in public and
official transactions.[14]
And, so far as regards the Eastern and Northern languages, this exclusion
was successfully and permanently enforced at Rome. The slave population
of the city comprised almost every variety of race within the limits of
the Empire. The very names of the slaves who are introduced in the plays
of Plautus and Terence—Syra, Phœnicium, Afer, Geta, Dorias, &c. (which
are but their respective gentile appellatives)—embrace a very large
circle of the languages of Asia, Africa, and Northern Europe. And yet,
with the exception of a single scene in the Pænulus of Plautus, in which
the well-known Punic speech of Hanno the Carthaginian is introduced,[15]
there is nothing in either of these dramatists from which we could
infer that any of the manifold languages of the slave population of
Rome effected an entrance among their haughty masters. They were all as
completely ignored by the Romans, as is the vernacular Celtic of the
Irish agricultural servant in the midland counties of England.
But it was not so for Greek. From the Augustan age onwards, this polished
language began to dispute the mastery with Latin, even in Rome itself.
“Græcia capta ferum cepit captorem, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio—”
applies to the language, even more than to the arts. In the days of the
Rhetorician, Molon, (Cicero’s master in eloquence,) Greek had obtained
the entrée of the Senate. In the time of Tiberius, its use was permitted
even in forensic pleadings. With the emperors who succeeded,[16] the
triumph of Greek was still more complete. From Pliny downwards, there is
hardly an author of eminence in the Roman Empire who did not write in
that language;—Pausanias, Dion, Galen, even the Emperor Marcus Aurelius
himself, with all the traditionary Roman associations of his name.
It was so also with the Christian population and the Christian literature
of Rome. Almost all the Christian writings of the first two centuries
are in Greek. The early Roman liturgy was Greek. The population of Rome
was in great part a Greek-speaking race. A large proportion of the
inscriptions in the Roman Catacombs are Greek, and some even of the Latin
ones are engraved in Greek characters. Nay, the early Christian churches
in Gaul, Vienne, Lyons, and Marseilles, and the few remains of their
literature which have reached us, are equally Greek.[17]
In a word, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, making
due allowance for the difference of the periods, Greek and Latin held
towards each other in Rome the same relation which we find between
Norman-French and Saxon in England after the Conquest; and we may safely
say that, during those centuries, a knowledge of both languages was the
ordinary accomplishment of all educated men, and was shared by many of
the lowest of the population.
Beyond this limit, however, we read of no remarkable linguists even among
the accomplished scholars of the Augustan age. No one will doubt that the
two Varros may fairly be taken as, in this respect, the most favourable
specimens of the class. Now neither of them seems to have gone further
than a knowledge of Greek. Out of the four hundred and ninety books which
Marcus Terentius Varro wrote, there is not one named which would indicate
familiarity with any other foreign language.
The Neo-Platonists of the second and third centuries, whose researches
in Oriental Philosophy must have brought them into contact with some of
the Eastern languages, may possibly form an exception to this general
statement; but, on the whole, in the absence of positive and exact
information on the subject, it may not unreasonably be conjectured that,
among the Christian scholars of the second, third, and fourth centuries,
we might find a wider range of linguistic attainments than among their
gentile contemporaries. The critical study of the Bible itself involved
the necessity of familiarity, not only with Greek and Hebrew, but with
more than one cognate oriental dialect besides. St. Jerome, besides
the classic languages and his native Illyrian, is known to have been
familiar with several of the Eastern tongues; and it is not improbable
that some of the earlier commentators and expositors of the Bible may be
taken as equally favourable specimens of the Christian linguists.[18]
Origen’s Hexapla is a monument of his scholarship in Hebrew, and probably
in Syriac and Samaritan. St. Clement of Alexandria was perhaps even a
more accomplished linguist; for he tells that of the masters under whom
he studied, one was from Greece, one from Magna Græcia, a third from
Cœle-Syria, a fourth from Egypt, a fifth an Assyrian, and a sixth a
Hebrew.[19] And St. Gregory Nazianzen expressly relates of his friend St.
Basil, that, even before he came to Athens to commence his rhetorical
studies, he was already well-versed in many languages.[20]
From the death of Constantine, however, the study began rapidly to
decline, even among ecclesiastics. The disruption of the Empire naturally
tended to diminish the intercourse between East and West, and by
consequence the interchange of their languages. It would appear, too, as
if the barbarian conquerors adopted, in favour of their own languages,
the same policy which the Romans had pursued for Latin. Attila is said
to have passed a law prohibiting the use of the Latin language in his
newly conquered kingdom,[21] and to have taken pains, by importing native
teachers, to procure the substitution of Gothic in its stead. At all
events, in whatever way the change was brought about, a knowledge of
both Greek and Latin, which in the classic times of the Empire had been
the ordinary accomplishment of every educated man, became uncommon and
almost exceptional. Pope Gregory the Great, who, bitterly as he has been
assailed as an enemy of letters, must be confessed to have been the
most eminent Western scholar of his day, spoke Greek very imperfectly;
he complains that it was difficult, even at Constantinople, to find any
one who could translate Greek satisfactorily into Latin;[22] and a still
earlier instance is recorded, in which a pope, in other respects a man
of undoubted ability, was unable to translate the letter of the Greek
patriarch, much less to communicate with the Greek ambassadors, except
through an interpreter.[23]
More than one, indeed, of the early theological controversies was
embittered through the misunderstandings caused between the East and
West by mutual ignorance of each other’s language. Pelagius succeeded
in obtaining a favourable decision from the Council of Jerusalem in
415, chiefly because, while his Western adversary, Orosius, was unable
to speak Greek, the fathers of the Council were ignorant of Latin. The
protracted controversy on the Three Chapters owed much of its inveteracy
to the ignorance of the Westerns[24] of the original language of the
works whose orthodoxy was impugned; and it is well known that the
condemnation of the decree of the sixth council on the use of sacred
images issued by the fathers of Francfort, was based exclusively on a
strangely erroneous Latin translation of the acts of the council, through
which translation alone they were known in Germany and Gaul.[25]
The foundation of the Empire of Charlemagne consummated the separation
between the Greek and Latin races and their languages. The venerated
names of Bede and of Alcuin in the Western Church, and the more
questionable celebrity of the Patriarch Photius in the Eastern,
constitute a passing exception. But it need hardly be added that they
stand almost entirely alone; and it will readily be believed that,
amid the Barbarian irruptions from without, and the fierce intestine
revolutions, of which Europe was the theatre during the rest of the
earlier mediæval period, even that familiarity with the Greek and
oriental languages which we have described, entirely disappeared in the
West.
The wars of the Crusades, and the reviving intellectual activity
in which this and other great events of the second mediæval period
originated, gave a new impulse to the study of languages. Frederic II.,
a remarkable example of the union of great intellectual gifts with deep
moral perversity, spoke fluently six languages, Latin, Greek, Italian,
German, Hebrew, and even Arabic.[26] The Moorish schools in Spain began
to be visited by Christian students. In this manner Arabic found its
way into the West; and the intermixture of learned Jews in the European
kingdoms afforded similar opportunities for the cultivation of Hebrew,
which were turned to account by many, especially among biblical scholars.
On the other hand, notwithstanding the contempt for profane learning
which breathes through the Koran, the Saracen scholars began to direct
their attention to the learning of other creeds, and the languages of
other races. Ibn Wasil, who came into Italy in 1250 as ambassador to
Manfred, the son of Frederic II., was reported to be familiar with the
Western tongues. The Spanish Moors, too, began sedulously to cultivate
Greek. The works of Aristotle, of Galen, of Dioscorides, and many other
Greek writers, chiefly philosophical, were translated into Arabic by
Averroes, Ibn Djoldjol and Avicenna. And the Jewish scholars of that age
were equally assiduous in the cultivation of Greek. The learned Rabbi
Maimonides, born in Cordova in the early part of the 12th century, was
not only master of many Eastern tongues, but was also thoroughly familiar
with the Greek language.
It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that it was among the Moors or
the Hebrews that the revival of the study of languages first commenced.
Alcuin, in addition to the modern languages with which his sojourn in
various kingdoms must have made him acquainted, was also familiar with
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Hermann, the Dalmatian, the first translator
of the Koran, was well acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.
The celebrated Raymond Lully, who was a native of Majorca, was able to
lecture in Latin Greek, Arabic, and perhaps Hebrew;—an accomplishment
especially wonderful in one who was among the most laborious and
prolific writers of his age, and who left after him, according to some
authorities, (though this, no doubt, is a great exaggeration), not less
than a thousand[27] works on the most diversified subjects. At the
instance of this eminent orientalist, the council of Vienne directed that
professorships should be founded in all the great Universities, for the
Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic languages.[28]
An example of, for the period, very remarkable proficiency in modern
languages is recorded in the history of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.
Roderigo Ximenes,[29] Archbishop of Toledo in the early part of the
thirteenth century, a native of Navarre, but a scholar of the University
of Paris, was one of the representatives of the Spanish Church at that
Council. A controversy regarding the Primacy of Spain had arisen between
the Sees of Toledo and Compostella, which was referred for adjudication
to the bishops there assembled. Ximenes addressed to the council a long
Latin oration in defence of the claim of Toledo; and, as many of his
auditory, which consisted both of the clergy and the laity, were ignorant
of that language, he repeated the same argument in a series of discourses
addressed to the natives of each country in succession; to the Romans,
Germans, French, English, Navarrese, and Spaniards,[30] each in their
respective tongues. Thus the number of languages in which he spoke was
at least seven, and it is highly probable that he had others at his
disposal, if his auditory had been of such a nature as to render them
necessary.
The taste for the languages and literature of the East received a
further stimulus from the foundation of the Christian principalities
at Antioch and Jerusalem, from the establishment of the Latin Empire
at Constantinople, and in general from the long wars in the East, to
which the enthusiasm of the age attracted the most enterprising spirits
of European chivalry. The pious pilgrimages, too, contributed to the
same result. Many of the knights or palmers, on their return from the
East, brought with them the knowledge, not only of Greek, but of more
than one of the oriental languages besides. The long imprisonments to
which, during the holy wars, and the Latin campaigns against the Turks,
they were often subjected, supplied another occasion of familiarity with
Arabic, Syriac, Turkish, or Persian.
The commercial enterprise of the Western Nations, and especially of
the Venetians and Genoese, was a still more powerful instrument of the
interchange of languages. Few modern voyagers have possessed more of
that spirit of travel which is the best aid towards the acquisition of
foreign tongues, than the celebrated Marco Polo. It is hard to suppose
that he can have returned from his extensive wanderings in Persia, in
Tartary, in the Indian Archipelago, and in China and Tibet, without some
tincture of their languages. Still less can this be supposed of his
countryman, Josaphat Barbaro, who sojourned for sixteen years among the
Tartar tribes.[31] It was in the commercial settlements of the Venetians
in the Levant that the profession of interpreters, of which I shall have
to speak hereafter, and which has since become hereditary in certain
families, was originated or brought to perfection.[32]
* * * * *
It is only, however, from the revival of letters, properly so called,
that the history of linguistic studies can be truly said to commence.
The attention of Scholars, in the first instance, was chiefly directed
towards the classical languages and the languages of the Bible. The
Greek scholars who were driven to the West by the Moslem occupation of
Constantinople brought their language, in its best and most attractive
form, to the Universities of Italy. In the Council of Florence, in 1438,
more than one Italian divine, especially Ambrogio Traversari, was found
capable of holding discussions with the Greek representatives in their
native tongue. In like manner, the Jews and Moors, who were exiled from
Spain by the harsh and impolitic measures of Ferdinand and Isabella,
deposited through all the schools of Europe the seeds of a solid and
critical knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic and their cognate languages. The
fruits of their teaching may be discerned at a comparatively early period
in the biblical studies of the time. Antonio de Lebrixa published, in
1481, a grammar of the Latin, Castilian and Hebrew languages: and I need
only allude to the mature and various oriental learning which Cardinal
Ximenes found ready to his hand, in the very first years of the sixteenth
century, for the compilation of the Complutensian Polyglot. Although
some of the scholars whom he engaged, as for instance, Demetrius Ducas,
were Greeks; and others, as Alfonzo Zamora or Pablo Coronell,[33] were
converted Jews; yet, the names of Lopez de Zuniga, Nunez de Guzman, and
Vergara[34] are a sufficient evidence of the success with which the
co-operation of native scholars was enlisted in the undertaking.[35]
* * * * *
From this period the number of scholars eminent in the department
of languages becomes so great, and the history of many among them
presents so frequent points of resemblance, that it may conduce to the
greater distinctness of the narrative to classify separately the most
distinguished linguists of each among the principal nations.
§ I. LINGUISTS OF THE EAST.
Although the inquiry must of course commence with the East, the cradle
of human language, unfortunately the materials for this portion of the
subject are more meagre and imperfectly preserved than any other.
In the East indeed, the faculty of language appears, for the most part,
in a form quite different from what we shall find among the scholars of
the West. The Eastern linguists, with a few exceptions, have been eminent
as mere _speakers_ of languages, rather than scholars even in the loosest
sense of the word.
As it is in the East that the office of _Dragoman_ or “interpreter” first
rose to the dignity of a profession, so all the most notable Oriental
linguists have belonged to that profession.
A very remarkable specimen of this class occurs in the reign of Soliman
the Magnificent, and flourished in the early part of the sixteenth
century. A most interesting account is given of him, under his Turkish
name of Genus Bey, by Thevet, in that curious repertory—his _Cosmographie
Universelle_.[36] He was the son of a poor fisherman, of the Island of
Corfu; and while yet a boy, was carried away by pirates and sold as a
slave at Constantinople. Thence he was carried into Egypt, Syria, and
other Eastern countries; and he would also seem to have visited most of
the European kingdoms, or at least to have enjoyed the opportunity of
intercourse with natives of them all. His proficiency in the languages
both of the East and West, drew upon him the notice of the Sultan, who
appointed him his First Dragoman, with the rank of Pasha. Thevet (who
would seem to have known him personally during his wanderings,) describes
him in his quaint old French, as “the first man of his day for speaking
divers sorts of languages, and of the happiest memory under the Heavens.”
He adds, that this extraordinary man “knew perfectly no fewer than
sixteen languages, viz: Greek, both ancient and modern, Hebrew, Arabic,
Persian, Turkish, Moorish, Tartar, Armenian, Russian, Hungarian, Polish,
Italian, Spanish, German, and French.” Genus Bey, was, of course, a
renegade; but, from a circumstance related by Thevet, he appears to have
retained a reverence for his old faith, though not sufficiently strong to
be proof against temptation. He was solicited by some bigoted Moslems to
remove a bell, which the Christians had been permitted to erect in their
little church. For a time he refused to permit its removal; but at last
he was induced by a large bribe, to accede to the demand. Thevet relates
that, in punishment of his sacrilegious weakness, he was struck with that
loathsome disease which smote King Herod, and perished miserably in nine
days from the date of this inauspicious act.
In Naima’s “Annals of the Turkish Empire,” another renegade, a Hungarian
by birth, is mentioned, who spoke fourteen languages, and who, in
consequence of this accomplishment, was employed during a siege to carry
a message through the lines of the blockading army.[37]
A still more marvellous example of the gift of languages is mentioned by
Duret, in his _Trésor des Langues_ (p. 964)—that of Jonadab, a Jew of
Morocco, who lived about the same period. He was sold as a slave by the
Moors, and lived for twenty-six years in captivity in different parts
of the world. With more constancy to his creed, however, than the Corfu
Christian, he withstood every attempt to undermine his faith or to compel
its abjuration; and, from the obduracy of his resistance, received from
his masters the opprobrious name _Alhanar_, “the serpent” or “viper.”
Duret says that Jonadab spoke and wrote twenty-eight different languages.
He does not specify their names, however, nor have I been able to find
any other allusion to the man.
It would be interesting, if materials could be found for the inquiry,
to pursue this extremely curious subject through the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, and especially in the military and commercial
establishments of the Venetians in the Morea and the islands. The race
of Dragomans has never ceased to flourish in the Levant. M. Antoine
d’Abbadie informed me that there are many families in which this office,
and sometimes the consular appointment for which it is an indispensable
qualification, have been hereditary for the last two or three centuries;
and that it is very common to find among them men and women who,
sufficiently for all the ordinary purposes of conversation, speak Arabic,
Turkish, Greek, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and French, with
little or no accent. This accomplishment is not confined to one single
nation. Mr. Burton, in his “Pilgrimage to Medinah and Meccah,” mentions
an Afghan who “spoke five or six languages.”[38] He speaks of another,
a Koord settled at Medinah, who “spoke five languages in perfection.”
The traveller, he assures us, “may hear the Cairene donkey-boys shouting
three or four European dialects with an accent as good as his own;” and
he “has frequently known Armenians (to whom, among all the Easterns, he
assigns the first place as linguists) speak, besides their mother tongue,
Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Hindostanee, and at the same time display
an equal aptitude for the Occidental languages.”[39]
But of all the Eastern linguists of the present day the most notable
seem to be the ciceroni who take charge of the pilgrims at Mecca, many
of whom speak fluently every one of the numerous languages which prevail
over the vast region of the Moslem. Mr. Burton fell in at Mecca with
a one-eyed Hadji, who spoke fluently and with good accent Turkish,
Persian, Hindostani, Pushtu, Armenian, English, French, and Italian.[40]
In the “Turkish Annals” of Naima, already cited, the learned Vankuli
Mohammed Effendi, a contemporary of Sultan Murad Khan, is described as
“a perfect linguist.”[41] Many similar instances might, without much
difficulty, be collected; nor can it be doubted that, among the numerous
generations which have thus flourished and passed away in the East, there
may have been rivals for Genus Bey, or even for “the Serpent” himself.
But unhappily their fame has been local and transitory. They were admired
during their brief day of success, but are long since forgotten; nor is
it possible any longer to recover a trace of their history. They are
unknown,
Carent quia vate sacro.[42]
It would be a great injustice, however, to represent this as the
universal character of the Eastern linguists. On the contrary, it has
only needed intercourse with the scholars of the West in order to draw
out what appears to be the very remarkable aptitude of the native
Orientals for the scientific study of languages. Thus the learned
Portuguese Jew, Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel (1604-1657), was not only a
thorough master of the Oriental languages, but was able to write with
ease and exactness several of the languages of the West, and published
almost indifferently in Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, and English.[43] I allude
more particularly, however, to those bodies of Eastern Christians, which,
from their community of creed with the Roman Church, have, for several
centuries, possessed ecclesiastical establishments in Rome and other
cities of Europe.
The Syrians had been remarkable, even from the classic times,[44] for
the patient industry with which they devoted themselves to the labour of
translation from foreign languages into their own. Many of the modern
Syrians, however, have deserved the still higher fame of original
scholarship.
The Maronite community of Syrian Christians has produced several scholars
of unquestioned eminence. Abraham Echellensis was one of the chief
assistants of Le Jay, at Paris, in the preparation of his Polyglot. His
services in a somewhat similar capacity at Rome are familiar to all
Oriental scholars. But it is to the name of Assemani that the Maronite
body owes most of its reputation. For a time, indeed, literature would
seem to have been almost an inheritance in the family of Assemani. It has
contributed to the catalogue of Oriental scholars no less than five of
its members—Joseph Simon, who died in 1768; his nephews, Stephen Evodius
and Joseph Lewis; Joseph Aloysius, who died at Rome in 1782; and Simon,
who died at Padua in 1821. The first of them is the well-known editor of
the works of St. Ephrem, and author of the great repertory of Oriental
ecclesiastical erudition, the _Bibliotheca Orientalis_.
The Greeks, with greater resources, and under circumstances more
favourable, are less distinguished as linguists. John Matthew
Caryophilos, a native of Corfu, who was archbishop of Iconium and
resided at Rome in the early part of the seventeenth century, was a
learned Orientalist, and, besides several literary works of higher
pretension, published some elementary books on the Chaldee, Syriac, and
Coptic languages. But he has few imitators among his countrymen. Leo
Allatius (Allazzi), although a profound scholar, and familiar with every
department of the literature of the West, whether sacred or profane,[45]
can hardly be considered a linguist in the ordinary sense of the word.
The same may be said of the many Greek students, as, for instance,
Metaxa, Meletius Syrius, and others, who, during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, repaired to the universities of Italy, France,
and even England.[46] It can hardly be doubted, of course, that many of
them acquired a certain familiarity with the languages of the countries
in which they sojourned, but no traces of this knowledge appear to be
now discoverable. By far the most notable of them, Cyrillus Lucaris,
the well-known Calvinistic Patriarch of Constantinople, spoke and
wrote fluently Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Italian; but, if his latinity
be a fair sample of his skill in the other languages, his place as a
linguist must be held low indeed.[47] It should be added, however,
that as polyglot speakers, the Greeks have long enjoyed a considerable
reputation. The celebrated Panagiotes Nicusius[48] (better known by his
Italianized name Panagiotti) obtained, despite all the prejudices of
race, the post of First Dragoman of the Porte, about the middle of the
seventeenth century; and, from his time forward, the office was commonly
held by a Greek, until the separation of Greece from the Ottoman Empire.
Mr. Burton’s observation that no natives of the East seem to possess the
faculty of language in a higher degree than the Armenians, is confirmed
by the experience of all other travellers; and the commercial activity
which has long distinguished them, and has led to their establishing
themselves in almost all the great European centres of commerce, has
tended very much to develope this national characteristic. A far higher
spirit of enterprise has led to the foundation of many religious
establishments of the Armenians in different parts of Europe, which have
rendered invaluable services, not only to their own native language
and literature, but to Oriental studies generally. Among these the
fathers of the celebrated Mechitarist order have earned for themselves,
by their manifold contributions to sacred literature, the title of
the Benedictines of the East. The publications of this learned order
(especially at their principal press in the convent of San Lazzaro,
Venice,) are too well known to require any particular notice. Most of
their publications regard historical or theological subjects; but many
also are on the subject of language,[49] as grammars, dictionaries,
and philological treatises. A little series of versions, the Prayers
of St. Nerses in twenty-four languages, printed at their press, is
one of the most beautiful specimens of polyglot typography with which
I am acquainted. Among the scholars of the order the names of Somal,
Rhedeston, Ingigean, Avedichian, Minaos, and, above all, of the two
Auchers, are the most prominent. One of the latter is best known to
English readers as the friend of Byron, his instructor in Armenian, and
his partner in the compilation of an Anglo-Armenian grammar. The fathers
of this order generally, however, both in Vienna and in Italy, have long
enjoyed the reputation of being excellent linguists. Visitors of the
Armenian convent of St. Lazzaro at Venice cannot fail to be struck by
this accomplishment among its inmates. Besides the ordinary Oriental
languages, most of them speak Italian, French, and often German. I have
heard from M. Antoine d’Abbadie that, in 1837, Dr. Pascal Aucher spoke no
less than twelve languages.
§ II. LINGUISTS OF ITALY.
The most prominent among the nations of the West at the period
immediately succeeding the Revival of Letters, is of course Italy.
* * * * *
The first in order, dating from this period, among the linguists of
Italy, is also in many respects the most remarkable of them all;—at least
as illustrating the possibility of uniting in a single individual the
most diversified intellectual attainments, each in the highest degree
of perfection;—the celebrated Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, son of the
Duke John Francis of that name.[50] He was born in 1463, and from his
childhood was regarded as one of the wonders of his age. Before he had
completed his tenth year, he delivered lectures in civil and canon law,
not less remarkable for eloquence than for learning. While yet a boy he
was familiar with all the principal Greek and Latin classics. He next
applied himself to Hebrew; and, while he was engaged in that study,
a large collection of cabalistic manuscripts, which were represented
to him as genuine works of Esdras, turned his attention to the other
Eastern languages, and especially the Chaldee, the Rabbinical dialect
of Hebrew, and the Arabic. Unfortunately, the strange and fantastic
learning with which he was thus thrown into contact gave a tinge to his
mind, which appears to have affected all his later studies. His progress
in languages, however, cannot but be regarded as prodigious, when we
consider the poverty of the linguistic resources of his age. At the age
of eighteen he had the reputation of knowing no fewer than twenty-two
languages, a considerable number of which he spoke with fluency. And
while he thus successfully cultivated the department of languages, he
was, at the same time, an extraordinary proficient in all the other
knowledge of his day. His memory was so wonderful as to be reckoned
among the marvellous examples of that gift which are enumerated by the
writers upon this faculty of the human mind. Cancellieri states that he
was able, after a single reading, not only to recite the contents of
any book which was offered to him, but to repeat the very words of the
author, and even in an inverted order.[51] In 1486 he maintained a thesis
in Rome, _De omni Re Scibili_. Much of the learning which it displayed
was certainly of a very idle and puerile character; much of it, too, was
the merest pedantry; but nevertheless it is undeniable that the nine
hundred propositions of which it consisted, comprised every department of
knowledge cultivated at that period. And it is impossible to doubt that,
if Pico’s career had been prolonged to the usual term of human life, his
reputation would have equalled that of the greatest scholars, whether of
the ancient or the contemporary world. He was cut off, however, at the
early age of thirty-one.
It is not unnatural to suppose that this circumstance, as well as the
rank of Pico, and the singular precocity of his talents, may have led to
a false or exaggerated estimate of his acquirements. But, even allowing
every reasonable deduction on this score, his claim must be freely
admitted to the character of one of the greatest wonders of his own or
any other age, whether he be considered as a linguist or as a general
scholar.
Marvellous, however, as is the reputation of Pico della Mirandola,
perhaps the science of language owes more to a less brilliant but more
practical scholar of the same period, Teseo Ambrosio, of the family of
the Albonesi. He was born at Pavia, in 1469. His admirers have not failed
to chronicle such precocious indications of genius as his composing
Italian, Latin, and even Greek poetry, before he was fifteen; but he
himself confesses that his proficiency in these studies dates from a
considerably later time. He entered the order of Canons Regular of St.
Augustine, and fixed his residence at Rome, where he devoted himself with
great assiduity to Oriental studies, and acquired such a reputation,
that when, in the Lateran Council of 1512, the united Ethiopic and
Maronite Christians solicited the privilege of using their own peculiar
liturgies while they maintained the communion of the Roman church, it was
to him the task of examining those liturgies, and of ascertaining how
far their teaching was in accordance with the doctrines of the Church,
was entrusted by the Holy See. Teseo assures us that, at the time when
he received this commission, he knew little more than the elements
of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. He set to work with the assistance of
a native Syrian (who, however, was entirely ignorant of Latin); and,
carrying on their communication by mutual instruction, he was soon able
not only to master the difficulties of these languages, but to set on
foot what may be regarded as (at least conjointly with the Complutensian
Polyglot) one of the earliest systematic schemes for the promotion of
Oriental studies. He had types cast expressly for his projects; and he
himself prepared the Chaldee Psalter for the press, and repaired to his
native city of Pavia for the purpose of having it printed. He died (1539)
before it was completed;[52] but his types were turned to account by
other scholars. It was with Teseo’s types that William Postel printed two
out of the five Pater Nosters contained in his collection—the Chaldee
and the Armenian.[53] And to him we owe a still greater boon—the first
regular attempt at a Polyglot Grammar; which, however imperfectly,
comprises the elements of Chaldee, Syriac, Armenian, and ten other
languages.
The scholarship of Ambrogio was derived almost entirely from books.
His countryman, Antonio Pigafetta, enjoyed among his contemporaries a
different reputation, that of considerable skill as a speaker of foreign
languages, acquired during his extensive and protracted wanderings.
Pigafetta was born at Vicenza, towards the end of the fifteenth century.
In the expedition undertaken, under the patronage of Charles V., for the
conquest of the Moluccas, by the celebrated Fernando Magellan, the first
circumnavigator of the globe, one of the literary staff was Pigafetta,
who acted as historiographer of the expedition, and to whose narrative we
are indebted for all the particulars of it, which have been preserved.
Marzari describes Pigafetta as a prodigy of learning; and, although this
has been questioned by later inquirers,[54] there is no reason to doubt
his acquirements in modern languages at least, and particularly his
skill and success in obtaining information as to the languages of the
countries which he visited. It is to him[55] we are indebted for the
first vocabularies of the language of the Philippine and Molucca islands,
the merit of which is recognized even by recent philologers.[56]
It may be permitted to class with the linguists of Italy, a Corsican
scholar of the same period, Augustine, bishop of Nebia. It is difficult
to pronounce definitively as to the extent of his attainments; but his
skill in the ancient languages, at least, is sufficiently attested
by the polyglot Bible which he published, (containing the Hebrew,
Greek, Chaldee, and Arabic texts,) of which Sixtus of Sienna speaks
in the highest terms; and if we could receive without qualification
the statement of the same writer, we should conclude that Augustine’s
familiarity with modern languages was even more extensive. Sixtus of
Sienna describes him as “deeply versed in the languages of all the
nations which are scattered over the face of the earth.”
Towards the close of the sixteenth century the study of languages
in Italy assumed that practical character in relation to the actual
exigencies of missionary life by which it has ever since been mainly
characterized in that country. The Oriental press established at Florence
by the Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici, under the superintendence of the
great orientalist Giambattista Raimondi;[57] the opening at Rome of
the College _De Propaganda Fide_; the foundation of the College of San
Pancrazio, for the Carmelite Oriental Missions in 1662; the opening of
similar Oriental schools in the Dominican, the Franciscan, Augustinian,
and other orders, for the training of candidates for their respective
missions in the East; and above all, the constant intercourse with
the Eastern missions which began to be maintained, gave an impulse to
Oriental studies, the more powerful and the more permanent, because it
was founded on motives of religion; and although we do not meet among
the missionary linguists that marvellous variety of languages which
excites our wonder, yet we find in them abundant evidences of a solid and
practical scholarship, whose fruits, if less attractive, are more useful
and more enduring. Nearly all the linguists of Italy from the close of
the sixteenth century, appear to have been either actually missionaries,
or connected with the colleges of the foreign mission.
Thus, Antonio Giggei, one of the “Oblates of Mary,” taught Persian in
a missionary college, at Milan, and, at a later period, taught Arabic
in Florence. Giggei’s _Thesaurus Linguæ Arabicæ_,[58] is still much
esteemed. He wrote besides, a Grammar of Chaldee and of Rabbinical
Hebrew, which is still preserved in manuscript in the Ambrosian Library
at Milan; and his translation of a Rabbinical commentary on the
Proverbs of Solomon, published at Milan in 1620, is an evidence of his
familiarity, not only with Biblical Hebrew, but with the language of the
Talmud in all its successive phases.
In like manner, Clemente Galani, the eminent Armenian scholar, spent
no less than twelve years as a missionary in Armenia. On his return to
Rome, in 1650, he was such a proficient in the language that he was able,
not only to write both in Armenian and Latin his well-known work on the
conformity of the creeds of the Armenian and Roman Churches,[59] but also
to deliver theological lectures to the Armenian students in Rome in their
native tongue.[60]
Tommaso Ubicini was a Franciscan missionary in the Levant.[61] He was
born at Novara, and entered young into the order of Friar-minors. He
was named guardian of the Franciscan convent in Jerusalem; and, during
a residence of many years, made himself master, in addition to Hebrew
and Chaldee, of the Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic languages. The latter
years of his life were spent in the convent of San Pietro in Montorio
at Rome; where, besides publishing several works upon these languages,
be taught them to the students of his order. His great work, _Thesaurus
Arabico-Syro-Latinus_ was not published till 1636, several years after
his death.[62]
Ludovico Maracci, best known to English readers by the copious use to
which Gibbon has turned his translation and annotations of the Koran, was
one of the missionary “Clerks of the Mother of God.” He was born at Lucca
in 1612, and first obtained notice by the share which he had in the Roman
edition of the Arabic Bible, published in 1671. He taught Arabic for many
years with great distinction in the University of the Sapienza at Rome.
But his best celebrity is due to his critical edition of the Koran, and
the admirable translation which accompanies it.[63] From this repertory
of Arabic learning, Sale has borrowed, almost without acknowledgment, or
rather with occasional depreciatory allusions, all that is most valuable
in his translation and notes.
One of Maracci’s pupils, John Baptist Podestà, (born at Fazana early
in the 17th century), is another exception to the general rule. Having
perfected his Oriental studies in Constantinople, he was appointed
Oriental Secretary of the Emperor Leopold at Vienna, and attained
considerable reputation as Professor of Arabic in that university. He
published a Grammar of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish; which, however, was
severely, and, indeed, ferociously, criticised by his contemporary and
rival, Meninski.
But Podestà’s contemporary, Paolo Piromalli, was trained in the school
of the Mission. He was a native of Calabria, and became a member of the
Dominican order. Piromalli was for many years attached to the Mission
of his order in Armenia, and was eminently successful in reconciling
the separated Armenians to the Roman Church, having even the happiness
to number among his converts the schismatical patriarch himself. From
Armenia, Piromalli passed into the Missions of Georgia and Persia. He
afterwards went, in the capacity of Apostolic Nuncio, to Poland, with
a commission of much importance to the Emperor from the Pope, Urban
VIII. In the course of one of his voyages he was made prisoner by the
Algerine corsairs, and carried as a slave to Tunis; but he was soon after
redeemed and called to Rome, whence, after he had been entrusted with the
revision of an Armenian Bible, he was sent back to the East, as Bishop
of Nachkivan in 1655. He remained in this charge for nine years, and was
called home as Bishop of Bisignano, where he died in 1667. Piromalli
published two dictionaries, Persian and Armenian, and several other works
upon these languages.[64]
The Augustinian order in Italy, also, produced a linguist, not inferior
in solidity, and certainly superior in range of attainments, to any of
those hitherto enumerated—Antonio Agostino Giorgi.[65] He was born at
San Mauro, near Rimini, in 1711, and entered the Augustinian order at
Bologna; but Benedict XIV., who, during his occupancy of the see of
Bologna, had become acquainted with his merit, invited him to Rome after
his elevation to the Papacy, and appointed him to a professorship in
the Sapienza. Father Giorgi occupied this post with much distinction
for twenty-two years, till his death, in 1797. His acquirements as a
linguist were more various than those of any of the scholars hitherto
named. Besides modern languages, he knew not only Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee,
Samaritan, and Syriac, but also Coptic and (what was at that period a
much more rare accomplishment) Tibetan. On the last named language he
compiled an elementary work for the use of missionaries, which, although
it is not free from inaccuracies, deserves, nevertheless, the highest
praise as a first essay in that till then untried language.
Simon De Magistris, one of the priests of the Oratory, (born at Ferrara
in 1728) was for many years at the head of the Congregation of the
Oriental Liturgies in Rome. He was not only deeply versed in the written
languages of the East, but spoke the greater number of them with the same
ease and fluency as his native Italian.[66]
Of the learned Dominican, Finetti, I am unable to offer any particulars.
His treatise “On the Hebrew and its cognate Languages” is a sufficient
evidence of his ability as an Orientalist; but it contains no indication
of anything beyond the learning which is acquired from books.
The same may be said of the Oratorian, Valperga de Galuso. He was born at
Turin in 1737, but lived chiefly in the convents of his order at Naples,
Malta, and Rome. In addition, however, to his accomplishments as an
Orientalist, Padre de Galuso had the reputation of being one of the most
skilful mathematicians of his day. He died in 1815.
Our information regarding the two De Rossi’s, Ignazio, author of the
_Etymologicum Copticum_, and Giambernardo, of Parma, is more detailed and
more satisfactory.
Ignazio de Rossi was born at Viterbo in 1740, and entered the Jesuit
society at a very early age. In the schools of Macerata, Spoleto, and
Florence, he was employed in teaching the Humanities and Rhetoric until
the suppression of the order in 1773; after which event he repaired
to Rome, and received an appointment as professor of Hebrew in the
University, which he held for thirty years, rejoining his brethren,
however, at the first moment of their restoration under Pius VII.
As a general scholar, Father De Rossi was one of the first men of his
day. His memory may be ranked among the most prodigious of which any
record has been preserved. On one occasion, during the _villeggiatura_
at Frascati, it was tried by a test in some respects the most wonderful
which has ever been applied in such cases. A line being selected at
pleasure from any part of any one of the four great Italian classics,
Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, and Ariosto, De Rossi immediately repeated
the hundred lines _which followed next in order_ after that which had
been chosen; and, on his companions expressing their surprise at this
extraordinary feat (which he repeated several times), he placed the
climax to their amazement by reciting _in the reverse order_ the hundred
lines immediately _preceding_ any line taken at random from any one of
the above-named poets.[67] His reputation as an Orientalist was founded
chiefly upon his familiarity with Hebrew and the cognate languages. But
he was also a profound Coptic scholar; and it is a subject of regret to
many students of that language that his numerous MSS. connected therewith
have been suffered to remain so long unpublished. He died in 1824.
Giovanni Bernardo de Rossi was a linguist of wider range. He was born
at Castel Nuovo, in Piedmont, in 1742, and in his youth was destined
for the ecclesiastical state. He began his collegiate studies at Turin,
and manifested very early that taste for Oriental literature which
distinguished his after life. Within six months after he commenced his
Hebrew studies, he produced a long Hebrew poem. In addition to the
Biblical Hebrew, he was soon master of the Rabbinical language, of
Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. He learned besides, by private study, most
of the languages of modern Europe;—his plan being to draw up in each a
compendious grammar for his own use. In this way he prepared grammars
of the German, English, and Russian languages. In 1769, he obtained an
appointment in the Royal Museum at Turin; but, being invited at the same
time to undertake the much more congenial office of Professor of Oriental
Languages in the new University of Parma, he gladly transferred himself
to that city, where he continued to reside, as Professor of Oriental
Literature, for more than forty years. During the latter half of this
period, De Rossi maintained a frequent correspondence with Mezzofanti,
upon the subject of their common studies.[68] From the terms in which
such a scholar as Mezzofanti speaks of De Rossi, and the deference with
which he appeals to his judgment, we may infer what his acquirements
must have been. On occasion of the marriage of the Infante of Parma,
Charles Emanuel, he published a polyglot epithalamium,[69]—a Collection
of Hymeneal Odes in various languages—which even still is regarded as
the most extraordinary of that class of compositions[70] ever produced
by a single individual. It does not belong to my present plan to allude
to the works of De Rossi, or to offer any estimate of his learning; but
without entering into any such particulars, or attempting to specify
the languages with which he was acquainted, it may safely be said that
no Italian linguist from the days of Pico della Mirandola can be
compared with him, either in the solidity or the extent of his linguistic
attainments. De Rossi died in 1831.[71]
The fame of the linguists of Italy during the nineteenth century has been
so completely eclipsed by that of Mezzofanti, that I shall not venture
upon any enumeration of them, though the list would embrace such names as
Rossellini, Luzatto, Molza, Laureani, &c. There are few of whom it can be
said with so much truth as of Mezzofanti:—
Prœgravat artes
Infra se positas.
§ III. SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LINGUISTS.
The catalogue of Spanish linguists opens with a name hardly less
marvellous than that which I have placed at the head of the linguists
of modern Italy—that of Fernando di Cordova;—one of those universal
geniuses, whom Nature, in the prodigal exercise of her creative powers,
occasionally produces, as if to display their extent and versatility. He
was born early in the fifteenth century, and was hardly less precocious
than his Italian rival, Pico della Mirandola. At ten years of age he
had completed his courses of grammar and rhetoric. He could recite
three or four pages of the Orations of Cicero after a single reading.
Before he attained his twenty-fifth year, he was installed Doctor in all
the faculties; and he is said by Feyjoo to have been thorough master
(supo con toda la perfeccion) of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and
Arabic. Feyjoo adds, that he knew, besides, all the principal European
languages.[72] He could repeat the entire Bible from memory. He was
profoundly versed in theology, in civil and canon law, in mathematics,
and in medicine. He had at his perfect command all the works of St.
Thomas, of Scotus, of Alexander of Hales, of Galen, Avicenna, and the
other lights of the age in every department of science.[73] Like the
Admirable Crichton, too, he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen
and most distinguished cavaliers of his time. He could play on every
known variety of instrument; he sang exquisitely; he was a most graceful
dancer; an expert swordsman; and a bold and skilful rider; and he was
master of one particular art of fence by which he was able to defeat all
his adversaries, by springing upon them at a single bound of twenty-three
or twenty-four feet! In a word, to adopt the enthusiastic panegyric of
the old chronicler on whose simple narrative these statements rest, “if
you could live a hundred years without eating or drinking, and were to
give the whole time to study, you could not learn all that this young
man knew.”[74] The occasion to which this writer, quoting Monstrelet’s
Chronicle,[75] refers was the Royal Fête at Paris in 1445; so that
Fernando must have been born about 1425. Of his later history but little
is known. He was sent as ambassador to Rome in 1469, and died in 1480.
A Portuguese of the same period, Pedro de Covilham, is mentioned by
Damian a Goes in his curious book, _De Ethiopum Moribus_ in terms which,
if we could take them literally, should entitle him to a place among the
linguists. During the reign of John II. of Portugal (1481-95) Covilham,
who had already distinguished himself as an explorer under Alfonzo V.,
was sent, in company with Alfonzo de Payva, in search of the kingdom
of Prester John, which the traditional notions of the time placed in
Abyssinia. Payva died upon the expedition. Covilham, after visiting
India, the Persian Gulf, and exploring both the coasts of the Red Sea,
at length reached Abyssinia, where he was received with much distinction
by the King. He married in the country, and obtained large possessions;
but, in accordance with a law of Abyssinia[76] similar to that which
still exists in Japan, prohibiting any one who may have once settled in
the country ever again to leave it, he was compelled to adopt Abyssinia
as a second home. When, therefore, he was recalled by John II., the King
of Abyssinia refused to relinquish him, pleading “_that he was skilled
in almost all the languages of men_,”[77] and that he had made to him,
as his own adopted subject, large grants of land and other possessions.
Covilham, after a residence of thirty-three years, was still alive in
1525, when the embassy under Alvarez de Lima reached Abyssinia.
Very early in the sixteenth century, I find a notice of a Spanish convert
from Judaism, called in Latin “Libertas Cominetus” (_Libertas_ being,
in all probability, but the translation of his Hebrew patronymic,)
whose acquirements are more precisely defined. He was born at Cominedo,
towards the close of the fifteenth century, and renounced his creed
about 1525. His fellow-convert Galatinus, an Italian Jew, and himself
no mean linguist, describes Libertas in his work “_De Arcanis Catholicæ
Veritatis_,” as not only deeply versed in Holy Writ, but master of
fourteen languages.[78] The Biographical Dictionaries and other books of
reference are quite silent regarding him.
The name of Benedict Arias Montanus, editor of the so-called “King of
Spain’s Polyglot Bible,” is better known to Biblical students. He was
born at Frexenal[79] in Estremadura in 1527 and studied in the university
of Alcala, then in the first freshness of the reputation which it owed
to the magnificence of the great Cardinal Ximenes. Montanus entered the
order of St. James, and after accompanying the Bishop of Segovia to the
Council of Trent, where he appeared with great distinction, returned
to the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de los Angelos near Aracena, with
the intention of devoting himself entirely to study and prayer. From
this retreat, however, he was drawn by Philip II., who employed him
to edit a new Polyglot Bible on a more comprehensive plan than the
Complutensian Polyglot. On the completion of this task, Philip sought to
reward the learned editor by naming him to a bishopric; but Montanus
had humility and self-denial enough to decline the honour, and died an
humble chaplain, in 1598. The estimate formed by his contemporaries of
Montanus’s attainments in languages falls little short of the marvellous.
Le Mire describes him as _omnium fere gentium linguis et literis raro
exemplo excultus_; but we may more safely take his own modest statement
in the preface of his Polyglot, that he knew ten languages.[80]
The celebrated Father Martin Del Rio, best known perhaps to English
readers, since Sir Walter Scott’s pleasant sketch, by his vast work on
Demonology, was also a very distinguished linguist. Del Rio, although of
Spanish parentage, was born at Antwerp in May 1551. His first university
studies were made at Paris; but he received the Doctor’s degree at
Salamanca, and has merited a place in Baillet’s _Enfans Celebres_, by
publishing an edition of Solinus, with a learned commentary, before he
was twenty years old.[81] Del Rio’s talents and reputation opened for him
a splendid career; but he abandoned all his offices and all his prospects
of preferment, in order to enter the Society of the Jesuits at Valladolid
in 1580. According to Feyjoo,[82] Del Rio knew ten languages; and Baillet
would appear to imply even more, when he says that he was master of _at
least_ that number. Del Rio died at Louvain in 1608.
One of Del Rio’s most distinguished contemporaries, the celebrated
dramatic poet, Lope de Vega, although his celebrity rests upon a very
different foundation, was also a very respectable linguist, so far, at
least, as regards the modern languages. The extraordinary fecundity of
this author, especially when we consider his extremely chequered and
busy career as a secretary, a soldier, and eventually a priest, would
seem to preclude the possibility of his having applied himself to any
other pursuit than that of dramatic literature. The mere physical labour
of committing to paper (putting composition out of view altogether)
his _fifteen hundred_ versified plays,[83] three hundred interludes
and sacred dramas[84], ten epic poems, and eight prose novels, besides
an infinity of essays, prefaces, dedications, and other miscellaneous
pieces, would appear more than enough to occupy the very busiest human
life. Yet notwithstanding all this prodigious labour, Lope de Vega
contrived to find time for the acquisition of Greek, Latin, Italian,
Portuguese, French, and probably English! Well might Cervantes call him
“a Prodigy of Nature!”
Although the missionaries of Spain and Portugal are, as a body, less
distinguished in the department of languages than those of Italy, yet
there are some among them not inferior to the most eminent of their
Italian brethren. The great Coptic and Abyssinian scholar, Antonio
Fernandez, was a Portuguese Jesuit. He was born at Lisbon in 1566, and
entered the Jesuit society as a member of the Portuguese province of
the order. After a long preparatory training, he was sent, in 1602,
to Goa, the great centre of the missionary activity of Portugal. His
ultimate destination, however, was Abyssinia, which country he reached
in 1604, in the disguise of an Armenian. He resided in Abyssinia for
nearly thirty years, and was charged with a mission to the Pope Paul
III. and Philip IV. of Spain, from the king, who, under the influence of
the missionaries, had embraced the Catholic religion. Fernandez set out
with some native companions in 1615; but they were all made prisoners
at Alaba, and narrowly escaped being put to death; nor was he released
in the end, except on condition of relinquishing this intended mission,
and returning to Abyssinia. On the death of the king, who had so long
protected them, the whole body of Catholic missionaries were expelled
from Abyssinia by the new monarch in 1632; and Fernandez returned,
after a most chequered and eventful career, to Goa, where he died, ten
years later, in 1642. Of his acquirements in the Western languages, I
am unable to discover any particulars, but he was thoroughly versed in
Armenian, Coptic, and Amharic or Abyssinian, in both of which last named
languages he has left several ritual and ascetic works for the use of the
missionaries and native children.
The Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in America, too, (especially
those of the Jesuit order) rendered good service to the study of the
numerous native languages of both continents.[85] Most of the modern
learning on the subject is derived from their treatises, chiefly
manuscript, preserved by the Society.
Nor were the other orders less efficient. Padre Josef Carabantes, a
Capuchin of the province of Aragon, (born in 1648) wrote a most valuable
practical treatise for the use of missionaries, which was long a text
book in their hands.
One of the Portuguese missionaries in Abyssinia, Father Pedro Paez, who
succeeded Fernandez, and whose memory still lingers among the native
traditions of the people,[86] not only became thorough master of the
popular dialects of the various races of the Valley of the Nile, but
attained a proficiency in Gheez, the learned language of Abyssinia, not
equalled even by the natives themselves.[87] A Franciscan missionary
at Constantinople about the same time, mentioned by Cyril Lucaris, is
described by him as “acquainted with many languages;”[88] but I have not
been able to discover his name.
By far the most eminent linguist of the Peninsula, however, is the
learned Jesuit, Father Lorenzo Hervas-y-Pandura. He was born in 1735,
of a noble family, at Horcajo, in la Mancha. Having entered the Jesuit
society, he taught philosophy for some years in Madrid, and afterwards in
a convent in Murcia; but at length, happily for the interests of science
as well as of religion, he embraced a missionary career, and remained
attached to the Jesuit mission of America, until 1767. On the suppression
of the order, Father Hervas settled at Cesena, and devoted himself to
his early philosophical studies, which, however, he ultimately, in a
great measure, relinquished in order to apply himself to literature and
especially to philology. When the members of the society were permitted
to re-establish themselves in Spain, Hervas went to Catalonia; but he was
obliged to return to Italy, and settled at Rome, where he was named by
Pius VII. keeper of the Vatican Library. In this honourable charge he
remained till his death in 1809.
Father Hervas may with truth be pronounced one of the most meritorious
scholars of modern times. His works are exceedingly numerous; and, beside
his favourite pursuit, philology, embrace almost every other conceivable
subject, theology, mathematics, history, general and local, palæography;
not to speak of an extensive collection of works connected with the
order, which he edited, and a translation of Bercastel’s History of the
Church, (with a continuation), executed, if not by himself, at least
under his superintendence. Besides all the stupendous labour implied
in these diversified undertakings, Father Hervas has the still further
merit of having devoted himself to the subject of the instruction of the
deaf-mute, for whose use he devised a little series of publications, and
published a very valuable essay on the principles to be followed in their
instruction.[89]
Our only present concern, however, is with his philological and
linguistic publications, especially in so far as they evince a knowledge
of languages. They form part of a great work in twenty-one 4to. volumes,
entitled _Idea dell’ Universo_; and were printed at intervals, at Cesena,
in Italian, from which language they were translated into Spanish by
his friends and associates, and republished in Spain. It will only be
necessary to particularize one or two of them—the _Saggio Prattico delle
Lingue_, which consists of a collection of the Lord’s Prayer in three
hundred and seven languages, together with other specimens of twenty-two
additional languages, in which the author was unable to obtain a version
of the Lord’s Prayer, all illustrated by grammatical analyses and
annotations; and the _Catalogo delle Lingue conosciute, e Notizia delle
loro Affinità e Diversità_.[90] In the compilation of these, and his
other collections, it is true, Hervas had the advantage, not alone of
his own extensive travel, and of his own laborious research, but also of
the aid of his brethren; and this in an Order which numbered among its
members, men to whose adventurous spirit every corner of the world had
been familiar:—
“In Greenland’s icy mountains,
On India’s coral strand,
Where Afric’s sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.”
But he, himself, compiled grammars of no less than eighteen of the
languages of America; which, with the liberality of true science, he
freely communicated to William von Humboldt for publication in the
_Mithridates_ of Adelung. He was a most refined classical scholar and a
profound Orientalist. He was perfectly familiar, besides, with almost
all the European languages; and, wide as is the range of tongues which
his published works embrace, his critical and grammatical notes and
observations, even upon the most obscure and least known of the languages
which they contain, although in many cases they have of course all the
imperfections of a first essay, exhibit, even in their occasional errors,
a vigorous and original mind.
The name of Father Hervas-y-Pandura is a fitting close to the
distinguished line of linguistic “Glorias de España.”
§ IV. FRENCH LINGUISTS.
The University of Paris did not enter into the study of languages so
early, or with so much zeal as the rival schools of Spain and Italy.
* * * * *
The first[91] great name in this department which we meet in the history
of French letters, is that of the celebrated Rabbinical scholar, William
Postel. This extraordinary man was born at Dolerie in 1510. Having lost
both his parents at a very early age, he was left entirely dependent
upon his own exertions for support; and, with that indomitable energy
which often accompanies the love of knowledge, he began, from his very
boyhood, a systematic course of self-denial, by which he hoped to realize
the means of prosecuting the studies for which he had conceived an early
predilection. Having scraped together, in the laborious and irksome
occupation of a school-master, what he regarded as a sufficient sum for
his modest wants, he repaired to Paris; but he had scarcely reached
that city, when he was robbed by some designing sharpers, of the fruits
of all his years of self-denial; and a long illness into which he was
thrown by the chagrin and privation which ensued, reduced him to the
last extremity. Even still, however, his spirit was unbroken. He went to
Beauce, where, by working as a daily labourer, he earned the means of
returning to Paris as a poor scholar. Presenting himself at the College
of Saint Barbara, he obtained a place as a servant, with permission to
attend the lectures; and having in some way got possession of a Hebrew
grammar, he contrived, in his stolen half hours of leisure, to master
the language so thoroughly, that in a short time his preceptors found
themselves outstripped by their singular dependent.
His reputation as an Oriental scholar spread rapidly. When La Fôret’s
memorable embassy to the Sultan was being organized by Francis I., the
king was recommended to entrust to Postel a literary mission, somewhat
similar to that undertaken during the reign of Louis Philippe, at the
instance of M. de Villemain, one of the objects of which was to collect
Greek and Oriental MSS. It was on his return from this expedition, (in
which he visited Constantinople, Greece, Asia Minor, and part of Syria,)
that Postel met Teseo Ambrosio at Venice, and published what may be
said to have been the first systematic attempt as yet made to bring
together materials for the philosophical investigation of the science of
language—being a collection of the alphabets of twelve languages, with a
slight account of each among the number.[92] He was soon after appointed
Professor of Mathematics, and also of Oriental Languages, in the College
de France; but the wild and visionary character of his mind appears to
have been quite unsuited to any settled pursuit. He had conceived the
idea that he was divinely called to the mission of uniting all Christians
into one community, the head of which he recognized in Francis I. of
France, whom he maintained to be the lineal descendant of Sem, the eldest
of the sons of Noah. Under the notion that this was his pre-ordained
vocation, he refused to accompany La Fôret on a second mission to the
East, although he was pressed to do so by the king himself, and a sum
of four thousand crowns was placed at his disposal for the purchase of
manuscripts. He offered himself, in preference, to the newly founded
society of the Jesuits; but his unsuitableness for that state soon became
so apparent, that St. Ignatius of Loyola, then superior of the society,
refused to receive him. After many wanderings in France, Italy, and
Germany, and an imprisonment in Venice, (where his fanaticism reached its
greatest height,) he undertook a second expedition to the East, in 1549,
whence he returned in 1551, with a large number of valuable MSS. obtained
through the French ambassador, D’Aramont, but wilder and more visionary
than ever. He resumed his lectures in the College des Lombards, now the
property of the Irish College in Paris. The crowds who flocked to hear
him were so great, that they were obliged to assemble in the court, where
he addressed them from one of the windows. His subsequent career was a
strange alternation of successes and embroilments. The Emperor Ferdinand
invited him to Vienna, as Professor of Mathematics. While there, he
assisted Widmandstadt in the preparation of his Syriac New Testament.
He left Vienna, however, after a short residence, and betook himself to
Italy, in 1554 or 1555. He was put into prison in Rome, but liberated in
1557. In 1562 he returned to Paris. The extravagancies of his conduct
and his teaching led to his being placed under a kind of honourable
surveillance, in 1564, in the monastery of St. Martin des Champs, near
Paris. Yet so interesting was his conversation that crowds of the most
distinguished of all orders continued to visit him in this retreat till
his death in 1581. Postel’s attainments in languages living or dead, were
undoubtedly most extensive. Not reckoning the modern languages, which
he may be presumed to have known, his Introduction exhibits a certain
familiarity with not less than twelve languages, chiefly eastern; and he
is said to have been able to converse in most of the living languages
known in his time. Duret states, as a matter notorious to all the
learned, that he “knew, understood, and spoke fifteen languages;”[93] and
it was his own favourite boast, that he could traverse the entire world
without once calling in the aid of an interpreter. In addition to his
labours as a linguist, Postel was a most prolific writer. Fifty-seven of
his works are enumerated by his biographer.
It is to this learned but eccentric scholar that we owe the idea
of the well-known polyglot collections of the Lord’s Prayer. These
compilations as carried out by later collectors, have rendered such
service to philology, that, although many of their authors were little
more than mere compilers, and have but slender claims to be considered
as linguists, in the higher sense of the word, it would be unpardonable
to pass them over without notice in a Memoir like the present. Towards
the close of the fourteenth century, a Hungarian soldier named John
Schildberger, while serving in a campaign against the Turks in Hungary,
was made prisoner by the enemy; and on his return home, after a captivity
of thirty-two years, published (in 1428) an account of his adventures. He
appended to his travels, as a specimen of the languages of the countries
in which he had sojourned, the Lord’s Prayer in Armenian, and also in
the Tartar tongue. This, however, was a mere traveller’s curiosity:
but Postel’s publication (Paris, 1558) is more scientific. It contains
specimens of the characters of twelve different languages, in five of
which—Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Armenian, the Pater Noster is
printed both in Roman characters and in those of the several languages.
This infant essay of Postel was followed, ten years after, by the
collection of Theodore Bibliander, (the classicized form of the German
name _Buchmann_,) which contains fourteen different Pater Nosters. Conrad
Gesner, in 1555, increased the number to twenty-two, to which Angelo
Rocea, an Augustinian Bishop, added three more (one of them Chinese) in
1591. Jerome Megiser, in 1592, extended the catalogue to forty. John
Baptist Gramaye, a professor in Louvain, made a still more considerable
stride in advance. He was taken prisoner by the Algerine corsairs, in the
beginning of the next century, and after his return to Europe, collected
no fewer than a hundred different versions of the Pater Noster, which he
published in 1622. But his work seems to have attracted little notice;
for more than forty years later, (1668) a collection made by Bishop
Wilkins, the learned linguist, to whom I shall hereafter return, contains
no more than fifty.
In all these, however, the only object appears to have been to collect
as large a number of languages as possible, without any attention to
critical arrangement. But, in the latter part of the same century,
the collection of Andrew Müller (which comprises eighty-three Pater
Nosters) exhibits a considerable advance in this particular. Men began,
too, to arrange and classify the various families. Francis Junius
(Van der Yonghe) published the Lord’s Prayer in nineteen different
languages of the German family; and Nicholas Witsen devoted himself to
the languages of Northern Asia—the great Siberian family,—in eleven
of which he published the Lord’s Prayer in 1692. This improvement in
scientific arrangement, however, was not universal; for although the
great collection of John Chamberlayne and David Wilkins, printed at
Amsterdam in 1715, contains the Lord’s Prayer in a hundred and fifty-two
languages, and that of Christian Frederic Gesner—the well-known
_Orientalischer und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister_ (Leipzic 1748)—in
two hundred, they are both equally compiled upon the old plan, and have
little value except as mere specimens of the various languages which they
contain.[94]
It is not so with a collection already described, which was published
near the close of the same century, by a learned Spanish Jesuit,
Don Lorenzo Hervas y Pandura. It is but one of that vast variety of
philological works from the same prolific pen which, as I have stated,
appeared, year after year, in Cesena, originally in Italian, though they
were all afterwards published in a Spanish translation, in the author’s
native country. Father Hervas’s collection, it will be remembered,
contains the Lord’s Prayer in no less than _three hundred and seven_
languages, besides hymns and other prayers in twenty-two additional
dialects, in which the author was not able to find the Pater Noster.
Almost at the very same time with this important publication of Hervas,
a more extensive philological work made its appearance in the extreme
north, under the patronage and indeed the direct inspiration, of the
Empress Catherine II. of Russia. The plan of this compilation was more
comprehensive than that of the collections of the Lord’s Prayer. It
consisted of a Vocabulary of two hundred and seventy-three familiar and
ordinary words, in part selected by the Empress herself, and drawn up
in her own hand. This Vocabulary, which is very judiciously chosen, is
translated into two hundred and one languages. The compilation of this
vast comparative catalogue of words was entrusted to the celebrated
philologer, Pallas, assisted by all the eminent scholars of the northern
capital; among whom the most efficient seems to have been Bakmeister, the
Librarian of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. The opportunities
afforded by the patronage of a sovereign who held at her disposition the
services of the functionaries of a vast, and, in the literal sense of
the word, a polyglot empire like Russia, were turned to the best account.
Languages entirely beyond the reach of private research, were unlocked
at her command; and the rude and hitherto almost unnamed dialects of
Siberia, of Northern Asia, of the Halieutian islanders, and the nomadic
tribes of the Arctic shores, find a place in this monster vocabulary,
beside the more polished tongues of Europe and the East. Nevertheless,
the Vocabulary of Pallas (probably from the circumstance of its being
printed altogether in the Russian character)[95] is but little familiar
to our philologers, and is chiefly known from the valuable materials
which it supplied to Adelung and his colleagues in the compilation of the
well-known _Mithridates_.
The _Mithridates_ of Adelung closes this long series of philological
collections; but although in its general plan, it is only an expansion
of the original idea of the first simple traveller who presented to his
countrymen, as specimens of the languages of the countries which he had
visited, versions in each language of the Prayer which is most familiar
to every Christian, yet it is not only far more extensive in its range
than any of its predecessors, but also infinitely more philosophical
in its method. There can be no doubt that the selection of a prayer so
idiomatical, and so constrained in its form as the Lord’s Prayer, was far
from judicious. As a specimen of the structure of the various languages,
the choice of it was singularly infelicitous; and the utter disregard of
the principles of criticism (and in truth of everything beyond the mere
multiplication of specimens), which marks all the early collections, is
an additional aggravation of its original defect. But it is not so in the
_Mithridates_ of Adelung. It retains the Lord’s Prayer, it is true, like
the rest, as the specimen (although not the only one) of each language;
but it abandons the unscientific arrangement of the older collections,
the languages being distributed into groups according to their
ethnographical affinities. The versions, too, are much more carefully
made; they are accompanied by notes and critical illustrations; and in
general, each language or dialect, with the literature bearing upon it,
is minutely and elaborately described. In a word, the _Mithridates_,
although, as might be expected, still falling far short of perfection, is
a strictly philosophical contribution to the study of ethnography; and
has formed the basis, as well as the text, of the researches of all the
masters in the modern schools of comparative philology.[96]
To return, however, to the personal history of linguists, from which we
have been called aside by the mention of the work of Postel.
A celebrity as a linguist equally distinguished, and even more unamiable,
than Postel’s, is that of his countryman and contemporary, the younger of
the two Scaligers.
Joseph Justus Scaliger was born at Agen in 1544, and made his school
studies at Bordeaux, where he was only remarkable for his exceeding
dulness, having spent three years in a fruitless, though painfully
laborious, attempt to master the first rudiments of the Latin language.
These clouds of the morning, however, were but the prelude of a brilliant
day. His after successes were proportionately rapid and complete. The
stories which are told of him seem almost legendary. He is said to have
read the entire Iliad and Odyssey in twenty-one days, and to have run
through the Greek dramatists and lyric poets in four months. He was but
seventeen years old when he produced his Œdipus. At the same age he was
able to speak Hebrew with all the fluency of a Rabbi. His application
to study was unremitting, and his powers of endurance are described as
beyond all example. He himself tells, that even in the darkness of the
night, when he awoke from his brief slumbers, he was able to read without
lighting his lamp![97] So powerful, according to his own account, was
his eye-sight, that like the knight of Deloraine:—
“Alike to him was tide and time,
Moonless midnight, and matin prime!”
After a brilliant career at Paris, he was invited to occupy the chair
of Belles Lettres at Leyden, where the best part of his life was spent.
Like most eminent linguists, Scaliger possessed the faculty of memory in
an extraordinary degree. He could repeat eighty couplets of poetry after
a single reading: he knew by heart every line of his own compositions,
and it was said of him that he never forgot anything which he had learnt
once. But with all his gifts and all his accomplishments, he contrived
to render himself an object of general dislike, or at least of general
dis-esteem. His vanity was insufferable; and it was of that peculiarly
offensive kind which is only gratified at the expense of the depreciation
of others. His life was a series of literary quarrels; and in the whole
annals of literary polemics, there are none with which, for acrimony,
virulence, and ferocity of vituperation, these quarrels may not compete.
And hence, although there is hardly a subject, literary, antiquarian,
philological, or critical, on which he has not written, and (for his
age) written well, there are few, nevertheless, who have exercised less
influence upon contemporary opinion. Scaliger spoke thirteen languages,
in the study of which Baillet[98] says he never used either a dictionary
or a grammar. He himself declares the same. The languages ascribed to him
are strangely jumbled together in the following lines of Du Bartas:—
—————“Scaliger, merveille de notre age,
Soleil des savants, qui parle elegamment
Hebreu, Greçois, Romain, Espagnol, Allemand,
François, Italien, Nubien, Arabique,
Syriaque, Persian, Anglois, Chaldaique.”[99]
In his case it is difficult, as in most others, to ascertain the degree
of his familiarity with each of these. To Du Bartas’s poetical epithet,
_elegamment_, of course, no importance is to be attached; and it would
perhaps be equally unsafe to rely on the depreciatory representations
of his literary antagonists. One thing, at least, is certain, that he
himself made the most of his accomplishment. He was not the man to hide
his light from any overweening delicacy. He was one of the greatest
boasters of his own or any other time. In one place he boasts that there
is no language in which he could write with such elegance as Arabic.[100]
In another he professes to write Syriac as well as the Syrians
themselves.[101] And it is curiously significant of the reputation which
he commonly enjoyed, that the wits of his own day used to say that there
was one particular department of each language in which there could be no
doubt of his powers—its Billingsgate vocabulary! There was not one, they
confessed, of the thirteen languages to which he laid claim, in which he
was not fully qualified to scold![102]
The eminent botanist, Charles Le Cluse, (Clusius), a contemporary of
Scaliger, can hardly be called a great linguist, as his studies were
chiefly confined to the modern European languages, with several of which
he was thoroughly conversant; but he is remarkable as having contributed,
by a familiarity with modern languages very rare among the naturalists of
his day, to settle the comparative popular nomenclature of his science.
He is even still a high authority on this curious branch of botanical
study.
The reader who remembers the extraordinary reputation enjoyed among his
contemporaries by the learned Nicholas Peiresc, may be disappointed at
finding him overlooked in this enumeration: but, as of his extraordinary
erudition he has left no permanent fruit in literature, so of his
acquirements as a linguist no authentic record has been preserved. The
same is true of his friend, Galaup de Chasteuil, a less showy, perhaps,
but better read orientalist. Through devotion to these studies, quite
as much as under the influence of religious feeling, Chasteuil made a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, in 1631, permanently fixed his abode
in Palestine; and so thoroughly conversant did he become, not only with
the language and literature, but also with the manners, usages and
feelings of the Maronites of the Lebanon, that, on the death of their
patriarch, despite the national predilections by which all Easterns are
characterized, they desired to elect him, a Western as he was, head of
their national church.[103] Lewis de Dieu, the two Morins—Stephen, the
Calvinist minister, and John, the learned Oratorian convert—the two
Cappels, Lewis and James, and even the celebrated D’Herbelot, author of
the _Bibliothèque Orientale_, all belong rather to the class of oriental
scholars than of linguists in the popular acceptation of the word. The
two Cappels, as well as their adversaries, the Buxtorfs, are best known
in connexion with the controversy about the Masoretic Points.
One of the writers named in a previous page, Claude Duret, although
Adelung[104] could not discover any particulars regarding him, beyond
those which are detailed in the title of his book, (where he is merely
described as “Bourbonnais, President a Moulins,”) nevertheless deserves
very special mention on account of the extensive and curious learning,
not alone in languages, but also in general literature, history and
science, which characterize his rare work, _Thresor de l’Histoire des
Langues de cet Univers_.[105] This work is undoubtedly far from being
exempt from grave inaccuracies; but it is nevertheless, for its age,
a marvel, as well of curious learning and extensive research, as of
acquaintance with a great many (according to one account, seventeen,)
languages, both of the East and of the West.[106] How much of this,
however, is mere book-scholarship, and how much is real familiarity, it
is impossible, in the absence of all details of the writer’s personal
history, to decide.
Although far from being so universal a linguist as Duret, the great
biblical scholar, Samuel Bochart (born at Rouen in 1599) was much
superior to him in his knowledge of Hebrew and the cognate languages,
Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and even Coptic. His _Hierozoicon_ and
_Geographia Sacra_, as monuments of philological as well as antiquarian
knowledge, have maintained a high reputation even to the present time,
notwithstanding the advantages enjoyed by modern students of biblical
antiquities and history.[107]
Bochart’s pupil and his friend in early life, (although they were
bitterly alienated from each other at a later period, and although
Bochart’s death is painfully associated with their literary quarrel[108])
the celebrated Peter Daniel Huet, can hardly deserve a place in the
catalogue of French linguists; but he was at least a liberal and
enlightened patron of the study.
Many of the French missionaries of the seventeenth century would deserve
a place in this series, and among them especially Francis Picquet, who,
after serving for several years as French consul at Aleppo, embraced a
missionary life, and at last was consecrated Archbishop of Bagdad in
1674. Le Jay, the projector and editor of the well-known polyglot Bible
which appeared in France a few years before the rival publication of
Brian Walton, though he is often spoken of as the mere patron of the
undertaking, was in reality a very profound and accomplished Orientalist.
The same may be said of Rapheleng, the son-in-law of Plantin, and often
described as his mere assistant in the publication of the King of
Spain’s Polyglot Bible. Matthew Veysiere de la Croze, too, the apostate
Benedictine, although a superficial scholar and a hasty and inaccurate
historian, was a very able linguist.
But, as we descend lower in the history of this generation of French
linguists, we find comparatively few names which, for variety of
attainments, can be compared with those of Italy or Germany. Beyond the
cultivation of the Biblical languages, little was done in France for this
department of study during the rest of the seventeenth century. There
seems but too much reason to believe that the reputation of the learned
but pedantic Menage as a linguist, is extravagantly exaggerated. He was
an accomplished classicist, and his acquaintance with modern languages
was tolerably extensive. He was a good etymologist, too, according
to the servile and unscientific system of the age. But his claims to
Oriental scholarship appear very questionable. And in truth during this
entire period, if it were not for the interest of the controversy above
referred to, on the antiquity and authority of the Masoretic Points,
it might almost be said that Oriental studies had fallen entirely into
disuse in France. Even of those who took a part in that discussion, the
name of Masclef (who knew Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic,
with perhaps some of the modern languages) is the only one which can
approach the rank of the higher masters of the study. The three Buxtorfs
(father, son, and grandson), Guarin, and even Girandeau, were mere
Hebraists; patient and accurate scholars, it is true, but with few of the
characteristics of an eminent linguist. La Bletterie can hardly claim
even this qualified reputation.
There is one brilliant exception—the eminent historian and
controversialist, Eusebius Renaudot. He was born at Paris in 1646. Having
made his classical studies under the Jesuits, and those of Philosophy in
the College d’Harcourt, he entered the congregation of the Oratory. But
he very soon quitted that society; and, although he continued to wear the
ecclesiastical dress, he never took holy orders. His life, however, was
a model of piety and of every Christian virtue; and it was his peculiar
merit that, while many of his closest friends and most intimate literary
allies were members of the Jansenist party, Renaudot was inflexible
in his devotion to the judgment of the Holy See. His first linguistic
studies lay among the Oriental languages, the rich fruit of which we
still possess in his invaluable Collection of Oriental Liturgies, and in
the last two volumes of the _Perpetuitè de la Foi sur l’Eucharistie_,
which are also from his prolific pen. But he soon extended his researches
into other fields; and he is said to have been master of seventeen
languages,[109] the major part of which he spoke with ease and fluency.
But Renaudot stands almost alone.[110] The only names which may claim to
be placed in comparison with his, are those of the two Petis, François
Petis, and François Petis de la Croix. The latter especially, who
succeeded his father as royal Oriental interpreter, under Lewis XIV., and
made several expeditions to the East in this capacity, was well versed,
not only in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Tartar, but also in Coptic and
Armenian. His translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments is the
work by which he is best known; but his dissertations and collections on
Oriental history are full of valuable learning. The eighteenth century
in France was a period of greater activity. Etienne Fourmont, although
born in 1683, belongs properly to the eighteenth century. He is often
cited as an example of extraordinary powers of memory, having, when a
mere boy, learnt by rote the whole list of Greek Roots in the Port Royal
Treatise, so as to repeat them in every conceivable order. He soon after
published in French verse all the roots of the Latin language. But it is
as an Orientalist that he is chiefly remarkable. He was appointed to the
chair of Arabic in the College Royal, and also to the office of Oriental
interpreter in the Bibliothèque du Roi; and soon established such a
reputation as an Orientalist, that he was consulted on philological
questions by the learned of every country in Europe. He was thoroughly
master of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian, and was one of the
first French scholars who, without having visited China,[111] attained to
any notable proficiency in Chinese.
His nephew, Michael Angelo Deshauterayes, born at Conflans Ste. Honorine,
near Pontoise, 1724, was even more precocious. At the age of ten, he
commenced his studies under Fourmont’s superintendence. He thus became
familiar at an early age with Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Chinese; so
that in his twenty-second year he was appointed to succeed his uncle as
Oriental Interpreter to the Royal Library, to which post, a few years
later, was added the Arabic professorship in the College de France. In
these employments he devoted himself to Oriental studies for above thirty
years.
Another pupil of Fourmont, Joseph de Guignes, born at Pontoise in 1721,
attained equal eminence as an Orientalist. At Fourmont’s death, he
was associated with the last named linguist on the staff of the Royal
Library. But De Guignes’ merit in the department of Oriental history and
antiquities, has almost overshadowed his reputation as a mere linguist,
although he was a proficient in all the principal Eastern languages, and
in many of those of Europe. His History of the Huns, Turks, Moguls, and
other Tartar nations, notwithstanding that many of its views are now
discarded, is still regarded as a repertory of Oriental learning; and,
while both in this and also in some others of his works, De Guignes is
often visionary and even paradoxical,[112] he is acknowledged to have
done more for Chinese literature in France, than any linguist before Abel
Remusat; nor is there one of the scholars of the eighteenth century, who
in the spirit, if not in the letter, of the views which he put forward,
comes so near to the more enlarged and more judicious theories of the
scholars of our own day, on the general questions of philology.
From the days of De Guignes the higher departments of linguistic science
fell for a time into disrepute in France; but a powerful impulse
was given to the practical cultivation of Oriental languages by the
diplomatic relations of that kingdom with Constantinople and the Levant.
The official appointments connected with that service served to supply
at once a stimulus to the study and an opportunity for its practice.
Cardonne, Ruffin,[113] Legrand, Kieffer, Venture de Paradis, and Langlés,
were all either trained in that school, or devoted themselves to the
study as a preparation for it.
Of these, perhaps John Michael Venture De Paradis is the most remarkable.
His father had been French Consul in the Crimea, and in various cities
of the Levant, and appears to have educated the boy with a special
view to the Oriental diplomatic service. From the College de Louis le
Grand, he was transferred, at the age of fifteen, to Constantinople,
and, before he had completed his twenty-second year, he was appointed
interpreter of the French embassy in Syria. Thence he passed into
Egypt in the same capacity, and, in 1777, accompanied Baron de Tott in
his tour of inspection of the French establishments in the Levant. He
was sent afterwards to Tunis, to Constantinople, and to Algiers; and
eventually was attached to the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, with
the Professorship of Oriental Languages. His last service was in the
memorable Egyptian expedition under Bonaparte, in which he fell a victim
to fatigue, and the evil effects of the climate, in 1799.[114]
Lewis Matthew Langlés[115] was a Picard, born at Peronne, in 1763. From
his boyhood he too was destined for the diplomatic service; and studied
first at Montdidier, and afterwards in Paris, where he obtained an
employment which afforded him considerable leisure for the pursuit of
his favourite studies. He learned Arabic under Caussin de Perceval, and
Persian under Ruffin. Soon afterwards, however, he engaged in the study
of Mantchu, and in some time became such a proficient in that language,
that he was entrusted with the task of editing the Mantchu Dictionary
of Pere Amiot. From that time his reputation was established, at least
with the general public. His subsequent publications in every department
of languages are numerous beyond all precedent. He had the reputation
of knowing, besides the learned languages, Chinese, Tartar, Japanese,
Sanscrit, Malay, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. But it must be
added that the solidity of these attainments has been gravely impeached,
and that by many he is regarded more as a charlatan than as a scholar.
No such cloud hangs over the fame of, after De Guignes, the true reviver
of Chinese literature, Abel Remusat.[116] He was born at Paris in 1788,
and brought up to the medical profession; and it may almost be said that
the only time devoted by him to his early linguistic studies was stolen
from the laborious preparation for the less congenial career to which
he was destined by his father. By a very unusual preference, he applied
himself, almost from the first, to the Chinese and Tartar languages. Too
poor to afford the expensive luxury of a Chinese dictionary, he compiled,
with incredible labour, a vocabulary for his own use; and the interest
created at once by the success of his studies, and by the unexampled
devotedness with which they were pursued, were so great as to procure
for him, at the unanimous instance of the Academy of Inscriptions, the
favour, at that period rare and difficult, of exemption from the chances
of military conscription. From that time forward he applied himself
unremittingly to philological pursuits; and, although he was admitted
doctor of the faculty of medicine, at Paris in 1813, he never appears to
have practised actively in the profession. On the creation of the two
new chairs of Chinese and Sanscrit, in the College de France, after the
Restoration, Remusat was appointed to the former, in November, 1814;
from which period he gave himself up entirely to literature. He was
speedily admitted into all the learned societies both of Paris and of
other countries; and in 1818 he became one of the editors of the _Journal
des Savans_. On the establishment (in which he had a chief part,) of the
Société Asiatique, in 1822, he was named its perpetual secretary; and,
on the death of Langlés, in 1824, he succeeded to the charge of keeper
of Oriental MSS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi. This office he continued to
hold till his early and universally lamented death in 1832. Remusat’s
eminence lay more in the depth and accuracy of his scholarship in
the one great branch of Oriental languages, which he selected as his
own—those of Eastern Asia—and in the profoundly philosophical spirit
which he brought to the investigation of the relations of these languages
to each other, and to the other great families of the earth, than in the
numerical extent of his acquaintance with particular languages. But this,
too, was such as to place him in the very first rank of linguists.
A few words must suffice for the French school since Remusat, although it
has held a very distinguished place in philological science. The Société
Asiatique, founded at Remusat’s instance, and for many years directed
by him as secretary, has not only produced many eminent individual
philologers, as De Sacy, Quatremere, Champollion, Renan, Fresnel, and
De Merian; but, what is far more important, it has successfully carried
out a systematic scheme of investigation, by which alone it is possible,
in so vast a subject, to arrive at satisfactory results. M. Stanislas
Julien’s researches in Chinese; M. Dulaurier’s in the Malay languages;
Father Marcoux’s in the American Indian; Eugene Bournouf’s in those of
Persia; the brothers Antoine and Arnauld d’Abbadie in the languages of
East Africa, and especially in the hitherto almost unknown Abyssinian
and Ethiopian families; Eugene Borè in Armenian;[117] M. Fresnel’s
explorations among the tribes of the western shores of the Red Sea; and
many similar successful investigations of particular departments, are
contributing to lay up such a body of facts, as cannot fail to afford
sure and reliable data for the scientific solution by the philologers
of the coming generation, of those great problems in the science of
language, on which their fathers could only speculate as a theory, and
at the best could but address themselves in conjecture. Although I have
no intention of entering into the subject of living French linguists,
yet there is one of the gentlemen whom I have mentioned, M. Fulgence
Fresnel, whom I cannot refrain from alluding to before I pass from
the subject of French philology. His name is probably familiar to the
public at large, in connexion with the explorations of the French at
Nineveh; but he is long known to the readers of the Journal Asiatique
as a linguist not unworthy of the very highest rank in that branch of
scholarship. M. d’Abbadie,[118] himself a most accomplished linguist,
informed me that M. Fresnel, although exceedingly modest on the subject
of his attainments, has the reputation of knowing twenty languages. The
facility with which he has acquired some of these languages almost rivals
the fame of Mezzofanti. M. Arago having suggested on one occasion the
desirableness of a French translation of Berzelius’s Swedish Treatise
“On the Blow-pipe,” Fresnel at once set about learning Swedish, and in
three months had completed the desired translation! He reads fluently
Hebrew, Greek, Romaic, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and
what little is known of the Hieroglyphical language. He is second only
to Lane as an Arabic scholar. Among the less known languages of which M.
Fresnel is master, M. d’Abbadie heard him speak a few sentences of one,
of which he may be said to have himself been the discoverer, and which
is, in some respects, completely anomalous. M. Fresnel describes this
curious language in the Journal Asiatique, July, 1838. It is spoken by
the savages of Mahrak; and as it is not reducible to any of the three
families, the Aramaic, the Canaanitic, or the Arabic, of which, according
to Gesenius, the Ethiopic is an elder branch, M. Fresnel believes it to
be the very language spoken by the Queen of Saba! Its present seat is in
the mountainous district of Hhacik, Mirbât, and Zhafâr. Its most singular
characteristic consists in its articulations, which are exceedingly
difficult and most peculiar. Besides all the nasal sounds of the French
and Portuguese, and that described as the “sputtered sound” of the
Amharic, this strange tongue has three articulations, which can only be
enunciated with _the right side of the mouth_; and the act of uttering
them produces a contortion which destroys the symmetry of the features!
M. Fresnel describes it as “horrible, both to hear and to see spoken.”
Endeavouring to represent the force of one of these sounds by the letters
_hh_, he calls the language _Ehhkili_.[119]
§ V. LINGUISTS OF THE TEUTONIC RACE.[120]
If we abstract from the Sacred Languages, the German scholars were slow
in turning themselves to Oriental studies.
John Müller, of Königsberg, commonly known as Regiomontanus, although he
had the highest repute for learning of all the German scholars of the
fifteenth century, does not appear to have gone beyond the classical
languages. Martin Luther, Reuchlin,[121] Ulrich Van Hutten, Hoogenstraet,
were Hebraists and no more; and John Widmanstadt, when he wished to study
Arabic, was forced to make a voyage to Spain expressly for the purpose.
* * * * *
The first student of German race at all distinguished by scholarship in
languages, was Theodore Bibliander,[122] who, besides Greek and Hebrew,
was also well versed in Arabic, and probably in many other Oriental
tongues.[123] The celebrated naturalist, Conrad Gesner, though perhaps
not so solidly versed as Bibliander, in any one language, appears to have
possessed a certain acquaintance with a greater number. His _Mithridates;
de Differentiis Linguarum_,[124] resembles in plan as well as in name,
the great work of Adelung. The number and variety of the languages which
it comprises is extraordinary for the period. It contains the Pater
Noster in twenty-two of these; and, although the observations on many of
the specimens are exceedingly brief and unsatisfactory, yet they often
exhibit much curious learning, and no mean familiarity with the language
to which they belong.[125] Gesner’s success as a linguist is the more
remarkable, inasmuch as that study by no means formed his principal
pursuit. Botany and Natural History might much better be called the real
business of his literary life. Accordingly, Beza says of him, that he
united in his person the very opposite genius of Varro and Pliny; and,
although he died at the comparatively early age of forty-nine, his works
on Natural History fill nearly a dozen folio volumes. Both Gesner and
Bibliander fell victims, one in 1564, the other in 1565, to the great
plague of the sixteenth century.
Jerome Megiser, who, towards the close of the same century compiled the
more extensive polyglot collection of Pater Nosters already referred to,
need scarcely be noticed. He is described by Adelung,[126] as a man of
various, but trivial and superficial learning.
Not so another German scholar of the same age, Jacob Christmann, of
Maintz. Christmann was no less distinguished as a philosopher than as a
linguist. He held for many years at Heidelberg the seemingly incompatible
professorships of Hebrew, Arabic, and Logic, and is described as
deeply versed in all the ancient and modern languages, as well as in
mathematical and astronomical science.[127]
It would be unjust to overlook the scholars of the Low Countries during
the same period. Some of these, as for example, Drusius, and the three
Schultens, father, son, and grandson, were chiefly remarkable as
Hebraists. But there are many others, both of the Belgian and the Dutch
schools, whose scholarship was of a very high order. Among the former,
Andrew Maes (Masius,) deserves a very special notice. He was born in
1536, at Linnich in the diocese of Courtrai. In 1553 he was sent to
Rome as chargé d’affaires. During his residence there, in addition to
Greek, Latin, Spanish, and other European languages, with which he was
already familiar, he made himself master, not only of Italian, but also
of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. He is said[128] to have assisted Arias
Montanus in the compilation of his Polyglot Bible; but of this no mention
is made by Montanus in the preface. No doubt, however, can be entertained
of his great capacity as an Orientalist; and Sebastian Munster used to
say of him that he seemed to have been brought up among the Hebrews, and
to have lived in the classic days of the Roman Empire. About the same
period, or a few years later, David Haecx published his dictionary of the
Malay languages, one of the earliest contributions to the study of that
curious family. Haecx, though he spent his life in Rome, was a native of
Antwerp.
John Baptist Gramaye, already named as a collector of Pater Nosters,
acquired some reputation as one of the first contributors to the history
of the languages of Africa, although his work is described by Adelung as
very inaccurate. Gramaye was a native of Antwerp, and became provost of
Arnheim and historiographer of the Low Countries. On a voyage from Italy
to Spain, he fell into the hands of Algerine corsairs, who carried him to
Algiers. There he was sold as a slave, and was detained a considerable
time in Barbary. Having at length obtained his liberty, he published,
after his return, a diary of his captivity, a descriptive history of
Africa, and a polyglot collection of Pater Nosters, among which are
several African languages not previously known in Europe.[129] Very
little, however, is known of his own personal acquirements, which are
noticeable, perhaps, rather on account of their unusual character, than
of their great extent or variety.
Some of the linguists of Holland may claim a higher rank. The well-known
Arabic scholar, Erpenius, (Thomas Van Erpen,) was also acquainted with
several other Oriental languages, Hebrew, Chaldee, Persian, Turkish, and
Ethiopic. His countryman and successor in the chair of Oriental languages
at Leyden, James Golius, was hardly less distinguished. Peter Golius,
brother of James, who entered the Carmelite Order and spent many years
as a missionary in Syria and other parts of the East, became equally
celebrated in Rome for his Oriental scholarship. In all these three cases
the knowledge of the languages was not a mere knowledge of books, but had
been acquired by actual travel and research in the various countries of
the East.
John Henry Hottinger, too, a pupil of James Golius at Leyden, and the
learned Jesuit, Father Athanasius Kircher, belong also to this period.
The latter, who is well known for his varied and extensive attainments
in every department of science, was moreover a linguist of no ordinary
merit.[130] He was born at Geyzen, near Fulda, in 1602, and entered the
Jesuit society in 1618, when only sixteen years old. No detailed account
is given by his biographers (with whom languages were of minor interest,)
of the exact extent of his attainments in the department of languages;
but they were both diversified and respectable, and in some things he was
far beyond the men of his own time. His _Lingua Egyptiaca Restituta_ may
still be consulted with advantage by the student of Coptic.
Most of these men, however, confined themselves chiefly to one particular
department. The first really universal linguist of Germany is the great
Ethiopic scholar, Job Ludolf, who was born at Erfurt, in 1624. Early in
life he devoted himself to the study of languages; and his extensive
travels—first as preceptor to the sons of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha,
and afterwards as tutor to the children of the Swedish ambassador in
Paris—coupled with his unexampled industry,[131] enabled him, not only to
hold a high rank in history and general literature, but also to attain to
a success as a linguist which had rarely been equalled before his time.
He is said to have been master of twenty-five languages,[132] but as I
have never seen any exact enumeration of them, I am inclined to allow for
considerable exaggeration.
There is even more reason to suspect of exaggeration the popular accounts
which have come down to us of a self-educated linguist of the same
period—a Saxon peasant called Nicholas Schmid, more commonly known as
Cüntzel of Rothenacker, from the name of the village where he was born,
in 1606. This extraordinary man was the son of a peasant. His youth
was entirely neglected. He worked as a common labourer on his father’s
farm, and, until his sixteenth year, never had learned even the letters
of the alphabet. At this age one of the farm-servants taught him to
read, greatly to the dissatisfaction of his father, who feared that such
studies would withdraw him from his work. Soon afterwards, a relative who
was a notary, gave him a few lessons in Latin; and, under the direction
of the same relative, he learned the rudiments of Greek, Hebrew, and
other languages. During all this time, he continued his daily occupation
as a farm-labourer, and had no time for his studies but what he was able
to steal from the hours allotted for sleep and for meals; the latter of
which he snatched in the most hurried manner, and always with an open
book by his side. In this strange way, amid the toils of the field and
of the farm-yard, Schmid is said to have acquired a store of knowledge
the details of which border upon the marvelous, one of his recorded
performances being a translation of the Lord’s Prayer into fifty-one
languages![133]
One of the scholars engaged in the compilation of Walton’s Polyglot,
Andrew Müller, has left a reputation less marvellous, but more solid.
He was born about 1630, at Greiffenhagen in Pomerania. Müller, like
Crichton, was a precocious genius. At eighteen he wrote verses freely in
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. On the completion of his studies, he became
pastor of Königsberg on the Warta; but the duties of that charge soon
became distasteful to him, and, after a short trial, he resolved, at
the invitation of Castell, to settle in England, and devote himself to
literature. He arrived just as Brian Walton was making arrangements for
the publication of his celebrated Polyglot Bible, and at once entered
earnestly into the scheme. He took up his residence in the house of
John Castell in the Strand, where, for ten years, he applied himself
unremittingly to study. It is told of him that, in the ardour of study
or the indifference of scholastic seclusion, he would not raise his
head from his books to look out of the window, on occasion of Charles
II.’s triumphal progress at the Restoration! Having received from Bishop
Wilkins some information on the subject of Chinese, he conceived a
most enthusiastic passion for that language. He obtained some types at
Antwerp, and, through the instructions of the celebrated Jesuit, Father
Kircher, and other members of the society, he was perhaps the first
European scholar who, without actually visiting China, acquired a mastery
of its language; as he is certainly one of the first who deserted the
track of the old philologers, and attempted the comparative study of
languages on principles approaching to those which modern science has
made familiar. Soon after the completion of Walton’s Polyglot Müller
returned to Germany. He was named successively Pastor of Bernau and
Provost of Berlin in 1667, but resigned both livings in 1685, and lived
thenceforth in retirement at Stettin. He died in 1694. Although a most
laborious man and a voluminous writer, Müller’s views were visionary
and unpractical. He professed to have devised a plan of teaching, so
complete, that, by adopting it, a perfect knowledge of Chinese could be
acquired in half a year, and so simple, that it could be applied to the
instruction of persons of the most ordinary capacity. Haller states that
he spoke no less than twenty languages.
A Burgomaster-linguist is a more singular literary phenomenon. We are
so little accustomed to connect that title with any thing above the
plodding details of the commerce with which it is inseparably associated,
that the name of Nicholas Witzen, Burgomaster of Amsterdam, deserves to
be specially commemorated, as an exception to an unliterary class. It
was in the pursuit of his vocation as a merchant that Witzen acquired
the chief part of the languages with which he was acquainted. He made
repeated expeditions to Russia between the years 1666 and 1677, in
several of which he penetrated far into the interior of the country,
and had opportunities of associating with many of the motley races of
that vast empire; Slavonians, Tartars, Cossacks, Samoiedes, and the
various Siberian tribes; as well as with natives of Eastern kingdoms not
subject to Russia.[134] Besides inquiries into the geography and natural
history of those countries which lie upon the north-eastern frontier of
Europe and the contiguous provinces of Asia, Witzen used every effort
to glean information regarding their languages. He obtained, in most
of these languages, not only versions of the Lord’s Prayer, but also
vocabularies comprising a considerable number of words; both of which
he supplied to his friend and correspondent, Leibnitz, for publication
in his _Collectanea Etymologica_.[135] How far Witzen himself was
acquainted with these languages it is difficult to determine; but he is
at least entitled to notice as the first collector of materials for this
particular branch of the study.
David Wilkins, Chamberlayne’s fellow-labourer in the compilation of
the Collection of Pater Nosters referred to in a former page, may also
deserve a passing notice. The place of his birth, which occurred about
1685, is a matter of some uncertainty. Adelung[136] thinks he was a
native of Dantzig; by others he is believed to have been a native of
Holland. The best part of his life, however, was spent in England; where,
at Cambridge, he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity, in 1717. He was
afterwards appointed Librarian of Lambeth and Archdeacon of Suffolk.
His qualifications as Polyglot editor, at the time when he undertook
to assist Chamberlayne, appear to have consisted rather in patient
industry and general scholarship, than in any extraordinary familiarity
with languages; though he afterwards obtained considerable reputation,
especially by an edition of the New Testament in Coptic, in 1716.
With the illustrious name of Leibnitz we commence a new era in the
science of languages. This extraordinary man, who united in himself all
the most varied, and it might seem incompatible, excellencies of other
men—a jurist and a divine, a mathematician and a poet, a historian and
a philosopher—added to all his other prodigious attainments a most
extensive and profound knowledge of languages. It is not, however, on the
actual extent of his acquaintance with particular languages (although
this too was most remarkable), that his fame as a scientific linguist
rests. He was the first to recognize the true nature and objects of
linguistic science, and to direct its studies to an object at once
eminently practical and profoundly philosophical. It is not alone that,
deserting the trivialities of the old etymologists, he laid down the
true principles of the great science of comparative philology, and
detected its full importance; Leibnitz may claim the further merit of
having himself almost created that science, and given it forth, a new
Minerva, in its full and perfect development. There is hardly a principle
of modern philology the germ of which may not be discovered in his
singularly pregnant and suggestive essays and letters; and, what is far
more remarkable, he has often, with the instinctive sagacity of original
genius, anticipated sometimes by conjecture, sometimes by positive
prediction, analogies and results which the investigations of actual
explorers have since realized.[137]
One of the most important practical services rendered by Leibnitz to
science, was the organization of academies and other scientific bodies,
by which the efforts of individuals might be systematically guided to one
common end, and the results of their researches, whether in collecting
facts or in developing theories, might, through the collision of many
minds, be submitted to the ordeal of careful examination and judicious
discussion. It is chiefly to him that science is indebted for the Royal
Society of Berlin and the Academy of St. Petersburg. Both of these
bodies, although embracing the whole circle of science, have proved most
eminent schools of languages; and it is a curious illustration of that
profound policy, in pursuance of which we see Russia still availing
herself of the service of genius wherever it is to be found, that many
of the ablest German linguists of the eighteenth century were, either
directly or indirectly, connected with the latter institution.
Gerard Frederic Müller is an early example. He was born, at Herforden
in Westphalia, in 1705, and was a pupil of the celebrated Otto Mencken.
Mencken, having been invited to become a member of the new academy of St.
Petersburg, declined the honour for himself, but recommended his scholar
Müller in his stead.[138] Müller accordingly accompanied the scientific
expedition which was sent to Siberia under the elder Gmelin, (also a
German,) from 1733 to 1741. On his return, he was appointed keeper of
the Imperial Archives, and Historiographer of Russia. Müller does not
appear to have given much attention to Oriental languages; but he was
more generally familiar with modern languages than most of the scholars
of that period.[139]
Augustus Lewis Schlötzer, another German literary adventurer in the
Russian service, and for a time secretary of Müller, was a more generally
accomplished linguist. Unlike Müller, he was a skilful Orientalist;
and he was versed, moreover, in several of the Slavonic languages with
which Müller had neglected to make himself acquainted, before engaging
in the compilation of his great collection of Russian Historians. For
this he availed himself of the assistance of his secretary Schlötzer.
Gottlieb Bayer of Königsberg, one of the earliest among the scholars of
Germany, author of the _Museum Sinicum_, also occupied for some years
a chair at St. Petersburg; but he is better known by his ferocious
controversial writings, than by his philological works. A much more
distinguished scholar of modern Germany, almost entirely unknown in
England, is Christian William Buttner. He was born at Wolfenbüttel in
1716, and was destined by his father (an apothecary) for the medical
profession; but, although he gave his attention in the first instance to
the sciences preparatory to that profession, the real pursuit of his life
became philology, and especially in its relation to the great science
of ethnography. It was a saying of Cuvier’s, that Linnæus and Buttner
realised by their united studies the title of Grotius’s celebrated work,
“De Jure _Naturæ_ et _Gentium_;”—Linnæus by his pursuit of _Natural_
History assuming the first, and Buttner, by his _ethnological_ studies,
appropriating the second—as the respective spheres of their operations.
In every country which Buttner visited, he acquired not only the
general language, but the most minute peculiarities of its provincial
dialects. Few literary lives are recorded in history which present such
a picture of self-denial and privation voluntarily endured in the cause
of learning, as that of Buttner. His library and museum, accumulated
from the hoardings of his paltry income, were exceedingly extensive and
most valuable. In order to scrape together the means for their gradual
purchase, he contented himself during the greater part of his later
life with a single meal per day, the cost of which never exceeded a
silber-groschen, or somewhat less than three half-pence![140] It may be
inferred, however, from what has been said, that Buttner’s attainments
were mainly those of a book-man. In the scanty notices of him which we
have gleaned, we do not find that his power of speaking foreign languages
was at all what might have been expected from the extent and variety
of his book-knowledge. But his services as a scientific philologer
were infinitely more important, as well as more permanent, than any
such ephemeral faculty. He was the first to observe and to cultivate
the true relations of the monosyllabic languages of southern Asia, and
to place them at the head of his scheme of the Asiatic and European
languages. He was the first to conceive, or at least to carry out, the
theory of the geographical distribution of languages; and he may be
looked on as the true founder of the science of glossography. He was
the first to systematise and to trace the origin and affiliations of
the various alphabetical characters; and his researches in the history
of the palæography of the Semitic family may be said to have exhausted
the subject. Nevertheless, he has himself written very little; but he
communicated freely to others the fruits of his researches; and there
are few of the philologers of his time who have not confessed their
obligations to him. Michaelis, Schlötzer, Gatterer, and almost every
other contemporary German scholar of note, have freely acknowledged both
the value of his communications and the generous and liberal spirit in
which they were imparted.[141]
John David Michaelis[142] (1717-91) is so well known in these countries
by his contributions to Biblical literature[143] that little can be
necessary beyond the mention of his name. His grammar of the Hebrew,
Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages, sufficiently attest his abilities
as an Orientalist; and, as regards that particular family of languages,
his philological views are generally solid and judicious. But I am
unable to discover what were his attainments in modern languages; and to
the general science of comparative philology he cannot be said to have
rendered any important original contribution.
The Catholic Missionaries of Germany, although of course less numerous
than their brethren of Italy and the Spanish Peninsula, have contributed
their share to the common stock of linguistic science. Many of the Jesuit
Missionaries of Central and Southern America;—for example, Fathers
Richter, Fritz, Grebmer, and Widmann—whose papers are the foundation of
Humboldt’s Essay in the _Mithridates_, were of German origin. Father
Dobritzhofer, whose interesting account of the Abipones has been
translated into English[144], under Southey’s advice and superintendence,
was a native of Austria; and the learned Sanscrit scholar, Father
Paulinus de Sancto Bartholomeo, (although less known under his German
name, John Philip Werdin) was an Austrian Carmelite, and served for above
fourteen years in the Indian missions of his order.
A German philanthropist of a different class, Count Leopold von Berchtold
(1738-1809) the Howard of Germany, deserves to be named, not merely for
his devoted services to the cause of humanity throughout the world, but
for his remarkable acquirements as a linguist. He spoke fluently eight
European languages;[145] and, what is more rare, wrote and published in
the greater number of them, tracts upon the great subject to which he
dedicated his life. He died, at a very advanced age, of the plague, and
has long been honoured as a martyr in the cause of philanthropy; but he
has left no notable work behind him.
Very different the career of the great author of the _Mithridates_, John
Christopher Adelung, who lived almost exclusively for learning. He was
born in 1734, at Spantekow in Pomerania. In 1759, he was appointed to
a professorship at Erfurt; but he exchanged it, after a few years, for
a place at Leipsic, where he continued to reside for a long series of
years. Although habitually of a gay and cheerful disposition, and a most
agreeable member of society, he was one of the most assiduous students
upon record, devoting as a rule no less than fourteen hours a day to his
literary occupations.[146] His services to his native language are still
gratefully acknowledged by every German etymologist, and his Dictionary,
(although since much improved by Voss and Campe,) has been declared as
great a boon to Germany, as the united labours of the Academy had been
able to offer to France. Adelung’s personal reputation as a linguist was
exceedingly high, but his fame with posterity must rest on his great
work, the _Mithridates_, which I have already briefly described. The very
origination of such a work, or at least the undertaking it upon the scale
on which he has carried it out, would have made the reputation of an
ordinary man. In the touching preface of the first volume, (the only one
which Adelung lived to see published,) he describes it as “the youngest
and probably the last child of his muse;” and confesses that “he has
nurtured, dressed, and cherished it, with all the tenderness which it
is commonly the lot of the youngest child to enjoy.”[147] It is indeed
a work of extraordinary labour, and, although from the manner in which
its materials were supplied, necessarily incomplete and even inaccurate
in its details, a work of extraordinary ability. The first volume alone
(containing the languages of Asia, and published in 1806,) is exclusively
Adelung’s. Of the second, only a hundred and fifty pages had been printed
when the venerable author died in his seventy-third year. These printed
sheets, and the papers which he had collected for the subsequent
volumes, he bequeathed to Dr. Severinus Vater, professor of theology at
Königsberg, under whose editorship, with assistance from several friends,
(and especially from the lamented William von Humboldt and Frederic
Adelung,) the second volume, which comprises the languages of Europe with
all their ramifications, appeared in 1809. The third, on the languages
of Africa, and of America, (for which last the work is indebted to
Humboldt,) appeared, in parts, between 1812 and 1816; and a supplementary
volume, containing additions to the earlier portions of the work, by
Humboldt, Frederic Adelung, and Vater himself, was published in 1817.
It is impossible to overstate the importance and value of this great
linguistic repertory. The arrangement of the work is strictly scientific,
according to the views then current. The geographical distribution, the
origin and history, and the general structural peculiarities of each,
not only of the great families, but of the individual languages, and in
many cases even of the local dialects, are carefully, though briefly
described. The specimen Pater Noster in each language and dialect, is
critically examined, and its vocabulary explained. To each language,
too, is prefixed a catalogue of the chief philological or etymological
works which treat of its peculiarities; and thus abundant suggestions
are supplied for the prosecution of more minute researches into its
nature and history. And for the most part, all this is executed with so
much simplicity and clearness, with so true a perception of the real
points of difficulty in each language, and with so almost instinctive
a power of discriminating between those peculiarities in each which
require special explanation, and those less abnormal qualities which a
philosophical linguist will easily infer from the principles of general
grammar, or from a consideration of the common characteristics of the
family to which it belongs, that one may learn as much of the real
character of a language, in a few hours, from the few suggestive pages
the _Mithridates_, as from the tedious and complicated details of its
professional grammarians.
Adelung’s associate in the _Mithridates_ and its continuator, Dr.
Severinus Vater, was born at Altenburg, in 1771; he studied at Jena and
Halle, in both of which universities he afterwards held appointments
as professor; at Jena, as extraordinary Professor of Theology in 1796,
and at Halle, as Professor of Oriental Languages in 1800. Thence he
was transferred, in 1809, to Königsberg in the capacity of Professor
of Theology and Librarian; but he returned, in 1820, to Halle, where
he continued to reside till his death, in 1826. Although Vater was
by no means a very scientific linguist,[148] the importance of his
contributions to the study of languages cannot be too highly estimated.
Besides the large share which he had in the preparation of the
_Mithridates_ (the last three volumes of which were edited by him,) he
also wrote well on the grammar of the Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and German
languages. Nevertheless, his reputation is rather that of a scholar than
of a linguist.
A few years after the author of the _Mithridates_ appears the celebrated
Peter Simon Pallas, to whom we are indebted for the great “Comparative
Vocabulary” already described. He was born at Berlin in 1741, and his
early studies were mainly directed to natural philosophy, which he seems
to have cultivated in all its branches. His reputation as a naturalist
procured for him, in 1767, an invitation from Catherine II. of Russia,
to exchange a distinguished position which he had obtained at the Hague
for a professorship in the Academy of St. Petersburg. His arrival in that
capital occurred just at the time of the departure of the celebrated
scientific expedition to Siberia for the purpose of observing the transit
of Venus; and, as their mission also embraced the geography and natural
history of Siberia, Pallas gladly accepted an invitation to accompany
them. They set out in June, 1768, and after exploring the vast plains of
European Russia, the borders of Calmuck Tartary, and the shores of the
Caspian, they crossed the Ural Mountains, examined the celebrated mines
of Catherinenberg, proceeded to Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, and
penetrated across the mountains to the Chinese frontier, whence Pallas
returned by the route of Astrakan and the Caucasus to St. Petersburg. He
reached that city in July, 1774, with broken health, and hair prematurely
whitened by sickness and fatigue. He resumed his place in the Academy;
and was rewarded by the Empress with many distinctions and lucrative
employments, one of which was the charge of instructing the young
grand-dukes, Alexander and Constantine. It was during these years that
he devoted himself to the compilation of the _Vocabularia Comparativa_,
which comprises two hundred and one languages; but, in 1795, he returned
to the Crimea, (where he had obtained an extensive gift of territory
from the Empress) for the purpose of recruiting his health and pursuing
his researches. After a residence there of fifteen years, he returned
to Berlin in 1810, where he died in the following year. It will be
seen, therefore, that, prodigious as were his acquirements in that
department, the study of languages was but a subordinate pursuit of this
extraordinary man. His fame is mainly due to his researches in science.
It is to him that we owe the reduction of the astronomical observations
of the expedition of 1768; and Cuvier gives him the credit of completely
renewing the science of geology, and of almost entirely re-constructing
that of natural history. It is difficult, nevertheless,[149] to arrive
at an exact conclusion as to the share which he personally took in the
compilation of the Vocabulary; and still more so, as to his powers as a
speaker of foreign languages; although it is clear that his habits of
life as a traveller and scientific explorer, not only facilitated, but
even directly necessitated for him, the exercise of that faculty, to a
far greater degree than can be supposed in the case of most of the older
philologers.
The career of Pallas bears a very remarkable resemblance to that of a
more modern scholar, also a native of Berlin, Julius Henry Klaproth.
He was the son of the celebrated chemist of that name, and was born in
1783. Although destined by his father to follow his own profession, a
chance sight of the collection of Chinese books in the Royal Library at
Berlin, irrevocably decided the direction of his studies. With the aid
of the imperfect dictionary of Mentzel and Pere Diaz, he succeeded in
learning without a master that most difficult language; and, though he
complied with his father’s desire, so far as to pursue with success the
preparatory studies of the medical profession, he never formally embraced
it. After a time he gave his undivided attention to Oriental studies;
and, in 1802, established, at Dresden, the _Asiatisches Magazin_. Like so
many of his countrymen, he accepted service in Russia, at the invitation
of Count Potocki, who knew him at Berlin; and he was a member of the
half-scientific, half-political, mission to Pekin, in 1805, under that
eminent scholar and diplomatist. He withdrew, however, from the main
body of this expedition, in order to be able to pursue his scientific
researches more unrestrainedly; and, after traversing eighteen hundred
leagues in the space of twenty months, in the course of which he passed
in review all the motley races of that inhospitable region, Samoiedes,
Finns, Tartars, Monguls, Paskirs, Dzoungars, Tungooses, &c., he returned
to St. Petersburg, in 1806, with a vast collection of notes on the
Chinese, Mantchu, Mongul, and Japanese[150] languages. With a similar
object, he was soon afterwards sent by the Academy, in September, 1807,
to collect information on the languages of the Caucasus, a journey of
exceeding difficulty and privation, in which he spent nearly three years.
On his return to St. Petersburg, he obtained permission to go to Berlin
for the purpose of completing the necessary engravings for his work;
and he availed himself of this opportunity to withdraw altogether from
the Russian service, although with the forfeiture of all his titles
and honours. After a brief sojourn in Italy, he fixed his residence in
Paris. To him the _Société Asiatique_ may be said to owe its origin; and
he acted, almost up to his death in 1835, as the chief editor of its
journal—the well-known _Journal Asiatique_. In Paris, also, he published
his _Asia Polyglotta_, and “New Mithridates.” Klaproth, perhaps, does not
deserve, in any one of the languages which he cultivated, the character
of a very deep scholar; but he was acquainted with a large number: with
Chinese, Mongol, Mantchu, and Japanese, also with Sanscrit, Armenian,
Persian, and Georgian;[151] he was of course perfectly familiar with
German, Russian, French, and probably with others of the European
languages.
The eminent historical successes of Berthold George Niebuhr, (born at
Copenhagen in 1776), have so completely eclipsed the memory of all his
other great qualities, that perhaps the reader will not be prepared
to find that in the department of languages his attainments were of
the highest rank. His father, Carsten Niebuhr, the learned Eastern
traveller, had destined him to pursue his own career; but the delicacy
of the youth’s constitution, and other circumstances, forced his father
to abandon the idea, and saved young Niebuhr for the far more important
studies to which his own tastes attracted him. His history, both literary
and political, is too recent and too well known to require any formal
notice. It will be enough for our purpose to transcribe from his life
an extremely interesting letter from his father, which bears upon the
particular subject of the present inquiry. It is dated December, 1807,
when Niebuhr was little more than thirty years of age. “My son has
gone to Memel,” writes the elder Niebuhr, “with the commissariat of the
army. When he found he should probably have to go to Riga, he began
forthwith to learn Russian. Let us just reckon how many languages he
knows already. He was only two years old when we came to Meldorf, so
that we must consider, 1st, German, as his mother tongue. He learned at
school, 2nd, Latin; 3rd, Greek; 4th, Hebrew; and, besides in Meldorf he
learned, 5th, Danish; 6th, English; 7th, French; 8th, Italian; but only
so far as to be able to read a book in these languages; some books from a
vessel wrecked on the coast induced him to learn, 9th, Portuguese; 10th,
Spanish; of Arabic he did not know much at home, because I had lost my
lexicon and could not quickly replace it; in Kiel and Copenhagen he had
opportunities of practice in speaking and writing French, English, and
Danish; in Copenhagen he learned, 11th, Persian, of Count Ludolph, the
Austrian minister, who was born at Constantinople, and whose father was
an acquaintance of mine; and 12th, Arabic, he taught himself; in Holland
he learned, 13th, Dutch; and again, in Copenhagen, 14th, Swedish, and a
little Icelandic; at Memel, 15th, Russian; 16th, Slavonic; 17th, Polish;
18th, Bohemian; and, 19th, Illyrian. With the addition of Low German,
this makes in all twenty languages.”[152]
As this letter does not enter into the history of Niebuhr’s later
studies, I inquired of his friend, the Chevalier Bunsen, whether he had
continued to cultivate the faculty thus early developed. I received from
him the following interesting statement:—“Niebuhr,” he says, “ought not
to be ranked among _Linguists_, in contradistinction with _Philologers_.
Language had no special interest for him, beyond what it affords in
connection with history and literature. His proficiency in languages
was, however, very great, in consequence of his early and constant
application to history, and his _matchless memory_. I have spoken of
both in my _Memoir on Niebuhr_, in the German and English edition of
Niebuhr’s Letters and Life; it is appended to the 2nd volume of both
editions. I think it is somewhere stated how many languages he knew
at an early age. What I know is, that besides _Greek_ and _Latin_, he
learned early to read and write _Arabic_; _Hebrew_ he had also learned,
but neglected afterwards; _Russian_ and _Slavonic_ he learned (to read
only,) in the years 1808, 1810. He wrote well _English_, _French_, and
_Italian_; and read _Spanish_, and _Portuguese_. _Danish_ he wrote as
well as his mother tongue, _German_, and he understood _Swedish_. In
short, he would learn with the greatest ease _any language_ which led him
to the knowledge of historical truth, when occupied with the subject; but
language, as such, had no charm for him.”
Among the scholars who assisted Adelung and Vater in the compilation of
the _Mithridates_, by far the most distinguished was the illustrious
Charles William von Humboldt. He was born at Potsdam, in 1767, and
received his preliminary education at Berlin. His university studies
were made partly at Göttingen, partly at Jena, where he formed the
acquaintance and friendship of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and, above
all, of Herder, from whose well-known tastes it is highly probable that
Humboldt’s mind received the strong philological bias which it exhibited
during his life. Unlike most of the scholars who preceded him in this
career, however, Humboldt’s life was spent amid the bustle and intrigue
of diplomatical pursuits. He was sent to Rome as Prussian Minister in
1802, and, from that period until 1819, he was almost uniformly employed
in this and similar public services. From his return to Berlin, in 1819,
he lived almost entirely for science, till his death, which occurred
at Tegel, near Berlin, in 1835. Humboldt is, in truth, the author of
that portion of the third volume of the _Mithridates_ which treats of
the languages of the two continents of America; and, although a great
part of its materials were derived from the labours of others—from the
memoirs, published and unpublished, of the missionaries, from the works
and MSS. of Padre Hervaz, and other similar sources—yet no one can read
any single article in the volume without perceiving that Humboldt had
made himself thoroughly master of the subject; and that, especially in
its bearings upon the general science of philology, or the great question
of the unity of languages and its kindred ethnological problems, he
had not only exhausted all the learning of his predecessors, but had
successfully applied to it all the powers of his own comprehensive and
original genius. To the consideration, too, of this numerous family of
languages he brought a mind stored with the knowledge of all the other
great families both of the East and of the West; and although it is not
easy to say what his success in speaking languages may have been, it is
impossible to doubt either the variety or the solidity of his attainments
both as a scientific and as a practical linguist. But Humboldt’s place
with posterity must be that of a philologer rather than of a linguist.
His Essay on the “Diversity of the Formation of Human Language, and
its Influence on the Intellectual Development of Mankind,” published
posthumously in 1836, as an Introduction to his Analysis of the Kawi
Language, is a work of extraordinary learning and research, as well as of
profound and original thought; analysing all the successive varieties of
grammatical structure which characterize the several classes of language
in their various stages of structural development, from the naked
simplicity of Chinese up to the minute and elaborate inflexional variety
of the Sanscritic family. M. Bunsen describes this wonderful work as “the
_Calculus Sublimis_ of linguistic theory,” and declares that “it places
William von Humboldt’s name by the side of that of Leibnitz in universal
comparative ethnological philology.”[153]
The school of Humboldt in Germany has supplied a long series of
distinguished names to philological literature, beginning with Frederic
von Schlegel, (whose Essay “On the Language and Literature of the
Hindoos, 1808,” opened an entirely new view of the science of comparative
philology), and continued, through Schlegel’s brother Augustus, Rask,
Bopp, Grimm, Lepsius, Pott, Pfizmaier, Hammer-Purgstall (the so-called
“Lily of Ten Tongues”), Sauerwein, Diez, Boehtlingk, and the lamented
Castrén, down to Bunsen, and his learned fellow-labourers, Max Müller,
Paul Boetticher, Aufrecht, and others.[154] For most of those, as for
Schlegel, the Sanscrit family of languages has been the great centre
of exploration, or at least the chief standard of comparison; and
Bopp, in his wonderful work, the “Comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit,
Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, old Slavonic, Gothic, and German
Languages,”[155] has almost exhausted this part of the inquiry. Others
(still, however, with the same general view) have devoted themselves
to other families, as Lepsius to the Egyptian, Rask to the Scythian,
Boehtlingk to the Tartar,[156] Grimm to the Teutonic, Diez to the
Romanic, and Castrén to the Finnic. Others, in fine, as Bunsen in
his most comprehensive work, “Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal
History applied to Language,” (the third volume of his “Christianity and
Mankind”) have digested the entire subject, and applied the researches
of all to the solution of the great problem of the science. Some of
those whom I have named rather resembled the ancient heroes of romance
and adventure, than the common race of quiet everyday scholars. The
journeys of Rask, Klaproth, and Lepsius, were not only full of danger,
but often attended with exceeding privation; and Alexander Castrén of
Helsingfors was literally a martyr of the science. This enthusiastic
student,[157] although a man of extremely delicate constitution, “left
his study, travelled for years alone in his sledge through the snowy
deserts of Siberia; coasted along the borders of the Polar Sea; lived for
whole winters in caves of ice, or in the smoky huts of greasy Samoiedes;
then braved the sand-clouds of Mongolia; passed the Baikal; and returned
from the frontiers of China to his duties as Professor at Helsingfors,
to die after he had given to the world but a few specimens of his
treasures.”[158]
Rask and M. Bunsen, even as linguists, deserve to be more specially
commemorated.
The former, who was born in 1787 at Brennekilde, in the island of Funen,
traversed, in the course of the adventurous journey already alluded
to, the Eastern provinces of Russia, Persia, India, Malacca, and the
island of Ceylon, and penetrated into the interior of Africa. In all
the countries which he visited he made himself acquainted with the
various languages which prevailed; so that besides the many languages
of his native Teutonic family, those of the Scandinavian, Finnic, and
Sclavonic stock, the principal cultivated European languages, and the
learned languages (including those of the Bible), he was also familiar
with Sanscrit in all its branches; and is justly described as the first
who opened the way to “a real grammatical knowledge of Zend.”[159] M.
Bunsen’s great work exhibits a knowledge of the structural analysis of
a prodigious number of languages, from almost every family. As a master
of the learned languages, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and (though he has
cultivated these less), Arabic and Persian, he has few superiors. He
speaks and writes with equal facility Latin, German, English, French,
and Italian, all with singular elegance and purify; he speaks besides
Dutch and Danish; he reads Swedish, Icelandic, and the other old German
languages, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romaic; and he has also studied many
of the less known languages, as Chinese, Basque, Finnic, and Welsh,
together with several of the African and North American languages, but
chiefly with a view to their grammatical structure, and without any idea
of learning to read them.
Nevertheless, with all the linguistic learning which they undoubtedly
possess, neither Humboldt nor the other members of his distinguished
school fall properly within the scope of this Memoir. With all of them,
even those who were themselves accomplished linguists, the knowledge
of languages, (and especially of their vocabularies), is a subordinate
object. They have never proposed the study to themselves, for its own
sake, but only as an instrument of philosophical inquiry. It might almost
be said, indeed, that by the reaction which this school has created
against the old system of etymological, and in favour of the structural,
comparison of languages, a positive discouragement has been given to the
exact or extensive study of their vocabularies. Philologers, as a class,
have a decided disposition to look down upon, and even to depreciate, the
pursuit of linguists. With the former, the knowledge of the words of a
language is a very minor consideration in comparison with its inflexions,
and still more its laws of transposition (Lautverschiebung); Professor
Schott of Berlin plainly avows that “a limited knowledge of languages
is sufficient for settling the general questions as to their common
origin;”[160] and beyond a catalogue of a certain number of words for the
purpose of a comparative vocabulary, there is a manifest tendency on the
part of many, to regard all further concern about the words of a language
as old-fashioned and puerile. It it some consolation to the admirers of
the old school to know, that, from time to time, learned philologers
have been roughly taken to task for the presumption with which they have
theorized about languages of whose vocabulary they are ignorant; and it
is difficult not to regard the unsparing and often very amusing exposures
of Professor Schott’s blunders which occur in the long controversy that
he has had with Boehtlingk, Mr. Caldwell’s recent strictures[161] upon
the Indian learning of Professor Max Müller, or Stanislaus Julien’s
still fiercer onslaught on M. Panthier, in the _Journal Asiatique_,[162]
as a sort of retributive offering to the offended Genius of neglected
Etymology.
* * * * *
I shall not delay upon the Biblical linguists of Germany as Hug, Jahn,
Schott, Windischmann, Vullers, &c., among Catholics, or the rival
schools of Rosenmüller, Tholuck, Ewald, Gesenius, Fürst, Beer, De
Lagarde, &c. Extensive[163] as is the range of the attainments of these
distinguished men in the languages of the Bible, and their literature,
this accomplishment has now become so universal among German Biblical
scholars, that it has almost ceased to be regarded as a title to
distinction. Its very masters are lost in the crowd of eminent men who
have grown up on all sides around him.
* * * * *
Among the scholars of modern Hungary there are a few names which deserve
to be mentioned. Sajnovitz’s work on the common origin of the Magyar
and Lapp languages, though written in 1770, long before the science
of Comparative Philology had been reduced to its present form, has
obtained the praise of much learning and ingenuity. Gyarmathi, who wrote
somewhat later on the affinity of the Magyar and Finnic languages (1799)
is admitted by M. Bunsen[164] to “deserve a very high rank among the
founders of that science.” But neither of these authors can be considered
as a linguist. Father Dubrowsky, of whom I shall speak elsewhere,
although born in Hungary, cannot properly be considered as a Hungarian.
Kazinczy, Kisfaludy, and their followers, have confined themselves almost
entirely to the cultivation of their own native language, or at least to
the ethnological affinities which it involves.
I have only discovered one linguist of modern Hungary whom I can consider
entitled to a special notice, but the singular and almost mysterious
interest which attaches to his name may in some measure compensate for
the comparative solitude in which it is found.
I allude to the celebrated Magyar pilgrim and philologer, Csoma de Körös.
His name is written in his own language, Körösi Csoma Sandor; but in the
works which he has published (all of which are in English), it is given
in the above form. He was born of a poor, but noble family, about 1790,
at Körös, in Transylvania; and, received a gratuitous education at the
College of Nagy-Enyed. The leading idea which engrossed this enthusiastic
scholar during life, was the discovery of the original of the Magyar
race; in search of which (after preparing himself for about five years,
at Göttingen, by the study of medicine and of the Oriental languages,)
he set out in 1820, on a pilgrimage to the East, “lightly clad, with a
little stick in his hand, as if meditating a country walk, and with but
a hundred florins, (about £10), in his pocket.” The only report of his
progress which was received for years afterwards, informed his friends
that he had crossed the Balkan, visited Constantinople, Alexandria, and
the Arabic libraries at Cairo; and, after traversing Egypt and Syria,
had arrived at Teheran. Here, on hearing a few words of the Tibetan
language, he was struck by their resemblance to Magyar; and, in the hope
of thus resolving his cherished problem, he crossed Little Bucharia
to the desert of Gobi; traversed many of the valleys of the Himalaya;
and finally buried himself for four years (1827-1830), in the Buddhist
Monastery of Kanam, deeply engaged in the study of Tibetan; four months
of which time he spent in a room nine feet square, (without once quitting
it), and in a temperature below zero! He quickly discovered his mistake
as to the affinity of Tibetan with Magyar; but he pursued his Tibetan
studies in the hope of obtaining in the sacred books of Tibet some light
upon the origin of his nation; and before his arrival at Calcutta, in
1830, he had written down no less than 40,000 words in that language. He
had hardly reached Calcutta when he was struck down by the mortifying
discovery that the Tibetan books to which he had devoted so many precious
years were but translations from the Sanscrit! From 1830 he resided for
several years chiefly at Calcutta, engaged in the study of Sanscrit
and other languages, and employed in various literary services by the
Asiatic Society of Bengal. He published in 1834 a Tibetan and English
Dictionary, and contributed many interesting papers to the Asiatic
Journal, and the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. In 1842, he set
out afresh upon the great pilgrimage which he had made the object of his
life; and, having reached Dharjeeling on his way to Sikam in Tibet, he
was seized by a sudden illness, which, as he refused to take medicine,
rapidly carried him off. This strange, though highly gifted man, had
studied in the course of his adventurous life, seventeen or eighteen
languages, in several of which he was a proficient.[165]
The career of this enthusiastic Magyar resembles in many respects that
of Castrén, the Danish philologer; and in nothing more than in the
devotedness with which each of them applied himself to the investigation
of the origin of his native language and to the discovery of the
ethnological affinities of his race.
§ VI. LINGUISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
The names with which the catalogue of Italian and that of Spanish
linguists open, find a worthy companion in the first name among the
linguists of Britain.
* * * * *
With others the study of languages, or of kindred sciences, formed almost
the business of life. But it was not so with the wonder of his own and of
all succeeding generations—the “Admirable Crichton”; who, notwithstanding
the universality of his reputation, became almost equally eminent in each
particular study, as any of those who devoted all their powers to that
single pursuit.
James Crichton was born in 1561, in Scotland. The precise place of his
birth is uncertain, but he was the son of Robert Crichton of Eliock,
Lord Advocate of James VI. He was educated at St. Andrew’s. The chief
theatres of his attainments, however, were France and Italy. There
is not an accomplishment which he did not possess in its greatest
perfection—from the most abstruse departments of scholarship, philosophy,
and divinity, down to the mere physical gifts and graces of the musician,
the athlete, the swordsman, and the cavalier. His memory was a prodigy
both of quickness and of tenacity. He could repeat verbatim, after a
single hearing, the longest and most involved discourse.[166] Many
of the details which are told of him are doubtless exaggerated and
perhaps legendary; but Mr. Patrick Frazer Tytler[167] has shown that the
substance of his history, prodigious as it seems, is perfectly reliable.
As regards the particular subject of our present inquiry, one account
states that, when he was but sixteen years old, he spoke ten languages.
Another informs us that, at the age of twenty, the number of languages
of which he was master exactly equalled the number of his years. But the
most tangible data which we possess are drawn from his celebrated thesis
in the University of Paris, in which he undertook to dispute in any of
twelve languages—Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian,
French, English, German, Flemish, and Slavonic. I am inclined to believe
that Crichton’s acquirements extended at least so far as this. It might
seem that a vague challenge to dispute in any one of a number of foreign
tongues was an empty and unsubstantial boast, and a mere exhibition of
vanity, perfectly safe from the danger of exposure. But it is clear
that Crichton’s challenge was not so unpractical as this. He not only
specified the languages of his challenge, but there is hardly one of
those that he selected which was not represented in the University of
Paris at the time, not only sufficiently to test the proficiency of the
daring disputant, but to secure his ignominious exposure, if there were
grounds to suspect him of charlatanism or imposture. Unhappily, however,
the promise of a youth so brilliant was cut short by an early death, in
1583, at the age of twenty-two years. Nor did Crichton leave behind him
any work by which posterity might test the reality of his acquirements,
except a few Latin verses printed by his friend, Aldus Manutius, on whose
generous patronage, with all his accomplishments, he had been dependent
for the means of subsistence during one of the most brilliant periods of
his career.
A few years Crichton’s senior in point of time, although, from the
precociousness of Crichton’s genius, his junior in reputation, was
Lancelot Andrews, Bishop of Winchester. He was born in London in 1555,
and, after a distinguished career in the university, rose, through a long
course of ecclesiastical preferments, to the see of Winchester. Beyond
the general praises of his scholarship in which all his biographers
indulge, few particulars are preserved respecting his attainments. Among
his contemporaries he was regarded as a prodigy. Wanley says[168] that
“some thought he might almost have served as interpreter-general at the
confusion of tongues;” and even the more prosaic Chalmers attributes to
him a profound knowledge of the “chief Oriental tongues, Greek, Latin,
and many modern languages.”[169]
John Gregory, who was born at Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, in the year
1607, would probably have far surpassed Andrews as a linguist, had he
not been cut off prematurely before he had completed his thirtieth year.
He was a youth of unexampled industry and perseverance, devoting sixteen
hours of the twenty-four to his favourite studies. Even at the early age
at which he died he had mastered not only the Oriental and classical
languages, but also French, Italian, and Spanish, and, what was far more
remarkable in his day, his ancestral Anglo-Saxon. But he died in the very
blossom of his promise, in 1646.
These, however, must be regarded as exceptional cases. The study of
languages, it must be confessed, occupied at this period but little
of public attention in England. It holds a very subordinate place in
the great scheme of Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning.” In the model
Republic of his “New Atlantis” only four languages appear, “ancient
Hebrew, ancient Greek, good Latin of the School, and Spanish.”[170]
Gregory’s contemporaries, the brothers John and Thomas Greaves, though
both distinguished Persian and Arabic scholars, never made a name in
other languages. Notwithstanding the praise which Clarendon bestows on
Selden’s “stupendous learning in all kinds and _in all languages_,”[171]
it is certain that the range of his languages was very limited. So,
also, what Hallam says of Hugh Broughton as a man “deep in Jewish
erudition,”[172] must be understood rather of the literature than of the
languages of the East; and although Hugh Broughton’s namesake, Richard,
(one of the missionary priests in England in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, and an antiquarian of considerable merit, mentioned
by Dodd[173]) was a learned Hebraist, there is no evidence of his having
gone farther in these studies.
Indeed, strange as it may at first sight appear, the first epoch in
English history really prolific in eminent scholars is the stormy period
of the great Civil War. It is not a little remarkable that the most
creditable fruit of English scholarship, Walton’s Polyglot Bible, was
matured, if not brought to light, under the Republic.
The men who were engaged in this work, however, were, for the most part,
merely book-scholars. Edmund Castell, born at Halley, in Cambridgeshire,
in 1606, author of the Heptaglot Lexicon, which formed the companion or
supplement of Walton’s Bible, is admitted to have been one of the most
profound Orientalists of his day. This Lexicon comprises seven Oriental
languages, Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and
Persian; and, if we add to these the classical languages, we shall
find Castell’s attainments to have been little inferior to those of
any linguist before his time; even without reckoning whatever modern
languages he may be supposed to have known. Castell, nevertheless, is one
of the most painful examples of neglected scholarship in all literary
history. Disraeli truly says that he more than devoted his life to his
Lexicon Heptaglotton.[174] His own Appeal to Charles the Second, if less
noble and dignified than Johnson’s celebrated preface to the Dictionary,
is yet one of the most touching documents on record. He laments the
“seventeen years during which he devoted sixteen or eighteen hours a day
to his labour. He declares that he had expended his whole inheritance
(above twelve thousand pounds), upon the work; and that he spent his
health and eyesight as well as his fortune, upon a thankless task.” The
copies of his Lexicon remained unsold upon his hands; and, out of the
whole five hundred copies which he left at his death, hardly one complete
copy escaped destruction by damp and vermin. “The whole load of learned
rags sold for seven pounds!”[175]
I cannot find that either Castell or his friend (though by no means his
equal as a linguist), Brian Walton possessed any remarkable faculty in
speaking even the languages with which they were most familiar.
Another of Walton’s associates in the compilation of the Polyglot, as
well as in other learned undertakings, Edward Pocock (born at Oxford in
1604,) appears to have given more attention to the accomplishment of
speaking foreign languages. In addition to Latin, Greek, French, and
probably Italian, he was well versed in Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, and
Arabic. During a residence of six years at Aleppo, as British chaplain,
(1600-6), he had the advantage of receiving instructions from a native
doctor, in the language and literature of Arabia; and he engaged an Arab
servant for the sole purpose of enjoying the opportunity of speaking the
language.[176] In a second journey to the East, undertaken a few years
later, under the patronage of Laud, he extended his acquaintance with
these languages. Two of Pocock’s sons, Edward and Thomas, attained a
certain eminence in the same pursuit; but neither of them can be said to
have approached the fame of their father.
The mention of Arabian literature suggests the distinguished names of
Simon Ockley, the earliest English historian of Mahometanism, and of
George Sale, the first English translator of its sacred book. Both were
in their time Orientalists of high character; but both of them appear
to have applied chiefly to Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, rather than
to the Biblical languages. Both, too, may be cited among the examples
of unsuccessful scholarship. It was in a debtor’s prison at Cambridge
that Ockley found leisure for the completion of his great History of the
Saracens; and it is told of the learned translator of the Koran, that
too often, when he quitted his studies, he wanted a change of linen, and
frequently wandered in the streets in search of some compassionate friend
who might supply him with the meal of the day![177]
Another scholar of high repute at the same period, is Samuel Clarke. He
was born at Brackley, in Northamptonshire, in 1623, and was a student at
Merton College, Oxford, when the parliamentary commission undertook the
reform of the University. The general report of the period represents
him as a very profound and accomplished linguist; but the only direct
evidence which remains of the extent of his powers, is the fact that
he assisted Walton in the preparation of his Polyglot Bible, and also
Castell in the composition of his Heptaglot Lexicon. He died in 1669.
Early in the same century was born John Wilkins, another linguist of some
pretensions. Perhaps, however, he is better known by the efforts which
he made to recommend that ideal project for a Universal Language which
has occupied the thoughts of so many learned enthusiasts since his time,
than by his own positive and practical attainments; although he published
a Collection of Pater Nosters which possesses no inconsiderable
philological merit. He was born in 1614, at Fawsley, in Northamptonshire;
and at the early age of thirteen, he was admitted a scholar of Magdalen
College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1634. In the contest
between the Crown and the Parliament, Wilkins became a warm partisan
of the latter. He was named Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, by the
parliamentary commission in 1648. Some years later, in 1656, he married
Robina, sister of the Protector, and widow of Peter French; the Protector
having granted him a dispensation from the statute which requires
celibacy, as one of the conditions of the tenure of his Wardenship. In
1659, Richard Cromwell promoted him to the Mastership of Trinity College,
Cambridge; from which, however, he was dispossessed at the Restoration.
But his reputation for scholarship, seemingly through the influence of
Buckingham,[178] outweighed his political demerits; and he was named
successively Dean of Ripon and Bishop of Chester, in which latter dignity
he died in 1670.
The unhappy deistical writer, John Toland, born in the County Donegal,
in Ireland, in 1669, was one of the most skilful linguists of his day.
His birth was probably illegitimate, and he was baptized by the strange
name of James Junius,[179] which the ridicule of his schoolfellows caused
him to change for that by which he is now known. During his early youth,
he was a member of the Catholic religion; but his daring and sceptical
mind early threw off the salutary restraints which that creed imposes,
although, like Gibbon, only to abandon Christianity itself in abandoning
Catholicity. His eventful and erratic career does not fall within the
scope of this notice, and I will only mention that in the singular
epitaph, which he composed for his own tomb, he speaks of himself as
“_linguarum plus decem sciens_.” In several of these ten languages, as
he states in his memorial to the Earl of Oxford,[180] he spoke and wrote
with as much fluency as in English. Toland died at Putney, in 1722.
From this period the same great blank occurs in the history of English
scholarship, which we have observed in almost all the contemporary
literatures of Europe. Still a few names may be gleaned from the general
obscurity.[181] It is true that what many persons may deem the most
notable publication of the time, Chamberlayne’s Collection of Pater
Nosters, (1715), was rather a literary curiosity than a work of genuine
scholarship. But there are other higher, though less known, names.
The once notorious “Orator Henley,” whom the Dunciad has immortalized as
the
“Preacher at once, and Zany of his age,”
was unquestionably a linguist of great acquirements. His “Complete
Linguist,” consisting of grammars of ten languages, was published when
he was but twenty-five years old; and throughout his entire career,
eccentric as it was, he appears to have persevered in the same studies.
John Henley was born at Melton Mowbray, in 1692, and graduated in the
University of Cambridge. He took orders, and obtained some notoriety as a
preacher; but his great theatre of display was his so-called “Oratory,”
where he delivered orations or lectures on a variety of topics,
religious, political, humorous, and even profane. It was on one of these
occasions that he drew together a large congregation of shoemakers, by
the promise of showing them “the best, newest, and most expeditious way
of making shoes,” which he proceeded to illustrate by holding out a boot
and _cutting off the leg part_! Henley died in 1756.[182]
What Henley was in the learned languages, the distinguished statesman
Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville, was in the modern. With all
his brilliant qualities as a debater, and all his great capacity for
public affairs, Carteret combined the learning and the accomplishments of
a finished scholar. Swift said of him that “he carried away from Oxford
more Greek, Latin, and philosophy, than became a person of his rank.” He
spoke and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and even
Swedish; and one of the first causes of the jealousy with which Walpole
regarded him, was the volubility with which he was able to hold converse
in German with their common master, George the First.
But Henley and Carteret stand almost alone among the English scholars of
the early half of the seventeenth century; and the first steady impulse
which the study of languages received in England, may be chiefly traced
to the attractions of the honourable and emolumentary service of the
East India Company. What the diplomatic ambition of France in the Levant
effected among the scholars of that country, the commercial enterprise
of the merchant princess of England achieved in her Indian territory;
and the splendid rewards held out to practical Oriental scholarship,
gave an impulse to the study of Eastern languages on a more liberal
and comprehensive scale.[183] It is in great part to this, that we are
indebted for the splendid successes of Sir William Jones, of Marsden, of
Colebrooke, of Craufurd, of Lumsden, of Leyden, and still more recently,
of Colonel Vans Kennedy.
The first of these, William Jones, was the son of a school-master,
and was born in London, in 1741. He was educated at Harrow, where
he exhibited an early taste for languages,[184] and was especially
distinguished in Greek and Latin metrical composition. In 1764, he
entered the University of Oxford, where he learned Arabic from a Syrian
whose acquaintance he chanced to form. To this he soon after added
Persian; and in 1770, he performed the very unusual feat of translating
the history of Nadir Shah into French. In the following year he
published his Persian Grammar, which took the general public as much by
surprise, by the beauty and eloquence of the poetical translations which
accompanied the copious examples that illustrated it, as it excited the
admiration of scholars by the simplicity and practical good sense of its
technical details. He soon afterwards applied himself to the language
and literature of China; which, however, he never made a profound study,
as about this time (1770), feeling the precariousness of a purely
literary profession, he took steps to have himself called to the English
bar, and for the following twelve years devoted himself with all his
characteristic energy, and with marked success, to its laborious and
engrossing duties. During the same period he endeavoured unsuccessfully
to obtain a seat in Parliament; but in 1783, he accepted the appointment
of Judge in the supreme court at Calcutta, and repaired to India in
the same year. His attention to the duties of his office, is said to
have been most earnest and exemplary. But, in the intervals of duty, he
travelled over a great part of India; mixed eagerly in native society;
and had acquired a familiarity with the history, antiquities, religions,
science, and laws of India, such as had never before been attained by
any European scholar, when, unhappily for the science to which he was
so thoroughly devoted, he was cut off prematurely in the year 1794, at
the early age of forty-seven. During a life thus laborious, and in great
part spent in pursuits utterly uncongenial with linguistic studies, Sir
William Jones had nevertheless amassed a store of languages which had
seldom, perhaps never, been equalled before his time. Fortunately too,
unlike most of the linguists whom we have been enumerating, he himself
left an autograph record of these studies, which Lord Teignmouth has
preserved in his interesting Biography. In this paper, he describes the
total number of languages with which he was in any degree acquainted to
have been twenty-eight; but he further distributes these into classes
according to the degree of his familiarity with each. From this curious
memorandum, it appears that he had studied critically _eight_ languages,
viz:—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit;
_eight_ others he had studied less perfectly, but all were intelligible
to him with the aid of a Dictionary, viz:—Spanish, Portuguese, German,
Runick, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; _twelve_ others, in fine, he
had studied least perfectly; but he considered all these attainable;
namely Tibetan, Pali, Palavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic,
Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese.[185]
Now, as Lord Teignmouth[186] describes him as perfectly familiar
with Spanish, Portuguese, and German, three languages which he has
himself placed on the list of languages, “less critically studied, but
intelligible with the aid of a dictionary,” it may fairly be believed
that this estimate is, to say the least, a sufficiently modest one; and
that his acquaintance even with the languages of the third class was by
no means superficial, we may infer from another memorandum preserved by
Lord Teignmouth from which we find that he had studied the grammars of
two at least of the number, namely: Russian and Welsh. His biographer,
however, unfortunately enters into no details as to his power of speaking
languages; but he is said by the writer of the notice in the _Biographie
Universelle_ to have spoken eight languages as perfectly as his native
English.
In contrast with successes so brilliant as these, the comparatively
humble career of the other British Orientalists named in conjunction with
Sir William Jones, will appear tame and uninteresting. William Marsden
was born in Dublin, 1754; and, after having completed the ordinary
classical studies, was sent out to Bencoolen in the island of Sumatra, at
the early age of sixteen. The extraordinary facility which he exhibited
for acquiring the Malay languages led to his rapid advancement. He was
named first under-secretary, and afterwards chief secretary of the
Island; and, before his return in 1779, he had accumulated the materials
for the exceedingly valuable work on Sumatra which he published in 1782.
Marsden held several important appointments after his return,[187] and
he employed every interval of his official duties in literary pursuits.
He was a thorough master of Sanscrit, and all its kindred languages;
but he must be described, nevertheless, rather as a book-learned, than
a practical linguist. His Essay on the Polynesian or East Insular
languages, tracing their connexion with each other, and their common
relations with Sanscrit, is still a standard source of information on
this interesting ethnological question.
Henry Thomas Colebrooke,[188] well known by his numerous contributions
to Oriental literature, especially in the Asiatic Journal, was also an
official of the East India Company, whose employment he entered, while
still very young, as a civil servant. Colebrooke was well versed, not
only in the Indian languages, but also in those of the Hebrew and cognate
races; and his early education in France gave him a greater familiarity
with French and other modern tongues than is often found to accompany the
more profound linguistic studies.
Matthew Lumsden was born in Aberdeenshire in 1777, and went as a mere
boy to India, where his brother had an appointment in the service of the
Company. Lumsden’s knowledge of Hindostani and of Persian led to his
being employed first as translator in the criminal court, and afterwards
as professor in Fortwilliam College, where he remained till 1820. His
skill in Persian and Arabic is attested by several publications upon
both, chiefly elementary; but he can hardly be classed with the higher
Orientalists, much less with linguists of more universal pretensions.
Lord Cockburn, in the lively section of his amusing “Memorials of his
Own Time” which he devotes to the singular and unsteady career of John
Leyden, says that M’Intosh, to whom “his wild friend” was clearly a
source of great amusement, used to laugh at the affected modesty with
which Leyden “professed to know _but seventy_ languages.”[189] It is
plain that M’Intosh considered this an extreme exaggeration; but there
can be no doubt, nevertheless, that Leyden was a very extraordinary
linguist. This strange man, whose name will perhaps be remembered by
the frequent allusions to it in the early correspondence of Sir Walter
Scott, was born of a very humble family at Denholm in 1775. Though his
education was of the very lowest order, yet Scott relates that “before he
had attained his nineteenth year, he confounded the doctors of Edinburgh
by the portentous mass of his acquisitions in almost every department of
knowledge.”[190] Having failed very signally in the clerical profession,
to which he was brought up by his parents, he embraced that of medicine;
and, after undergoing a more than ordinary share of the privations
and vicissitudes of literary life such as it then existed, he went to
Madras in 1803 in the capacity of assistant surgeon in the East India
Company’s service. The adoption of this career decided the course of his
after studies. He had learned, while yet a mere youth, preparing for the
university, Hebrew and Arabic. He afterwards extended his researches
into all the chief languages of the East, Sanscrit, Hindustani, and
many other minor varieties of the Indian tongues. He was also thorough
master of Persian. His career as Professor of Hindustani at Calcutta
was more successful than that of any European scholar since Sir William
Jones. Having also studied the Malay language, from which he made
several translations, he was induced to accompany Lord Minto on the Java
expedition in 1811, where he was cut off after a short illness in the
same year, too soon, unhappily, to allow of his turning to full account
the important materials which he had collected for the comparative study
of the Indo-Chinese languages.
The well-known evangelical commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, born in 1760,
of very humble parentage, at Magherafelt, in the County of Londonderry,
in the north of Ireland, and for a long course of years the most
distinguished preacher of the Methodist communion, enjoyed a high
reputation among his followers as a linguist; but his studies had been
confined almost entirely to the Biblical languages. The same may be said
of the Rev. Dr. Barrett, vice-provost of Trinity College, Dublin, who is
known to Biblical students as the editor of the Palimpsest MS. of the
Gospels, and of the celebrated Codex Montfortianus.
But there is more of curious interest in the career of a very
extraordinary individual, Richard Roberts Jones, of Aberdarvan, in
Carnarvonshire, who, if not for the extent of his attainments, at least
for the exceedingly unfavourable circumstances under which they were
acquired, deserves a place among examples of the “pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties.” A privately printed memoir of this singular
character, by Mr. Roscoe, who took much interest in him, and exerted
himself warmly in his behalf, contains several most curious particulars
regarding his studies and acquirements, as well as his personal habits
and appearance. Mr. Roscoe first met him in 1806, and described him to
Dr. Parr as “a poor Welsh fisher-lad, as ragged as a colt, and as uncouth
as any being that has a semblance of humanity. But beneath such an
exterior,” he adds, “is a mind cultivated, not only beyond all reasonable
expectation, but beyond all probable conception. In his fishing boat on
the coast of Wales, at an age little more than twenty, he has acquired
Greek, Hebrew, and Latin; has read the Iliad, Hesiod, Theocritus,
&c.; studied the refinements of Greek pronunciation; and examined the
connection of that language with Hebrew.” An attempt was made to raise
him to a position more befitting his acquirements. But his habits were
of the rudest and most uncleanly. “He loved to lie on his back in the
bottom of a ditch. His uncouth appearance, solitary habits, and perhaps
weak intellect, made him an object of ridicule and persecution to the
children of the district; and, he often _carried an iron pot on his
head_ to screen him from the stones and clods which they threw at him.
He wore a large filthy wrapper, in the pockets and folds of which he
stowed his library; and his face, covered with hair, gave him a strangely
uncouth appearance; although the mild and abstracted expression of his
features took from it much of its otherwise repulsive character.” Mr.
Roscoe gives a very curious account of an interview between Dr. Parr and
this strange genius, in 1815, in the course of which Jones “exhibited a
familiarity with French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee.”
He described too, for Dr. Parr, his mode of acquiring a new language,
which consisted in carefully examining its vocabulary, ascertaining
what words in it corresponded with those of any language which he had
previously learned, and _having struck such words out of the vocabulary_,
proceeding to impress the _remaining_ words upon his memory, as being
the only ones which were peculiar to the new language which he sought to
acquire. It may easily be believed that Jones’s irreclaimably uncouth and
eccentric habits defeated the efforts made by his friends to place him
in a condition more befitting his acquirements. Clothes with which their
thoughtfulness might replace his habitual rags, in a few days were sure
to present the same filthy and dilapidated appearance. When a bed was
provided for him, he chose to sleep not _upon_, but _under_ it; and all
his habits bespoke at once weakness of mind and indisposition, or perhaps
incapacity, to accommodate himself to the ordinary usages of other men.
Dr. Thomas Young, although his fame must rest chiefly upon his brilliant
philosophical discoveries, (especially in the Theory of Light), and on
his success in deciphering and systematizing the hieroglyphical writing
of the Egyptians, as exhibited in the inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone
and in the funereal papyri, cannot be passed over in a history of
eminent British linguists. Young was born at Milverton in Somersetshire,
in 1773. His mind was remarkably precocious. He had read the whole
Bible twice through, besides other books, before he was four years
old. In his seventh year he learnt Latin; and before he left school
in his thirteenth year, he added to this Greek, French, and Italian.
Soon after his return from school, he mastered Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac,
and Persian; and, in all those languages, as well as in his own, his
reading (of which his journals have preserved a most minute and accurate
record), was so various and so vast, as almost to exceed belief. Having
embraced the medical profession, he passed two years in different German
Universities, during which time he not only extended his knowledge of
learned languages, but also became perfect master of German;—not to speak
of various other acquisitions, some of them of a class which are seldom
found to accompany scholastic eminence, such as riding two horses at
the same time, walking or dancing on the tight rope, and various other
feats of harlequinade! Of his skill in the ancient Egyptian language, as
well as its more modern forms, in which he rivalled, and as his English
biographer, Dr. Peacock, seeks to show,[191] surpassed, Champollion and
Lepsius, it is unnecessary to speak: and it is highly probable that,
having learned Italian while a mere youth,[192] he also made himself
acquainted with Spanish, and perhaps Portuguese.
Dr. Pritchard, who may be regarded as the founder of the English
school of ethnography, can hardly, notwithstanding, be strictly called
a linguist. If we except the Celtic languages, and Greek, Latin, and
German, most of his learning regarding the rest is taken at second-hand
from Adelung and others. Nevertheless, the linguistic section of his
“Researches into the Physical History of Mankind,” is a work of very
great value. M. Bunsen pronounces it “the best of its kind; infinitely
superior, as a whole, to Adelung’s _Mithridates_”;[193] and Cardinal
Wiseman, in his masterly lecture “On the Natural History of the Human
race,” not only gives Pritchard the credit of being “almost the first who
attempted to connect ethnography with philology,” but even goes so far
as to say that it will henceforth “be difficult for any one to treat of
this theme without being indebted to Dr. Pritchard for a great portion of
his materials.”[194]
Of the school of living British linguists I shall not be expected to
speak at much length; but there are a few names so familiar to the
scholars of every country that it would be unpardonable to pass them over
entirely without notice.
The work just quoted, from the very time of its publication in 1836,
established the reputation of Dr. (now Cardinal) Wiseman, still a very
young writer, as a philologist of the first rank. His latest writings
show that, through all the engrossing duties in which he has since been
engaged, he has continued to cultivate the science of philology.[195]
The Cardinal is, moreover, a most accomplished linguist. Besides the
ordinary learned languages, he is master not only of Hebrew and Chaldee,
but also of Syriac (of his scholarship in which his _Horæ Syriacæ_ is
a most honourable testimony), Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit. In modern
languages he has few superiors. He speaks with fluency and elegance
French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese; and in most of these
languages he has frequently preached or lectured extempore, or with
little preparation.
The interesting discoveries of Colonel Rawlinson and of Dr. Hincks, and
Dr. Cureton’s very important Syriac publications, have associated their
names with the linguistic as well as the antiquarian memories of this
age. Nor are there many English Orientalists whose foreign reputation is
so high as that of Mr. Lane. But I am unable to speak of the attainments
of any of these gentlemen in the other families of language.
By far the most noticeable names in the list of living linguists of
British race are those of Sir John Bowring, now Governor at Hong-Kong,
Professor Lee of Cambridge, and the American ex-blacksmith, Elihu
Burritt. All three, beyond their several degrees of personal merit,
possess a common claim to admiration, as being almost entirely
self-educated. John (now Sir John) Bowring, as I learn from a Memoir
published about three years since,[196] before he had attained his
eighteenth year, had learned Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
German, and Dutch. He is said to have since added to his store almost
every language of Europe;—Russian, Servian, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian,
Slovakian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Lettish, Finnish, and even Basque;
and he is further described as familiar with all the provincial varieties
of each; for instance, of the various offshoots of German, and of the
several dialects of Spanish which prevail in Catalonia, Valencia and
Galicia. Dr. Bowring’s later career brought him into familiarity with
Arabic and Turkish; and his still more recent successes in China and in
Siam and its dependencies are equally remarkable. It is not so easy to
offer an opinion as to the degree of Sir John Bowring’s acquaintance with
each of the languages which are ascribed to him. His interesting poetical
translations from Russian, Servian, Bohemian, and other languages of
Europe, are rather a test of elegant literary tastes than of exact
linguistic attainments; nor am I aware to what more direct ordeal his
various attainments have been subjected. It were to be wished that the
Memoir from which these particulars are derived had entered more into
detail upon this part of the subject. But, even making every allowance
for possible exaggeration, it seems impossible to doubt the claim of Sir
John Bowring to a place in the very highest rank of modern linguists.
Dr. Samuel Lee is perhaps even a still more extraordinary example of
self-education. He was born in the very humblest rank in the village
of Longnor in Shropshire, and, after having spent a short time in the
poor-school of his native village, commenced life as a carpenter’s
apprentice, when he was but twelve years old. In the few intervals of
leisure which this laborious occupation permitted, Mr. Jerdan states[197]
that, without the least assistance from masters, he taught himself Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee; having contrived, from the hoardings of
his scanty wages, to procure a few elementary books in these and other
languages. On his marriage, however, he was forced to sell the little
library which he had accumulated, in order to provide for the new wants
with which he found himself encompassed: and for a time his struggle
after learning was suspended; but his extraordinary attainments having
begun to attract notice, he was relieved from the uncongenial occupation
which he had hitherto followed, and appointed master of a school at
Shrewsbury. In the more favourable position which he had thus obtained,
he soon extended his reading to Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. In 1813
he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where it is worthy of note that
he distinguished himself no less in science than in languages, and took
his degree with much credit. He was afterwards appointed superintendent
of the Oriental press of the British and Foreign Bible Society, for which
body he has not only edited the Arabic, Persian, Coptic, Hindustani,
Malay, and other versions of the Bible, but has also translated, or
superintended the translation, of many tracts in these various languages.
When Mr. Wheaton, an American traveller, (brother of the well-known
American jurist of that name) visited Professor Lee, he found him
acquainted with no less than “sixteen languages, in most of which he
was able to write.”[198] Neither this writer, however, nor Mr. Jerdan,
informs us as to the extent of Dr. Lee’s attainments in speaking foreign
languages.
The list of linguists of the British race may be closed not unworthily
with the still more remarkable name of Elihu Burritt, who, though born
in America (in 1811,) is descended of an English family, settled in
Connecticut for the last two centuries. The circumstances of Burritt’s
father, who was a shoemaker, were so narrow, that the education of
Elihu, the youngest of five sons, was entirely neglected. When his
father died, Elihu, then above fifteen years old, had spent but three
months at school; and, being altogether dependent on his own exertions
for support, he was obliged to bind himself as an apprentice to the
trade of blacksmith. Fortunately, however, an elder brother who was
a schoolmaster, settled in the same town before the term of Elihu’s
apprenticeship expired; and as the latter had carefully devoted each
spare moment of his laborious life to reading every book that came within
his reach, he gladly availed himself, as soon as he became his own
master, of his brother’s offer to take him as a pupil for half a year,
which was all the time he could hope to spare from his craft. During that
time, brief as it was, Elihu “became well versed in mathematics, went
through Virgil in the original, and read several French books.” Having
thus laid the foundation, he returned to his trade, resolved to labour
till he should have acquired the means of completing the work; and, in
the strong passion for knowledge which devoured him, he actually engaged
himself to do the work of two men, in order that, by receiving double
wages, he might more quickly realize the desired independence. Yet, even
while he was thus doubly tasked, and while his daily hours of labour were
no less than fourteen, he contrived to give some time in the mornings and
evenings to Latin, French, and Spanish; and he actually procured a small
“Greek grammar, which would just _lie in the crown of his hat_, and used
to carry it with him to read during his work—the casting of brass cow
bells, a task which required no small amount of attention!”
With the little store which he thus toilfully accumulated, he betook
himself to New Haven, the seat of Yale College, although without a hope
of being able to avail himself of its literary advantages. Here too he
worked almost unaided. He took lodgings at an inn frequented by the
students, though too poor to enter the university; and in the course of
a few months, by unremitting study, he read through the whole Iliad in
Greek, and had made considerable progress in Italian and German, besides
extending his knowledge of Spanish and French. Having obtained, soon
afterwards, a commercial appointment, he was partially released, for a
space, from the mechanical drudgery in which he was so long engaged; and,
as he was thus enabled to devote a little more time to his favourite
studies, he contrived to learn Hebrew, and made his first advance towards
a regular course of Oriental reading. But this interval of rest was a
brief one; after a very mortifying failure, he was at last compelled to
return once more to the anvil, as his only sure resource against poverty.
Still, nevertheless, he toiled on in his enthusiastic struggle for
knowledge. Even while engaged in this painful drudgery, “every moment,”
says Mrs. Howitt,[199] “which he could steal out of the four-and-twenty
hours was devoted to study; he rose early in the winter mornings, and,
while the mistress of the house was preparing breakfast by lamplight,
he would stand by the mantel-piece, with his Hebrew Bible on the shelf,
and his lexicon in his hand, thus studying while he ate; the same method
was pursued at the other meals; mental and bodily food being taken in
together. This severe labour of mind, as might be expected, produced
serious effects on his health; he suffered much from headaches, the
characteristic remedy for which were two or three additional hours of
hard forging, and a little less study.”
An extract from his own weekly Diary, which Mrs. Howitt has preserved,
tells the story of his struggle still more touchingly:—“_Monday_, June
18, headache; forty pages Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, sixty-four pages
French, eleven hours forging. _Tuesday_, sixty-five lines of Hebrew,
thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier’s Theory, eight lines Syriac,
ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto Polish, fifteen names of
stars, ten hours forging. _Wednesday_, twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty
pages of astronomy, eleven hours forging. _Thursday_, fifty-five lines
Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours forging. _Friday_, unwell;
twelve hours forging. _Saturday_, unwell; fifty pages Natural Philosophy,
ten hours forging. _Sunday_, lesson for Bible class.”
Through these and many similar difficulties, has this extraordinary man
found his way to eminence. Without attempting to chronicle the stages
of his progress, it will be enough to state that a writer of last year
describes him as at present acquainted with eighteen languages, besides
his native English, viz:—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic,
Turkish, Persian, Ethiopic, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Danish,
Irelandic, Esthonian, Bohemian, and Polish.[200] He is author of several
works, and was for some time Editor of a Journal entitled “The Christian
Citizen.”
As in the case of Dr. Lee, no attempt is made, in either of the
biographies of Burritt which I have consulted, to define with exactness
the degree of his knowledge of each among the various languages which he
has learned; but if his proficiency in them be at all considerable, his
position among linguists must be admitted to be of the very highest; and
as he is still only in his forty-sixth year, it would be difficult to
predict what may be the limit of his future successes.
§ VII. LINGUISTS OF THE SLAVONIC RACE.
The extraordinary capacity of the Slavonic races for the acquisition of
foreign languages, has long been a subject of observation and of wonder.
In every educated foreign circle Russians and Poles may be met, whom it
is impossible to distinguish, by their language, or even by their accent,
from the natives of the country: and this accomplishment is frequently
found to embrace the entire range of the polite languages of Europe. In
the higher native Russian society, it is rare to meet one who does not
speak several languages, besides his own. Every candidate for public
office in Russia, especially in connexion with foreign affairs, must be
master of at least four languages, French, German, English, and Italian;
and in the Eastern governments of the empire, are constantly to be found
employés, who, to the ordinary stock of European languages, add an equal
number of the dialects of the Asiatic races subject to the Czar.
In most cases, however, this facility in the use of foreign languages
enjoyed by the natives of Russia and Poland, is chiefly conversational,
and acquired rather by practice than by study; and, among the numbers
who, during the last three centuries, must be presumed to have possessed
this gift in an eminent degree, very few appear to have acquired a
permanent reputation as scholars in the higher sense of the name.
Unfortunately, too, even were it otherwise, the materials for a history
of Russian linguists are extremely scanty. Not one of those who have
written upon Slavonic Literature, appears to have adverted to this
as a distinct branch of scholarship; Slavonic scholars, too, have
met but imperfect justice from the writers on general biography; and
thus, especially for one to whom the native sources of information are
inaccessible, the rare allusions which can be gleaned from the general
history of Slavonic literature supply but an uncertain and imperfect
guide,[201] even did opportunities present themselves for pursuing the
inquiry.
It would be unpardonable, nevertheless, to pass the subject over in
silence; and I can only renew in especial reference to this part of the
memoir, the claim for indulgence with which I entered upon this Essay.
* * * * *
Christianity, and with it the first seeds of civilization, reached
Russia from Constantinople; and it is not unlikely that the friendly and
frequent intercourse which subsisted between the two courts under the
first Christian Dukes of Muscovy, Vladimir and Jaroslav, may have led to
a considerable interchange of language between the members of the two
nations. The many foreign alliances, too, with Constantinople, Germany,
Hungary, France, England, Norway, and Poland, which were formed by
the children of Jaroslav, may, perhaps, have tended to familiarize his
subjects, or at least his court, with some of the languages of Southern
and Western Europe. But no record of this—the one bright period in early
Russian history—has been preserved, from which any particulars can be
gleaned.
The division of Jaroslav’s dominions between his sons at his death, (in
1054,) plunged the Russian nation into a series of civil wars and into
the barbarism to which such wars lead, from which it did not begin to
emerge till the sixteenth century; and, although a few translations
(chiefly theological), from Greek and Latin, were made during this
period, yet, from the interruption of all intercourse with foreign
countries, it may be presumed that (with the exception, perhaps, of a
few enterprising individuals, like the merchant Nikitin,[202] who, in
the fifteenth century, traversed the entire East, and penetrated as far
as Tibet,) the natives of an empire so completely isolated concerned
themselves little about any language beyond their own.
Macarius, who was Metropolitan of Moscow in the middle of the sixteenth
century, did something to promote the introduction of foreign letters
into Russia,[203] and many translations, not only from the Greek and
Latin fathers, but also from the classical writers, were made under
his direction. A still greater impulse must have been given to this
particular branch of study by the new policy introduced by the Czar Boris
Feodorowitsch Godounoff, who not only invited learned foreigners to his
court, but sent eighteen young nobles of Russia to foreign countries to
study their arts, their literature and their languages.[204]
The results of this more liberal policy, however, had hardly begun to
be felt, when the troubles which followed the well-known revolution of
Demetrius the Impostor, revived for a time the worst forms of barbarism
in the Empire.
The elevation (in 1613,) of the family of Romanoff to the throne, in
the person of the Czar Michael, by restoring a more settled government,
contributed to advance the cause of letters. The monk Beründa Pameva,
published about this time a Slavo-Russian Lexicon, which exhibits in its
etymologies an acquaintance with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.[205]
A school was founded at Moscow by the priest-monk Arsenius, for the
study of Greek and Latin, in 1643, one of the scholars of which,
Theodore Rtischtscheff, founded a society for translating works from
foreign languages in 1649; and another school of still more wide-spread
influence was opened in the Monastery of Saikonosspassk, in 1682. It is
worthy of remark, nevertheless, that the first Russian grammar, that of
Ludolf,[206] was printed, not at any native press, but in the University
of Oxford.
One of the members of the Translation Society alluded to above, the
monk Epiphanius Slawinezki, appears to have been regarded by his
contemporaries as a linguist of notable attainments. He published
a Greek, Latin, and Slavonic Dictionary, and commenced a Slavonic
translation of the Bible from the original Greek, which was cut short
by his death in 1676; but there is no reason to believe that he was
acquainted with any of the Oriental languages; and the inference to be
drawn from the reputation which he enjoyed on so slight a foundation, is
far from creditable to the linguistic attainments of his time.
It is only from the reign of Peter the Great that the history of
this, as of all other branches of Russian enlightenment, may be
properly said to commence. Independently of the encouragement which
Peter held out to foreign talent to devote itself to his service, the
grand and comprehensive scheme of the academy which he planned under
the direction of Leibnitz, contained a special provision for the
department of languages.[207] And although it was not formally opened
until after Peter’s death, by the Empress Catherine I. (1725), the
influence of the policy in which it originated, had made itself felt
long before. The Czar’s favourite, Mentschikoff, who from an obscure
origin (1674-1729) built up the fortunes of what is now one of the
greatest houses of Russia, was master of eight languages, most of which
he spoke with perfect fluency. Demetrius Kantemir, (1673-1723), father
of the celebrated poet of that name, deserves also to be noticed. He
was descended of a Turkish family, and held the office of Hospodar of
Moldavia; but he prized his literary reputation more than his rank. He
appears to have been a scholar in the highest sense of the name, and
was familiarly acquainted, not only with the living languages which
are so easily acquired by his countrymen, but with several of the
learned languages, both of the East and the West.[208] The poet, his
son Antiochus Demetrjewitsch, is also described as “master of several
languages, ancient and modern.”[209] The same may be inferred regarding
the great traveller, Basilius Gregorowitsch Barskj, who was born at
Kiew, in 1702. He must necessarily have acquired, during his long and
adventurous wanderings in Europe and the East, a familiarity with many
of the languages of the various countries through which he journeyed,
although he was prevented from turning it to account upon his return to
Russia by his premature death in 1747.[210]
Basilius Nikititsch Tatisscheff, one of the youths sent abroad by Peter
the Great, for the purpose of studying in the foreign universities,
enjoyed a considerable reputation as a linguist.[211] The History of
Russia which he compiled, supposes a familiarity with several Asiatic,
as well as European languages; but, as it is not improbable that part
of the materials which he employed in this history were translated
for his use by assistants engaged for the purpose, it may be doubted
whether this can be assumed as a fair test of his own capabilities. The
linguistic attainments of the celebrated poet Lemonossoff,[212] although
considerable, form his least solid title to fame. His history is so
full of interest, that its incidents, almost utterly unvarnished, have
supplied the narrative of one of the most popular of modern Russian
novels. Born (1711) in a rude fisher’s hut in the wretched village
of Denissowka on the shore of the Frozen Ocean, he rose by his own
unassisted genius not only to high eminence in science, but to the
very first rank in the literature of his native country, of which he
may truly be described as the founder; and, although he does not seem
to have made languages a special study, he deserves to be noticed even
in this department. He was perfect master of Greek, Latin, French,
and German; and possessed with other ancient and modern languages, an
acquaintance sufficient for all the purposes of study. The attainments
of his contemporary, Basilius Petrowitsch Petroff, (1736) were
perhaps more profound. He was a scholar of the celebrated convent of
Saikonosspassk; and having attracted notice by an ode which he composed
for the coronation of the Empress Catherine, he was employed, through the
influence of Potemkin, at the English and several other European courts.
Through the opportunities which he thus enjoyed, he became one of the
best linguists of his day, and we may form an estimate of his zeal and
perseverance from the circumstance of his having learned Romaic after his
sixtieth year.[213] Gabriel, Archbishop of St. Petersburg, (1775-1801)
and one of the most distinguished pulpit orators of Russia, is also
mentioned as a very remarkable linguist.[214] His success, however, lay
chiefly in modern languages.
The most eminent scholars engaged in the philological and ethnological
investigations undertaken by the Empress Catherine II. were foreigners;
as, for example, Pallas, and Bakmeister. Some, however, were native
Russians, but few details are preserved regarding them. Of Sujeff, who
accompanied Pallas in the expedition to Tartary and China, and who
translated the journals of the expedition into Russian,[215] I have not
been able to obtain any particulars. I have been equally unsuccessful
as to the history of Theodore Mirievo de Jankiewitsch, the compiler of
the alphabetical Digest of Pallas’s Comparative Vocabulary, described in
a former page; but it can scarcely be doubted, from the very nature of
his task, that he must have been a man of no ordinary acquirements as a
linguist, at least as regards the vocabularies of language.
During the present century a good deal has been done in Russia for
the cultivation of particular families of languages. The “Lazareff
Institute,” founded at Moscow in 1813,[216] by an Armenian family from
which it takes its name, comprehends in its truly munificent scheme
of education not only the Armenian, Georgian, and Tartar languages,
but also the several members of the Caucasian family.[217] An Oriental
Institute[218] on a somewhat similar plan was established at St.
Petersburg in 1823. Another was opened at the still more favourable
centre of languages, Odessa, in 1829; and a fourth, yet more recently,
at Kazan, the meeting point of the two great classes of languages
which practically divide between them the entire Russian Empire.[219]
Individual scholars, too, have taken to themselves particular branches
of the study, some of them with very remarkable success. Timkoffsky, the
well-known missionary in China,[220] and Hyacinth Bitchourin, who was
head of the Pekin Russian Mission from 1808 to 1812, have contributed to
popularize the study of Chinese.[221] Igumnoff of Irkutsch published a
useful dictionary of the Mongol: Giganoff, and more recently Volkoff, a
dictionary of the Tartar languages; of which Mirza Kazem-Beg, professor
of the Turkish and Tartar languages at St. Petersburg, has compiled an
excellent grammar. The same service has been rendered to the language
of Georgia and its several dialects by David Tchubinoff.[222] The
numerous philological writings of Goulianoff, too, and, more lately,
Prince Alexander Handjeri’s _Dictionnaire Français, Arabe, Persan, et
Turc_,[223] have established a European reputation.
The present Prefect Apostolic of the Arctic Missions, who is a convert
from the Russian Church, is said to be a very extraordinary linguist.
Even before he entered upon his missionary charge, in which, of course,
the circle of his languages is much enlarged, he habitually heard
confessions, at Paris, in six languages.
Perhaps also it may be permitted to enumerate among Russian linguists
three eminent literary men who have long been resident at St. Petersburg,
and who, although not natives of Russia, may now be regarded as
naturalised subjects of the Empire—Senkowsky, Gretsch and Mirza Kazem-Beg.
The first is by birth a Pole;[224] but having early attained to much
eminence as an Orientalist, and having travelled with some reputation as
an explorer in Syria and Egypt, he obtained the Professorship of Oriental
languages in the university of St. Petersburg, in which he has since
distinguished himself by an important controversy with the celebrated
Von Hammer. Senkowsky, since his residence in St. Petersburg, has made
the Russian language his own, and is one of the most prolific writers
in the entire range of modern Russian literature. His grammar of that
language is among the most intelligible to foreigners that has ever been
issued. With most of the languages of Europe, he is said to be perfectly
familiar, and his attainments as an Orientalist are of the very highest
rank. He is a corresponding member of the Asiatic Societies of most of
the capitals of Europe, and publishes indifferently in Polish, Russian,
German, and French.
Gretsch, the editor of the well-known St. Petersburg Journal, “The
Northern Bee,” is perhaps less profound, but equally varied in his
attainments. Although a German by birth, he writes exclusively in
Russian, and is the author of the best and most popular extant history
of Russian literature; of which Otto’s _Lehrbuch der Russischen
Literatur_, although apparently an independent work, is almost a literal
translation.[225]
Mirza Kazem-Beg is of the Tartar race, but a native of Astracan, where
his father, a man of much reputation for learning, had settled about
the commencement of the century. Soon after the establishment of the
professorship of the Turkish and Tartar languages at Kazan, Kazem-Beg was
selected to fill it; and, after some time, he was removed to the same
chair in the University of Petersburg, which he still holds. Besides the
ordinary learned languages, he is acquainted with the Hebrew, Chaldee,
Arabic, Syrian, Persian, and Turkish, as well as those of the Tartar
stock; and he is described as perfect master of the modern European
languages, especially French, Italian, German, and English. The last
named language he speaks and writes with great ease and elegance, and
has even published some translations into it, as, for example, the
“Derbend-Nâmeh.”[226]
* * * * *
The reputation of the Poles as linguists is equally high. So far back
as the election of Henry de Valois, Choisnin, who accompanied Henry
to Poland, says that of the two hundred Polish nobles who were then
assembled, there were hardly two who did not speak, in addition to their
native Polish, German, Italian, and Latin.[227] So universal was the
knowledge of the last named language that, with perhaps a pardonable
exaggeration, Martin Kromer alleges that there were fewer in Poland than
in Latium itself who did not speak it.[228]
Nevertheless, few names present themselves in this department which have
left any permanent trace in history. Francis Meninski, the learned author
of the _Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium_,[229] was not only a profound
scholar in most of the ancient and modern languages, but, from his long
residence in the East, and from the office of Oriental Interpreter which
he held, first in the Polish and afterwards in the Imperial service, must
be presumed to have spoken them freely and familiarly. But Meninski was a
native of Lorraine, and by some is believed to have been originally named
_Menin_, and only to have adopted the Polish affix, _ski_, on receiving
from the Diet his patent of naturalization and nobility.
Among the early Polish Jesuits were many accomplished classical and
Oriental linguists, but in the absence of any particulars of their
attainments, it would be uninteresting to enumerate them. In later times
the names of Groddek and Bobrowski may be mentioned as philologers,
if not as linguists. The learned Jesuit historian, John Christopher
Albertrandy, also, possesses this among many other lilies to fame. He
was a most laborious and successful collector of materials for Polish
history, in search of which he explored the libraries of Italy, from
whence he carried home, after three years of patient research, a hundred
and ten folio volumes of extracts copied with his own hand! From Italy
he proceeded to Stockholm and Upsala, where many important documents
connected with the time of John III. and Sigismond III. are preserved:
and here, being, from some unworthy jealousy, only permitted to inspect
the desired documents on the condition of not making notes or copies in
the library, his prodigious memory enabled him on his return each evening
to his apartments, to commit to writing what he had read during the day,
and the collection thus formed amounted to no fewer than ninety folio
volumes![230] Albertrandy’s historical works are very numerous; and when
his labours in this department are remembered, his success as a linguist
will appear almost prodigious. Besides Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he knew
most of the modern languages, French, English, Italian, German, and
Russian, and spoke the majority of them with ease and propriety.
The well-known Polish General, Wenceslaus Rzewuski, devoted the later
years of his busy and chequered career to literary, and especially to
linguistic, pursuits. He is said to have spoken the learned tongues
as well and as freely as his native Polish, and to have been master,
moreover, of all the leading modern languages of Europe. The great
Oriental Journal published at Vienna, _Fundgruben des Orients_, which is
really what its title implies, a _mine_ of Oriental learning, was for
many years under his superintendence.
The Russo-Polish diplomatist, Count Andrew Italinski, is another example
of the union of profound scholarship with great talents for public
affairs. Born in Poland about the middle of the eighteenth century,
Italinski visited in the successive stages of his education, Kiew,
Leyden, Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Berlin, and acquired the languages
of all those various countries. Being eventually appointed to the Russian
embassy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he became even more perfect
in Italian. In addition to all these languages, he was so thoroughly
master of those of the East, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, &c., as to
challenge the admiration even of the Easterns themselves.[231]
It is perhaps right to add that the eminent Orientalist of St.
Petersburg, Senkowsky, although a Russian by residence and by
association, is not only, as I have already stated, of Polish birth, but
is, moreover, one of the most popular writers in his native language.
* * * * *
Our notice of Bohemian linguists must be even more meagre.
The early period of Bohemian letters presents no distinguished name. From
the extraordinary activity which the Bohemians exhibited in translating
the Bible in the fifteenth century, it might be supposed that the study
of Greek and Hebrew had already taken root in the schools of Prague. But
out of the “thirty-three copies in Bohemian of the entire Bible, and
twenty-two of the New Testament,”[232] which are still extant, translated
during that period, not one was rendered from the original languages.
Blakoslav, the first translator of the Bible from Greek (in 1563) is
said to have been a man of “profound erudition.” The same is said of
George Strye a few years later; and the Jesuits Konstanj, Steyer, and
Drachovsky, are also entitled to notice.
John Amos Komnensky, also, better known by his Latinized name, Comenius,
a native of Komna in Moravia, (1592-1671) deserved well of linguistic
science, not only by his own acquirements, but by his well-known work,
the _Janua Linguarum Reserata_, which has had the rare fortune of being
translated not only into twelve European languages, but into those of
several Oriental nations besides. The _Janua Linguarum_, however, though
it attracted much attention at the time, has long been forgotten.
It would be still more unpardonable to overlook the celebrated
philologer, Father Joseph Dobrowsky, who, although born in Raab, in
Hungary, was of a Bohemian family, and devoted himself especially to
the literature and language of his nation. He had just entered the
Jesuit society at Brunn at the moment of the suppression of the order.
Repairing to Prague, he applied himself for a time to the study of the
Oriental languages, but eventually concentrated all his energies on the
history and language of Bohemia. His works upon Bohemian history and
antiquities fill many volumes; and his Slavonic Grammar may be regarded
as a classical work, not only in reference to his native language, but
to the whole Slavonian family. Father Dobrowsky survived till the year
1829, engaged until the very time of his death in active projects for the
cultivation of the language and literature of the country of his adoption.
But probably the most remarkable name among Bohemian linguists is
that of Father Dobrowsky’s friend, the poet Wenceslaus Hanka, born at
Horeneyes in 1791. Hanka’s love of languages was first stirred while he
was tending sheep near his native village, by the opportunity which he
had of learning Polish and Servian from some soldiers of these races
being quartered upon his father’s farm. When he grew somewhat older, his
parents, in order to save him from the chances of military conscription,
(from which, in Bohemia, scholars are exempted) sent him to school;
and he afterwards entered the University of Prague, and subsequently
that of Vienna. On the foundation of the Bohemian Museum at Prague,
he was appointed its librarian, through the recommendation of Father
Dobrowsky; and from that time he devoted himself almost entirely to the
antiquities, literature, and language of his native country. Besides
his own original compositions, Hanka’s name has obtained considerable
celebrity in connexion with the controversy about the genuineness of the
early Bohemian poems known under the title of “Kralodvor,”—a controversy
which, although it has ended differently, was for a time hardly less
animated than those regarding the Ossian and Rowley MSS. in England.
Notwithstanding the variety of Hanka’s pursuits, and his especial
devotion to his own language, his acquisitions in languages have been
most various and extensive. He is described in the “Oesterreichische
National Encyclopædie” as “master of eighteen languages.”[233]
* * * * *
With the Slavonic race our Catalogue of Linguists closes. Many
particulars regarding the eminent names which it comprises are, of
necessity, left vague and undetermined. I should have especially
desired to distinguish, in all cases, between mere book knowledge of
languages and the power of writing, or still more of speaking, them. But
unfortunately the accounts which are preserved regarding these scholars
hardly ever enter into this distinction. Even Sir William Jones, though
he carefully classified the languages which he knew, did not specify
this particular; and in most other instances, the narrative, far from
particularizing, like that of Jones, the extent of the individual’s
acquaintance with each language, even leaves in uncertainty the number of
languages with which he was acquainted in any degree.
The very distribution, too, which I have found it expedient to
follow—according to nations—has had many disadvantages. But it seemed
to be upon the whole the most convenient that could be devised. A
distribution into periods, besides that it would have been difficult to
follow out upon any clear and intelligible principle, would have been
attended with the same disadvantages which characterize that according
to nations; while the more strictly philosophical distribution according
to ethnographical or philological schools, would have in great measure
failed to illustrate the object which I have chiefly had in view.
Several of the most eminent of the modern ethnographical writers, and
particularly Pritchard, disavow all claim to the character of linguists;
and the qualifications of many even of those whose pretensions seem the
highest, have, when submitted to a rigid examination, proved far more
than problematical.
* * * * *
There are many curious details, however, into which, if space permitted,
it would be interesting to pursue this inquiry.
It might seem natural, for instance, to investigate the nature and
extent of the Miraculous Gift of Languages—the γένη γλωσσῶν of St.
Paul—whether that possessed by the Apostles and other early teachers of
Christianity, or that ascribed in later times to the missionaries among
the Heathen, and especially to the great Apostle of India, St. Francis
Xavier. Materials are not wanting for such an investigation;[234] but as
it can hardly be said to bear upon the subject of this Biography, I have
reluctantly passed it by.
The history of Royal Linguists, too, might afford much amusing material
for speculation. Mithridates, King of Pontus, as we have seen, spoke
twenty-two languages. Cleopatra was mistress, not only of seven
languages enumerated by Plutarch, but, if we may believe his testimony,
of most other known languages of the time. The accomplished, but
ill-fated, Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia, was familiar with Greek, Latin,
Syriac, and Egyptian; and it may be presumed from the notion which
prevailed among some Christian writers of her being a Jewess, that she
was also acquainted with Hebrew or its kindred tongues.[235] Most of the
Roman Emperors were able indifferently to speak Greek or Latin.
The mediæval sovereigns, with the exception of Frederic II., referred
to in a former page,[236] and the great and learned Pope Sylvester II.,
better known by his family name Gerbert,[237] share, as linguists, the
common mediocrity of the age. The learned Princess Anna Comnena does not
appear at all distinguished in this particular; Charlemagne’s reputation
rests on his acquaintance with Latin, and perhaps also Greek; and our own
Alfred was regarded as a notable example of success, although there is no
evidence that his linguistic attainments extended beyond a knowledge of
Latin.
Very early, however, after the revival of letters, Matthias Corvinus, the
learned and munificent King of Hungary, attained a rank as a linguist
not unworthy of a later day. Besides the learned languages, he was also
acquainted with most of the living tongues of Europe. Charles V. knew and
spoke five languages.[238] Henry VIII. spoke four. Several of the Roman
Pontiffs, particularly Paul IV., in other respects also a most remarkable
scholar,[239] and the great Benedict XIV., were learned Orientalists,
as well as good general linguists. The house of Stuart was eminent for
the gift of tongues. The ill-fated Mary of Scotland spoke most of the
European languages. James I., her son, with all his silly pedantry, was
by no means a contemptible linguist. His grandson, Charles II., spoke
French and Spanish fluently; and his brilliant grand-daughter, Elizabeth
of Bavaria, who alone, according to Descartes, of all her contemporaries,
was able to understand the Cartesian philosophy, was mistress, besides
many scientific and literary accomplishments, of no fewer than six
languages.[240] Christina of Sweden surpassed her in one particular.
She knew as many as eight languages, the major part of which she spoke
fluently.
Nor are the courts of our own day without examples of the same
acquirement. The late Emperor of Russia spoke five languages. Several of
the reigning sovereigns of Europe, Queen Victoria, Alexander of Russia,
and Napoleon III. among the number, enjoy the reputation of excellent
linguists. The young Emperor of Austria is an accomplished classical
scholar, and a perfect master of French, and of all the languages of
his own vast empire—German, Italian, Hungarian, Czechish, and Servian!
Prince Lewis Lucian Bonaparte is a distinguished philologer, as well as a
skilful linguist. His “Polyglot Parable of the Sower” is an interesting
contribution to the former science. Even the remote kingdom of Siam
furnishes, in its two Royal brothers, the First and the Second King,
an example more deserving of praise than would be a far higher success
in a more favoured land. The First King, Somdetch Phra Paramendt Maha
Mongkut,[241] has evinced a degree of intellectual activity, rare
indeed among the potentates of the East. Besides the ancient language
and literature of his own kingdom, and all its modern dialects and
sub-divisions, he knows Sanscrit, Cingalese, and Peguan. From the
Catholic missionaries, especially Bishop Pallegoix, he has learned Latin
and also Greek, and from the American Baptists, English. His letters,
though sometimes unidiomatical, are highly characteristic, and display
much intelligence and ability. He is also well versed in European
sciences, especially astronomy and mechanics. He has formed, moreover, a
very considerable collection of astronomical and philosophical apparatus;
has established printing and lithographic presses in the palace; and has
imported steam machinery of various kinds from America. It is gratifying
to add that his brother, the Second King, shares all his tastes, and is
treading worthily in his footsteps.
* * * * *
A still more attractive topic would be the long line of Lady-Linguists.
It is not a little remarkable that, among the sovereigns who have
distinguished themselves as linguists, the proportion of queens is very
considerable. The three names, Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Christina of
Sweden, unquestionably represent a larger aggregate of languages than any
three of the king-linguists, if we exclude Mithridates.
Nor are the humbler lady-linguists unworthy this companionship. The nun
Roswitha, of Gandesheim, still favourably known by her sacred Latin
poetry, was also acquainted with Greek—a rare accomplishment in the tenth
century. Tarquinia Molza, grand-daughter of the gifted, but licentious
poet of the same name, knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as the
ordinary modern languages. Elena Cornaro Piscopia knew Italian, Spanish,
French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic.[242] Nay, strange as it
may seem in modern eyes, the university of Bologna numbers several ladies
among the occupants of its pulpits. The beautiful Novella d’Andrea,
daughter of the great jurist, Giovanni d’Andrea, professor of law in the
University of Bologna in the 15th century, was wont to take her father’s
place as lecturer on law; observing, however, the precaution of using
a veil, lest her beauty should distract the attention of her pupils.
Her mother Milancia, scarcely less learned, was habitually consulted by
Giovanni on all questions of special difficulty which arose.[243] Laura
Bassi held the chair of philosophy in more modern times.[244] Clotilda
Tambroni, the last and not the least distinguished of the lady professors
of Bologna, has, besides her literary glories, the honour of having
suffered in the cause of loyalty and religion. Like her friend and fellow
professor, Mezzofanti, she refused, on the occupation of Bologna by the
French, to take the oaths of the new government, and was deprived of the
professorship of Greek in consequence.
The learned ladies of Bologna are not alone among their countrywomen.
The celebrated Dominican nun, Cassandra Fedele of Venice; Alessandra
Scala of Florence; and Olympia Fulvia Morata of Ferrara, are all equally
distinguished as proficients in at least two learned languages, Latin and
Greek. Margherita Gaetana Agnesi, of Milan, was familiar with Latin at
nine years of age; and, while still extremely young, mastered Greek and
Hebrew, together with French, Spanish, and German. In the very meridian
of her fame, nevertheless, she renounced the brilliant career which lay
open to her, in order to devote herself to God as a Sister of Charity.
Another fair Italian, Modesta Pozzo, born at Venice in 1555, deserves to
be mentioned, although she is better known for her extraordinary powers
of memory, than her skill in languages.[245] She was able to repeat the
longest sermon after hearing it but once.
Nor are we without examples, although perhaps not so numerous, in other
countries. Many Spanish and Portuguese ladies learned in languages, are
enumerated by Nicholas de Antonio.[246] Dona Anna de Villegas, and D.
Cecilia di Arellano, besides being excellent Latinists, were mistresses
of French, Italian, and Portuguese.[247] To these languages D. Cecilia
de Morellas added Greek as one of her accomplishments,[248] and D.
Juliana de Morell, a nun of the Dominican order in the middle of the
seventeenth century, in addition to these languages, was not only a
learned Hebraist, but an acute and skilful disputant in the philosophy of
the schools.[249]
The accomplished Anna Maria Schurmann, of whom Cologne is still justly
proud, in addition to her numerous gifts in painting, sculpture, music,
and poetry, was mistress of eight languages, among which were Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopic.
The brilliant, but eccentric Russian Princess Dashkoff, holds a still
more prominent place in the world of letters. The early friend and
confidant of the Empress Catherine, and (with a few alternations
of disfavour,) the sharer of most of the literary projects of that
extraordinary woman, the Princess Dashkoff had the (for a lady rare)
honour of holding the place of President of the Russian Academy. When
the Dictionary of the Academy was projected, she actually undertook, in
her own person, three letters of the work, together with the general
superintendence of the entire! The princess was not unfamiliar with the
learned languages, some of which she not only spoke but wrote: but her
chief attainments were in those of modern Europe. Her autobiographical
Memoirs appear to have been written in French; and the English letters
embodied in the work prove her to have possessed a thorough knowledge of
that language also.
Some of our own countrywomen, if less showy, may perhaps advance a more
solid title to distinction. The beautiful Mrs. Carter, translator of
Epictetus, well deserves to be mentioned; and the amiable and singularly
gifted Elizabeth Smith, is a not unmeet consort for the most eminent
linguists of any age. “With scarcely any assistance,” writes her
biographer, Mrs. Bowdler, to Dr. Mummsen,[250] “she taught herself the
French, Italian, Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, and Hebrew languages. She
had no inconsiderable knowledge of Arabic and Persian.” Her translation
of the Book of Job is a permanent evidence that her knowledge of Hebrew
was of no ordinary kind.
Even the New World has supplied some names to this interesting catalogue.
The Mexican poetess, Juana Inez de la Cruz, better known as the “Nun of
Mexico,” (1651-95), a marvel of precocious knowledge, learned Latin in
twenty lessons, when a mere girl; and quickly became such a proficient
as to speak it with ease and fluency. Her acquisitions in general
learning were most various and extensive; and when on one occasion, in
her seventeenth year, forty learned men of Mexico were invited to dispute
with her, she proved a match for each in his own particular department.
All these accomplishments, notwithstanding, she had the humility to bury
in the obscurity of a convent in Mexico, where she silently devoted
herself for twenty-seven years to literature and religion. She died
in 1695, leaving behind many works still regarded as classics in the
language, which fill no less than three 4to. volumes, and have passed
through twelve successive editions in Spain. All, with the exception of
two, are on sacred subjects.[251]
“Infant Phenomena” of language would supply another curious and fertile
topic for inquiry—an inquiry too in a psychological point of view
eminently interesting.
Many of the great linguists enumerated in this Memoir, Pico of Mirandola,
Crichton, Martin del Rio, and several others, owed part of their
celebrity to the marvellous precociousness of their gifts. A far larger
proportion, however, of those who prematurely displayed this talent, were
cut off before it had attained any mature or healthy development.
Cancellieri[252] mentions a child named Jacopo Martino,[253] born at
Racuno, in the Venetian territory, in 1639, who not only acquired a
knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, between the age of three and seven, but
made such progress in philosophical science as successfully to maintain
a public thesis in philosophy at Rome, when no more than eight years of
age.[254] This extraordinary child, however, died of exhaustion in 1649,
before he had completed his ninth year.
It was the same for Claudio del Valle y Hernandez, a Spanish prodigy,
mentioned by the same author.
But probably the most extraordinary examples of this psychological
phenomenon upon record, occur, by a curious coincidence, almost at the
very same date in the commencement of the eighteenth century. Within
the three years, from 1719 to 1721, were born in different countries,
three children of a precociousness (even though we accept the traditions
regarding them with great deductions,) entirely without parallel in
history.
The first of these, John Lewis Candiac, was born at Nismes, in 1719.
This strangely gifted child, we are told, was able, in his third
year, to speak not only his native French but also Latin. Before he
was six years old he spoke also Greek and Hebrew. He was well versed,
besides, in arithmetic, geography, ancient and modern history, and even
heraldry.[255] But, as might be expected, these premature efforts quickly
exhausted his overtaxed powers, and he died of water on the brain in
1726, at seven years of age.
Christian Henry Heinecken, a child of equal promise, was cut off even
more prematurely. He was born at Lubeck in 1721. He is said to have been
able to speak at ten months old. By the time he attained his twelfth
month, he had learned, if his biographers can be credited, all the facts
in the history of the Pentateuch.[256] In another month he added to this
all the rest of the history of the old Testament; and, when he was but
fourteen months old, he was master of all the leading facts of the Bible!
At two and a half years of age, he spoke fluently, besides his native
German, the French and Latin languages. In this year he was presented at
the Danish court, where he excited universal astonishment. But, on his
return home, he fell sick and died in his fourth year.
The third of these marvels of precocity, John Philip Baratier, who is
probably known to many readers by Johnson’s interesting memoir,[257]
was born at Anspach in the same year with Heinecken, 1721. His career,
however, was not so brief, nor were its fruits so ephemeral, as those
of the ill-fated children just named. When Baratier was only four years
old, he was able to speak Latin, French, and German. At six he spoke
Greek; and at nine Hebrew; in which latter language the soundness of his
attainments is attested by a lexicon which he published in his eleventh
year. Nor was Baratier a mere linguist. He is said to have mastered
elementary mathematics in three months, and to have qualified himself by
thirteen month’s study for the ordinary thesis maintained at taking out
the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was also well versed in architecture,
in ancient and modern literature, in antiquities, and even the uncommon
science of numismatics. He translated from the Hebrew Benjamin of
Tudela’s “Itinerary.” He published a detailed and critical account of the
Rabbinical Bible; and communicated to several societies elaborate papers
on astronomical and mathematical subjects. This extraordinary youth died
at the age of nineteen in 1760.
Later[258] in the same century was born at Rome a child named
Giovanni Cristoforo Amaduzzi,[259] if not quite so precocious as this
extraordinary trio, at least of riper intellect, and destined to survive
for greater distinction and for a more useful career. The precise dates
of his various attainments do not appear to be chronicled; but, when he
was only twelve years old, he published a poetical translation of the
Hecuba of Euripides, which excited universal surprise; and a few years
later, on the visit of the Emperor Joseph II. and his brother Leopold to
Rome, he addressed to the Emperor a polyglot ode of welcome in Greek,
Latin, Italian, and French. His after studies, however, were more serious
and more practical. He is well-known, not only as a linguist, but also
as a philologer of some merit; and in his capacity of corrector of the
Propaganda Oriental Press, a post which he filled till his death, in
1792, he rendered many important services to Oriental studies.[260]
* * * * *
It would be interesting too, and not without its advantage in reference
to the history of the human mind, to collect examples of what may be
called Uneducated Linguists; of Dragomans, Couriers, “Lohnbedienter,”
and others[261], who, ignorant of all else besides, have acquired a
facility almost marvellous of speaking several languages fluently, and in
many cases with sufficient, seeming accuracy.
Perhaps this is the place to mention the once notorious (to use his own
favourite designation) “Odcombian Leg-stretcher,” Tom Coryat, a native
of Odcombe in Somersetshire (1577-1617), and author of the now rare
volume, “Coryat’s Crudities.”[262] Coryat may fairly be described as
“an uneducated linguist;” for, although he passed through Westminster
School, and afterwards entered Gloucester Hall, Oxford, the languages
which he learned were all picked up, without regular study, during his
long pedestrian wanderings in every part of the world; one of which, of
nearly two thousand miles, he accomplished in a single pair of shoes,
(which he hung up in the church of Odcombe as a votive offering on his
return), and another, of no less than two thousand seven hundred, at a
cost of about three pounds sterling! This strange genius acquired, in a
sufficient degree for all the wants of conversation, Italian, Turkish,
Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani!
Another singularity of the same kind was Robert Hill, the Jewish tailor,
whom Spence has made the subject of an exceedingly curious parallel with
Magliabecchi.[263] And many similar examples might doubtless be collected
among the couriers, interpreters, and valets-de-place of most of the
European capitals. Baron von Zach mentions an ordinary valet-de-place who
could speak nearly all the European languages with the greatest ease and
correctness, although he was utterly ignorant not only of the grammar of
every one of them, but even of that of his own language. I have already
said that the same species of talent is hereditary in several families in
different ports and cities of the Levant.
The history of such cases as these, if it were possible to investigate
it accurately, might throw light on the operations of the mind in the
acquisition of languages. These, however, and many similar topics,
interesting and curious as they are for their own sake, have but little
bearing on the present inquiry; the purpose of which is simply to prepare
the way for a fitting estimate of the attainments of the illustrious
subject of the following Biography, by placing in contrast with them the
gifts of others who, at various times, have risen to eminence in the same
department. Cardinal Mezzofanti will be found to stand so immeasurably
above even the highest of these names, in the department of language,
that, at least for the purposes of comparison with him, its minor
celebrities can possess little claim for consideration.
THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.
CHAPTER I.
[1774-1798.]
A Memoir of Cardinal Mezzofanti can be little more than a philological
essay. Quiet and uneventful as was his career, its history possesses few
of the ordinary attractions of Biography. The main interest of such a
narrative must consist in the light which it may tend to throw on the
curious problem;—what degree of perfection the human mind, concentrating
its powers upon one department of knowledge, is capable of attaining
therein; and the highest hope of the author is to escape the reproach
which Warburton directed against Boileau’s biographer, Desmaiseaux, of
having “written a book without a life.”
* * * * *
Joseph Caspar Mezzofanti,[264] was born at Bologna,[265] on the 17th
of September, 1774.[266] His father, Francis Mezzofanti, a native
of the same city, was of very humble extraction, and by trade a
carpenter. Though almost entirely uneducated,[267] Francis Mezzofanti
is described by the few who remember him, as a man of much shrewdness
and intelligence, a skilful mechanic, and universally respected for his
integrity, piety, and honourable principles. For Mezzofanti’s mother,
Gesualda Dall’ Olmo, a higher lineage has been claimed;—the name of Dall’
Olmo[268] being extremely ancient and not undistinguished in the annals
of Bologna; but the fortunes of the immediate branch of that family from
which Gesualda Dall’ Olmo sprung, were no less humble than those of her
husband. Her education, however, was somewhat superior; and with much
simplicity and sweetness of disposition, she united excellent talents,
great prudence and good sense, and a profoundly religious mind.
Of this marriage were born several children; but they all died at an
early age, except a daughter named Teresa, and Joseph Caspar, the
subject of the present biography. Teresa was the senior by ten years,
and, while her brother was yet a boy, married a young man named Joseph
Lewis Minarelli,[269] by trade a hair dresser, to whom she bore a very
numerous family,[270] several of whom still survive. To the kind courtesy
of one of these, the Cavaliere Pietro Minarelli, I am indebted for a
few particulars of the family history, and of the early years of his
venerated uncle.[271]
It may be supposed that in the case of Mezzofanti, as in those of most
men who attain to eminence in life, there are not wanting marvellous
tales of his youthful studies, and anecdotes of the first indications of
the extraordinary gift by which his later years were distinguished.
According to one of these accounts, his first years were entirely
neglected, and he was placed, while yet a mere child, in the workshop of
his father, to learn the trade of a carpenter. As is usual in the towns
of Italy, the elder Mezzofanti, for the most part, plied his craft not
within doors, but in the open street: and it chanced that the bench at
which the boy was wont to work was situated directly opposite the window
of a school kept by an old priest, who instructed a number of pupils in
Latin and Greek. Although utterly unacquainted, not only with the Greek
alphabet, but even with that of his own language, young Mezzofanti,
overhearing the lessons which were taught in the school, caught up every
Greek and Latin word that was explained in the several classes, without
once having seen a Greek or Latin book! By some lucky accident the fact
came to the knowledge of his unwitting instructor: it led of course to
the withdrawal of the youth from the mechanical craft to which his father
had destined him, and rescued him for the more congenial pursuit of
literature.[272]
A still more marvellous tale is told by a popular American writer, Mr.
Headley, whom his transatlantic admirers have styled the “Addison of
America;” that while Mezzofanti “was still an obscure priest in the north
of Italy, he was called one day to confess two foreigners condemned for
piracy, who were to be executed next day. On entering their cell, he
found them unable to understand a word he uttered. Overwhelmed with the
thought that the criminals should leave the world without the benefits
of religion, he returned to his room, resolved to acquire the language
before morning. He accomplished his task, and next day confessed them in
their own tongue! From that time on, he had no trouble in mastering the
most difficult language. The purity of his motive in the first instance,
he thought, influenced the Deity to assist him miraculously.”[273] This
strange tale Mr. Headley relates, on the authority of a priest, a friend
of Mezzofanti; and he goes so far as to say, that “Mezzofanti himself
attributed his power of acquiring languages to the divine influence.”[274]
The imagination might dwell with pleasure upon these and similar tales
of wonder; but, happily for the moral lesson which it is the best
privilege of biography to convey, the true history of the early studies
of Mezzofanti, (although while falling far short of these marvels, it is
too wonderful to be held out as a model even for the most aspiring) is,
nevertheless, such as to show that the most gifted themselves can only
hope to attain to true eminence by patient and systematic industry.
Far from being entirely neglected, as these tales would imply,
Mezzofanti’s education commenced at an unusually early period. His
parents—
A virtuous household, but exceeding poor,
conscious of their own want of learning, appear, from the very first, to
have bestowed upon the education of their son all the care which their
narrow circumstances permitted. According to an account obtained from
the Cavaliere Minarelli, he was sent, while a mere child, not yet three
years old, to a dame’s school, more, it would seem, for security, than
for actual instruction. Being deemed too young to be regularly taught,
he was here left for a time to sit in quiet and amuse himself as best
he could, while the other children were receiving instruction; but the
mistress soon discovered that the child, although excluded from the
lessons of his elders, had learned without any effort, all that had been
communicated to them, and was able to repeat promptly and accurately
the tasks which she had dictated. He was accordingly admitted to the
regular classes; and, child as he was, passed rapidly through the various
elementary branches of instruction, to which alone her humble school
extended.
From this dame’s school he was removed to the more advanced, but still
elementary, school of the Abate Filippo Cicotti, in which he learned
grammar, geography, writing, arithmetic, algebra, and the elements
of Latin. But, after some time, the excellent priest who conducted
this school, honestly advised the parents, young as was their boy, to
remove him to another institution, and to permit him to apply himself
unrestrainedly to the higher studies for which he was already fully
qualified.
His father appears to have demurred for a while to this suggestion.
Limiting his views in reference to the boy to the lowly sphere in which
he himself had been born, he had only contemplated bestowing upon him a
solid elementary education in the branches of knowledge suited to its
humble requirements; and, with the old-fashioned prejudices not uncommon
in his rank, he was unwilling to sanction his son’s entering upon what
appeared to him an unnatural and unprofitable career, for one who was
destined to earn his bread by a mechanical art. Fortunately, however, his
wife entertained higher and more enlightened views for their child, and
understood better his character and capabilities.
It was mainly, however, through the counsel and influence of a benevolent
priest of the Oratory, Father John Baptist Respighi, that the career
of the young Mezzofanti was decided. This excellent clergyman, to whom
many deserving youths of his native city were indebted for assistance
and patronage in their entrance into life, observed the rare talents of
Mezzofanti, and, by his earnest advice, promptly overruled the hesitation
of his father. At his recommendation, the boy was transferred from the
school of the Abate Cicotti, to one of the so-called “Scuole Pie,” of
Bologna;—schools conducted by a religious congregation, which had been
founded in the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Joseph Cazalana;
and which, though originally intended chiefly for the more elementary
branches of education, had also been directed with great success,
(especially in the larger cities,) to the cultivation of the higher
studies.
Among the clergymen who at this period devoted themselves to the service
of the Scuole Pie, at Bologna, were several members of the recently
suppressed society of the Jesuits, not only of the Roman, but also of
the Spanish and Spanish American provinces. The expulsion of the society
from Spain had preceded by more than three years the general suppression
of the order; and the Spanish members of the brotherhood, when exiled
from their native country, had found a cordial welcome in the Papal
states. Among these were several who were either foreigners by birth, or
had long resided in the foreign missions of the society. To them all the
Scuole Pie seemed to open a field of labour almost identical with that
of their own institute. Many of them gladly embraced the opportunity;
and it can hardly be doubted that the facility of learning a variety
of languages, which this accidental union of instructors from so many
different countries afforded, was, after his own natural bias, among
the chief circumstances which determined the direction of the youthful
studies of Mezzofanti.
One of these ex-Jesuits, Father Emanuel Aponte, a native of Spain, had
been for many years a member of the mission of the Philippine Islands.
Another, Father Mark Escobar, was a native of Guatemala, and had been
employed in several of the Mexican and South American missions of the
society. A third, Father Laurence Ignatius Thiulen, had passed through a
still more remarkable career. He was a native of Gottenburg, in Sweden,
where his father held the office of superintendent of the Swedish East
India Company, and had been born (1746,) a Lutheran. Leaving home in
early youth with the design of improving himself by foreign travel, he
spent some time in Lisbon, and afterwards in Cadiz, in 1768; whence,
with the intention of proceeding to Italy, he embarked for the island of
Corsica, in the same ship in which he had reached Lisbon from his native
country. In the meantime, however, this ship had been chartered by the
government as one of the fleet in which the Jesuit Fathers, on their
sudden and mysterious suppression in Spain, were to be transported to
Italy. By this unexpected accident, Thiulen became the fellow passenger
of several of the exiled fathers. Trained from early youth to regard
with suspicion and fear every member of that dreaded order, he at first
avoided all intercourse with his Jesuit fellow passengers. By degrees,
however, their unobtrusive, but ready courtesy, disarmed his suspicions.
He became interested in their conversation, even when it occasionally
turned upon religious topics. Serious inquiry succeeded; and in the end,
before the voyage was concluded, his prejudices had been so far overcome,
that he began to entertain the design of becoming a Catholic. After his
landing in the Island of Corsica, many obstacles were thrown in his
way by the Swedish consul at Bastia, himself a Lutheran; but Thiulen
persevered, and was enabled eventually to carry his design into execution
at Ferrara, in 1769. In the following year, 1770, he entered the Jesuit
society at Bologna. He was here admitted to the simple vow in 1772. But
he had hardly completed this important step, when the final suppression
of the Order was proclaimed; and, although both as a foreigner, and as
being unprofessed, he had no claim to the slender pittance which was
assigned for the support of the members, the peculiar circumstances of
his case created an interest in his behalf. He was placed upon the same
footing with the professed Fathers; and two years later, in 1776, he was
promoted to the holy order of priesthood, and continued to reside in
Bologna, engaged in teaching and in the duties of the ministry.[275]
These good Fathers, with that traditionary instinct which in their order
has been the secret of their long admitted success in the education of
youth, were not slow to discover the rare talents of their young scholar
in the Scuole Pie. In a short time he appears to have become to them more
a friend than a pupil. Two, at least, of the members, Fathers Aponte, and
Thiulen, lived to witness the distinction of his later life, and with
them, as well as with his first and kindest patron, Father Respighi,
he ever continued to maintain the most friendly and affectionate
relations.[276]
It would be interesting to be able to trace the exact history of this
period of the studies of Mezzofanti, and to fix the dates and the
order of his successive acquisitions in what afterwards became the
engrossing pursuit of his life. But, unfortunately, so few details
can now be ascertained that it is difficult to distinguish his school
life from that of an ordinary student. His chief teachers in the Scuole
Pie appear to have been the ex-Jesuit Fathers already named; of whom
Father Thiulen was his instructor in history, geography, arithmetic, and
mathematics;[277] Father Aponte in Greek; and probably Father Escobar
in Latin. As he certainly learned Spanish at an early period, it is not
unlikely that he was indebted for it, too, to the instructions of one of
these ecclesiastics, as also perhaps for some knowledge of the Mexican or
Central American languages.
But although barren in details, all the accounts of his school-days
concur in describing his uniform success in all his classes, and the
extraordinary quickness of his memory. One of his feats of memory is
recorded by M. Manavit.[278] A folio volume of the works of St. John
Chrysostom being put into his hand, he was desired to read a page of
the treatise “_De Sacerdotio_” in the original Greek. After a single
reading, the volume was closed, and he repeated the entire page, without
mistaking or displacing a single word! His manners and dispositions as
a boy were exceedingly engaging; and the friendships which he formed at
school continued uninterrupted during life. Among his school companions
there is one who deserves to be especially recorded—the well-known
naturalist, Abate Camillo Ranzani, for many years afterwards Mezzofanti’s
fellow-professor in the university. Ranzani, like his friend, was of
very humble origin, and like him owed his withdrawal from obscurity to
the enlightened benevolence of the good Oratorian, F. Respighi.[279]
Young Ranzani was about the same age with Mezzofanti; and as their homes
immediately adjoined each other,[280] they had been daily companions
almost from infancy, and particularly from the time when they began to
frequent the Scuole Pie in company. The constant allusions to Ranzani
which occur in Mezzofanti’s letters, will show how close and affectionate
their intimacy continued to be.
Joseph Mezzofanti early manifested a desire to embrace the ecclesiastical
profession; and although this wish seems to have caused some
dissatisfaction to his father, who had intended him for some secular
pursuit,[281] yet the deeply religious disposition of the child and his
singular innocence of life, in the end overcame his father’s reluctance.
Having completed his elementary studies unusually early, he was enabled
to become a scholar of the archiepiscopal seminary of Bologna, while
still a mere boy, probably in the year 1786.[282] He continued, however,
to reside in his father’s house, while he attended the schools of the
seminary.
Of his collegiate career little is recorded, except an incident which
occurred at the taking of his degree in philosophy. His master in
this study was Joseph Voglio, a professor of considerable reputation,
and author of several works on the philosophical controversies of the
period.[283] It is usual in the Italian universities for the candidate
for a philosophical degree, to defend publicly a series of propositions
selected from the whole body of philosophy. Mezzofanti, at the time that
he maintained his theses, was still little more than a child; and it
would seem that, his self-possession having given way under the public
ordeal, he had a narrow escape from the mortification of a complete
failure. One of the witnesses of his “Disputation,” Dr. Santagata,
in the Discourse already referred to, delivered at the Institute of
Bologna, gives an interesting account of the occurrence. “For a time,”
says Dr. Santagata, “the boy’s success was most marked. Each new
objection, among the many subtle ones that were proposed, only afforded
him a fresh opportunity of exhibiting the acuteness of his intellect,
and the ease, fluency, and elegance of his Latinity; and the admiring
murmurs of assent, and other unequivocal tokens of applause which it
elicited from the audience, of which I myself was one, seemed to promise
a triumphant conclusion of the exercise. But all at once the young
candidate was observed to grow pale, to become suddenly silent, and at
length to fall back upon his seat and almost faint away. The auditors
were deeply grieved at this untoward interruption of a performance
hitherto so successful; but they were soon relieved to see him, as if by
one powerful effort, shake off his emotion, recover his self-possession,
and resume his answering with even greater acuteness and solidity than
before. He was greeted with the loud and repeated plaudits of the crowded
assembly.”[284]
About this period, soon after Mezzofanti had completed his fifteenth
year, his health gave way under this long and intense application;
and his constitution for a time was so debilitated, that, at the
termination of his course of philosophy, he was compelled to interrupt
his studies;[285] nor was it until about 1793, that he entered upon the
theological course, under the direction of the Canon Joachim Ambrosi.
One of his class-fellows, the Abate Monti, the venerable arch-priest of
Bagni di Poreta, in the archdiocese of Bologna, still survives and speaks
in high terms of the ability which he exhibited. He describes him as a
youth of most engaging manners and amiable dispositions—one who, from
his habitually serious and recollected air, might perhaps be noted by
strangers
For his grave looks, too thoughtful for his years,
but who, to his friends, was all gaiety and innocent mirthfulness. Mgr.
Monti adds that he was at this time a most laborious student, frequently
remaining up whole nights in the library for the purpose of study. His
master in moral theology was the Canonico Baccialli, author of a _Corpus
Theologiæ Moralis_, of some local reputation.
Having completed the course of theology, and also that of canon law,
he attended the lectures of the celebrated Jurist, Bonini, on Roman
Law. The great body of the students of the school of Roman Law being
laymen, the young ecclesiastic remained a considerable time unobserved
and undistinguished in the class; until, having accidentally attracted
the notice of the professor on one occasion, he replied with such
promptness and learning to a question which he addressed to him, as
at once to establish a reputation; and Dr. Santagata, who records the
circumstance,[286] observes that his proficiency in each of his many
different studies was almost as great as though he had devoted his
undivided attention to that particular pursuit.
Meanwhile, however, he continued without interruption, what, even thus
early in his career, was his chosen study of languages. Under the
direction of Father Aponte, now rather his friend and associate than
instructor in the study, he pursued his Greek reading; and as this had
been from the first one of his favourite languages, there were few Greek
authors within his reach that he did not eagerly read. Fortunately, too,
Aponte was himself an enthusiast in the study of Greek, and possessed a
solid and critical knowledge of the language, of which he had written
an excellent and practical grammar for the schools of the university,
frequently republished since his time;[287] and it was probably to the
habit of close and critical examination which he acquired under Aponte’s
instruction, that Mezzofanti owed the exact knowledge of the niceties of
the language, and the power of discriminating between all the varieties
of Greek style, for which, as we shall see later, he was eminently
distinguished.
One of his fellow pupils in Greek under Aponte was the celebrated
Clotilda Tambroni, whom I have already mentioned in the list of
lady-linguists, and whose name is the last in the catalogue of
lady-professors at Bologna. A community of tastes as well as of studies
formed a close bond of intimacy between her and Mezzofanti, and led to an
affectionate and lasting friendship in after life. To Aponte she was as
a daughter.[288]
His master in Hebrew was the Dominican Father Ceruti, a learned
Orientalist and professor of that language in the university. About the
same time also, he must have become acquainted with Arabic, a language
for the study of which Bologna had early acquired a reputation. And, what
is a still more unequivocal exhibition of his early enthusiasm, although
Coptic formed no part of the circle of university studies, Görres
states that he learned this language also under the Canon John Lewis
Mingarelli.[289] If this account be true, as Mingarelli died in March
1793, Mezzofanti must have acquired Coptic before he had completed his
nineteenth year.
Nor did he meanwhile neglect the modern languages. About the year 1792, a
French ecclesiastic a native of Blois, one of those whom the successive
decrees of the Constituent Assembly had driven into exile, came to
reside in Bologna. From him Mezzofanti speedily acquired French.[290] He
received his first lessons in German from F. Thiulen,[291] who had been
one of his masters in the Scuole Pie; and who, although a Swede by birth,
was acquainted with the cognate language of Germany. From him, too,
most probably, Mezzofanti would also have learned his native Swedish,
but, on the occupation of northern Italy by the French, F. Thiulen, who
had made himself obnoxious to the revolutionary party in Bologna, by
his writings in favour of the Papal authority, had been arrested and
sent into exile.[292] Perhaps Thiulen’s absence from Bologna was the
occasion of calling into exercise that marvellous quickness in mastering
the structure of a new language, which often, during Mezzofanti’s later
career, excited the amazement even of his most familiar friends. At
all events, the first occasion of his exhibiting this singular faculty
of which I have been able to discover any authentic record, is the
following:—
A Bolognese musician, named Uttini, had settled at Stockholm, where
he married a Swedish lady. Uttini, it would seem, died early; but his
brother, Caspar Uttini, a physician of Bologna, undertook the education
of his son, who was sent to Bologna for the purpose. The boy, at his
arrival, was not only entirely ignorant of Italian, but could not speak
a word of any language except his native Swedish. In this emergency
Mezzofanti, who, although still a student, had already acquired the
reputation of a linguist, was sent for, to act as interpreter between the
boy and his newly found relatives: but it turned out that the language
of the boy was, as yet, no less a mystery to Mezzofanti than it had
already proved to themselves. This discovery, so embarrassing to the
family, served but to stimulate the zeal of Mezzofanti. Having made a
few ineffectual attempts to establish an understanding, he asked to see
the books which the boy had brought with him from his native country. A
short examination of these books was sufficient for his rapid mind; he
speedily discovered the German affinities of the Swedish language, and
mastered almost at a glance the leading peculiarities of form, structure,
and inflexion, by which it is distinguished from the other members of the
Teutonic family; a few short trials with the boy enabled him to acquire
the more prominent principles of pronunciation; and in the space of a
few days, he was able, not only to act as the boy’s interpreter with his
family, but to converse with the most perfect freedom and fluency in the
language![293]
Mezzofanti received the clerical tonsure in the year 1795. In 1796 he
was admitted to the minor orders; and, on the 24th of September in the
same year, to the order of sub-deacon. On the first of April, 1797, he
was promoted to deaconship; and a few months later he was advanced, on
September 24th, 1797, to the holy order of priesthood.[294] At this time
he had only just completed his twenty-third year.
This anticipation of the age at which priesthood is usually conferred,
was probably owing to an appointment which he had just received (on the
15th of September,)[295] in the university—that of professor of Arabic.
Such an appointment at this unprecedented age, is the highest testimony
which could be rendered to his capacity as a general scholar, as well as
to his eminence as a linguist.
He commenced his lectures on the 15th of the following December. Dr.
Santagata, who was a student of the university at the time, speaks
very favourably of his opening lecture, not only for its learning and
solidity, but also for the beauty of its style, and its lucid and
pleasing arrangement.[296]
Unhappily his tenure of the Arabic professorship was a very brief
duration. The political relations of Bologna had just undergone a
complete revolution. Early in 1796, very soon after the advance of the
French army into Italy, Bonaparte had been invited by a discontented
party in Bologna to take possession of their city, and, in conjunction
with Saliceti, had occupied the fortresses on the 19th of January. At
first after the French occupation, the Bolognese were flattered by a
revival of their old municipal institutions; but before the close of
1796, the name of Bologna was merged in the common designation of the
Cisalpine Republic, by which all the French conquests in Northern Italy
were described. By the treaty of Tolentino, concluded in February, 1797,
the Pope was compelled formally to cede to this new Cisalpine Republic,
the three Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna; and, in the
subsequent organization of the new territory, Bologna became the capital
of the Dipartimento del Reno.
One of the first steps of the new rulers was to require of all employés
an oath of fidelity to the Republic. The demand was enforced with great
strictness; and especially in the case of ecclesiastics, who in Italy,
as in France, were naturally regarded with still greater suspicion
by the Republican authorities, than even those civil servants of the
old government who had been most distinguished for their loyalty.
Nevertheless the republican authorities themselves consented that an
exception should be made in favour of a scholar of such promise as the
Abate Mezzofanti. The oath was proposed to him, as to the rest of the
professors. He firmly refused to take it. In other cases deprivation had
been the immediate consequence of such refusal; but an effort was made to
shake the firmness of Mezzofanti, and even to induce him without formally
accepting the oath, to signify his compliance by some seeming act of
adhesion to the established order of things. An intimation accordingly
was conveyed to him, that in his case the oath would be dispensed with,
and that he would be allowed to retain his chair, if he would only
consent to make known by any overt act whatsoever, (even by a mere
interchange of courtesies with some of the officials of the Republic,)
his acceptance of its authority as now established.[297] But Mezzofanti
was at once too conscientious to compromise what he conceived to be his
duty towards his natural sovereign, and too honourable to affect, by such
unworthy temporizing, a disposition which he did not, and could not,
honestly entertain. He declined even to appear as a visitor in the salons
of the new governor. He was accordingly deprived of his professorship in
the year 1798.
He was not alone in this generous fidelity. His friend Signora
Tambroni displayed equal firmness. It is less generally known that the
distinguished experimentalist, Ludovico Galvani,[298] was a martyr in the
same cause. Like Mezzofanti, on refusing the oath, he was stripped of all
his offices and emoluments. Less fortunate than Mezzofanti, he sunk under
the stroke. He was plunged into the deepest distress and debility; and,
although his Republican rulers were at length driven by shame to decree
his restoration to his chair, the reparation came too late. He died in
1798.
CHAPTER II.
[1798-1802.]
The years which followed this forfeiture of his professorship were a
period of much care, as well as of severe personal privation, for the
Abate Mezzofanti.
Both his parents were still living;—his father no longer able to maintain
himself by his handicraft; his mother for some years afflicted with
partial blindness, and in broken or failing health. The family of his
sister, Teresa Minarelli, had already become very numerous, and the
scanty earnings of her husband’s occupation hardly sufficed for their
maintenance, much less for the expenses of their education. In addition,
therefore, to his own necessities, Joseph Mezzofanti was now in great
measure burdened with this twofold responsibility—a responsibility to
which so affectionate a brother, and so dutiful a son could not be
indifferent. To meet these demands, he had hitherto relied mainly upon
the income arising from his professorship, although this was miserably
inadequate, the salaries attached to the professorships in Bologna, at
the time when Lalande visited Italy, (1765-6,) not exceeding a hundred
Roman crowns, (little more than £25). Small, however, as it was, this
salary was Mezzofanti’s main source of income. As a title to ordination,
the archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Giovanetti, had conferred upon him
two small benefices, the united revenues of which, strange as it may
sound in English ears, did not exceed eight pounds sterling;[299] and
an excellent ecclesiastic, F. Anthony Magnani, who had long known and
appreciated the virtues of the family, and had taken a warm interest in
Joseph from his boyhood, settled upon him from his own private resources
about the same amount. Now, as Mezzofanti had devoted himself to
literature, and lived as a simple priest at Bologna, declining to accept
any preferment to which the care of souls was annexed, this wretched
pittance constituted his entire income. It is true that he was about
this period chaplain of the Collegio Albornoz,[300] an ancient Spanish
foundation of the great Cardinal of that name;[301] but his services
appear either to have been entirely gratuitous, or the emolument, if any,
was little more than nominal.
And thus, when the Abate Mezzofanti, relying upon Providence, had the
courage to throw up, for conscience sake, the salary which constituted
nearly two-thirds of his entire revenue, he found himself burdened with
the responsibilities already described, while his entire certain income
was considerably less than twenty pounds sterling! Nevertheless, gloomy
and disheartening as was this prospect, far from suffering himself to
be cast down by it, he was even courageous enough to venture, about
this time, on the further responsibility of receiving his sister and
her family into his own house. The renewal of hostilities in Italy, in
1799, filled him with alarm for her security; and his nephew, Cavaliere
Minarelli, who has been good enough to communicate to me a short MS.
Memoir of the events of this period of his uncle’s life, still remembers
the day on which, while the French and Austrian troops were actually
engaged before the walls, and the shot and shells had already begun to
fall within the city, his uncle came to their house, at considerable
personal risk, and insisted that his sister and her children should
remove to his own house which was in a less exposed position. From that
date (1799) they continued to reside with him.
To meet this increased expenditure, the Abate’s only resource lay in
that wearisome and ill-requited drudgery in which the best years of
struggling genius are so often frittered away—private instruction. He
undertook the humble, but responsible, duties of private tutor, and
turned industriously, if not very profitably, to account, the numerous
acquisitions of his early years. There are few of the distinguished
families of Bologna, some of whose members were not among his pupils—the
Marescalchi, Pallavicini, Ercolani, Martinetti, Bentivoglio, Marsigli,
Sampieri, Angelelli, Marchetti, and others. To these, as well as to
several foreigners, he gave instructions in ancient and modern languages,
to some in his own apartments, but more generally in their houses.
As regarded his own personal improvement in learning, these engagements,
of course, were, for the most part, a wasteful expenditure of time
and opportunities for study; but there was one of them—that with the
Marescalchi family[302]—which supplied in the end an occasion for
extending and improving his knowledge of languages. The library of the
Marescalchi palace is especially rich in that department; and, as the
modest and engaging manners of Mezzofanti quickly established him on the
footing of a valued friend, rather than of an instructor, in the family,
he enjoyed unrestricted use of the opportunities for his own peculiar
studies which it afforded. In this family, too, one of the most ancient
and distinguished in Bologna, he had frequent opportunities of meeting
and conversing with foreigners, each in the language of his own country.
* * * * *
At all events, whatever may have been his actual opportunities of study
during the years which succeeded his deprivation, it is certain that,
upon the whole, his progress during that time was not less wonderful than
at the most favoured periods of his life. Northern Italy, during this
troubled time, was the principal seat of the struggle between Austria
and the French Republic; and from the first advance of the French in
1796, till the decisive field of Marengo in 1800, Bologna found itself
alternately in the occupation of one or other of the contending powers.
For nearly twelve months, however, after the battle of Trebbia, in July,
1799, the Austrians remained in undisturbed possession. The army of
Austria at that day comprised in its motley ranks, representatives of
most of the leading European languages—Teutonic, Slavonic, Czechish,
Magyar, Romanic, &c. The intercourse with the officers and soldiery thus
opened for Mezzofanti, in itself supplied a school of languages, which,
taken in conjunction with the university, and its other resources, it
would have been difficult to find in any other single European city,
except Rome.
And these advantages presented themselves to the Abate Mezzofanti, since
his advancement to the priesthood, in a way which enlisted still higher
feelings than that desire for knowledge which had hitherto formed his
main incentive to study.
All the accounts which have been preserved of the early years of his
ministry, concur in extolling his remarkable piety, his devotedness
to the duties of the confessional,[303] and above all his active and
tender charity. He had a share in every work of benevolence. He loved
to organize little plans for the education of the poor. Notwithstanding
his numerous and pressing occupations, he was a constant visitant of
the numerous charitable institutions for which Bologna, even among the
munificent cities of Italy, has long been celebrated. He was particularly
devoted to the sick;—not only to the class who are called in Italy “the
bashful poor,” whom he loved to seek out and visit at their own houses,
and to whom, poor as he was in worldly wealth, his active benevolence
enabled him to render services which money could not have procured;—but
also in the public hospitals, both civil and military. Now the terrible
campaign of 1796-’97, and again of 1799, had filled the camps of both
armies with sick and wounded soldiers; and thus in the public hospitals
of Bologna were constantly to be found invalids of almost every European
race. M. Manavit[304] states that, even before Mezzofanti was ordained
priest, he had begun to act as interpreter to the wounded or dying in the
hospitals, whether of their temporal or their spiritual wants and wishes.
From the date of his ordination, of course, he was moved to the same
service by a zeal still higher and more holy.
“I was at Bologna,” he himself told M. Manavit,[305] “during the time
of the war. I was then young in the sacred ministry; it was my practice
to visit the military hospitals. I constantly met there Hungarians,
Slavonians, Germans, and Bohemians, who had been wounded in battle, or
invalided during the campaign; and it pained me to the heart that from
want of the means of communicating with them, I was unable to confess
those among them who were Catholics, or to bring back to the Church those
who were separated from her communion. In such cases, accordingly, I
used to apply myself, with all my energy, to the study of the language
of the patients, until I knew enough of them to make myself understood;
I required no more. With these first rudiments I presented myself among
the sick wards. Such of the invalids as desired it, I managed to confess;
with others I held occasional conversations; and thus in a short time
I acquired a considerable vocabulary. At length, through the grace of
God, assisted by my private studies, and by a retentive memory, I came
to know, not merely the generic languages of the nations to which the
several invalids belonged, but even the peculiar dialects of their
various provinces.”
In this way, being already well acquainted with German, he became master
successively of Magyar, Bohemian, or Czechish, Polish, and even of the
Gipsy dialect, which he learned from one of that strange race, who was
a soldier in a Hungarian regiment quartered at Bologna during this
period.[306] It is probable, too, that it was in the same manner he also
learned Russian. It is at least certain that he was able to speak that
language fluently, at the date of his acquaintance with the celebrated
Suwarrow. Mezzofanti’s report of the acquirements of this “remarkable
barbarian” differs widely from the notion then popularly entertained
regarding him. He described him as a most accomplished linguist, and
a well-read scholar. This report, it may be added, is fully confirmed
by the most recent authorities, and Alison describes him as “highly
educated, polished in his manners, speaking and writing seven languages
with facility, and extensively read, especially upon the art of war.”[307]
It was about this time also that Mezzofanti learned Flemish. He acquired
that language from a youth of Brussels, who came as a student to the
University of Bologna.[308]
The reputation which he was thus gradually establishing, of itself served
to extend his opportunities of exercise in languages. Every foreigner who
visited Bologna sought his society for the purpose of testing personally
the truth of the marvellous reports which had been circulation. In these
days Bologna was the high road to Rome, and few visitors to that capital
failed to tarry for a short time at Bologna, to examine the many objects
of interest which it contains. To all of these Mezzofanti found a ready
and welcome access. There were few with whom his fertile vocabulary did
not supply some medium of communication; but, even when the stranger
could not speak any except the unknown tongue, Mezzofanti’s ready
ingenuity soon enabled him, as with the patients in the hospital, to
establish a system for the interchange of thought. A very small number
of leading words sufficed as a foundation; and the almost instinctive
facility with which, by a single effort, he grasped all the principal
peculiarities of the structure of each new language, speedily enabled
him to acquire enough of the essential inflections of each to enter
on the preliminaries of conversation. For his marvellous instinct of
acquisitiveness this was enough. The iron tenacity of his memory never
let go a word, a phrase, an idiom, or even a sound, which it once had
mastered.
In his zeal for the extension of the circle of his knowledge of
languages, too, he pushed to the utmost the valuable opportunities
derivable from the converse of foreigners. “The hotel-keepers,” he told
M. Manavit,[309] “were in the habit of apprising me of the arrival of
all strangers at Bologna. I made no difficulty when anything was to be
learned, about calling on them, interrogating them, making notes of their
communications, and taking instructions from them in the pronunciation
of their respective languages. A few learned Jesuits, and several
Spaniards, Portuguese, and Mexicans, who resided at Bologna, afforded
me valuable aid in learning both the ancient languages, and those of
their own countries. I made it a rule to learn every new grammar, and
to apply myself to every strange dictionary that came within my reach.
I was constantly filling my head with new words; and, whenever any new
strangers, whether of high or low degree, passed through Bologna, I
endeavoured to turn them to account, using the one for the purpose of
perfecting my pronunciation, and the other for that of learning the
familiar words and turns of expression. I must confess, too, that it cost
me but little trouble; for, in addition to an excellent memory, God had
blessed me with an incredible flexibility of the organs of speech.”
Occasionally, too, he received applications from merchants, bankers, and
even private individuals, to translate for them portions of their foreign
correspondence which chanced to be written in some of the languages of
less ordinary occurrence. In all such cases, Dr. Santagata[310] says,
Mezzofanti was the unfailing resource; and his good nature was as ready
as his knowledge was universal. He cheerfully rendered to every applicant
every such assistance; and it was his invariable rule never to accept any
remuneration whatsoever for this or any similar service.[311]
Even his regular priestly duties as a confessor now contributed, as his
extraordinary duties in the hospitals had done before, to enlarge his
stock of languages. He was soon marked out as the “foreigners’ confessor”
(_confessario dei forestieri_) of Bologna, an office which, in Rome and
other Catholic cities, is generally entrusted to a staff consisting
of many individuals. Almost every foreigner was sure to find a ready
resource in Mezzofanti; though it more than once happened that, as a
preliminary step towards receiving the confession of the party applying
for this office of his ministry, he had to place himself as a pupil in
the hands of the intending penitent, and to acquire from him or her the
rudiments of the language in which they were to communicate with each
other. The process to him was simple enough. If the stranger was able to
repeat for him the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed,
or any one of those familiar prayers which are the common property of all
Christian countries, or even to supply the names of a few of the leading
ideas of Christian theology, as God, sin, virtue, earth, heaven, hell,
&c., it was sufficient for Mezzofanti. In many cases he proceeded to
build, upon a foundation not a whit more substantial than this, the whole
fabric of the grammar, and to a great extent even of the vocabulary, of
a language. A remarkable instance of this faculty I shall have to relate
in the later years of his life. Another, which belongs to the present
period, has been communicated to me by Cardinal Wiseman. “Mezzofanti
told me,” says his Eminence, “that a lady from the island of Sardinia
once came to Bologna, bringing with her a maid who could speak nothing
but the Sardinian dialect, a soft patois composed of Latin, Italian, and
Spanish (e.g., Mezzofanti told me that _columba mia_ is Sardinian for “my
wife.”) As Easter approached the girl became anxious and unhappy about
confession, despairing of finding a confessor to whom she should be able
to make herself understood. The lady sent for Mezzofanti; but at that
time he had never thought of learning the language. He told the lady,
nevertheless, that, in a fortnight, he would be prepared to hear her
maid’s confession. She laughed at the idea; but Mezzofanti persisted, and
came to the house every evening for about an hour. When Easter arrived,
he was able to speak Sardinian fluently, and heard the girl’s confession!”
* * * * *
It might be instructive to trace the order in which the several
languages which he mastered in this earlier part of his career were
successively acquired. But unfortunately neither the papers and letters
which have been preserved, nor the recollections of the few friends who
have survived, have thrown much light upon this interesting inquiry.
All accounts, however, agree in representing his life during these
years as laborious almost beyond belief. The weary hours occupied in
the drudgery of tuition; the time given to the manifold self-imposed
occupations described in this chapter; the time spent in the ordinary
devotional exercises of a priest, and in the performance of those duties
of the ministry in the hospitals and elsewhere which he had undertaken;
above all, the time regularly and perseveringly given to his great
and all-engrossing study of languages;—may well be thought to form an
aggregate of laborious application hardly surpassed in the whole range of
literary history. It fully confirms the well-known assurance of the noble
Prologue of Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning:” “Let no man doubt that
learning will expulse business, but rather it will keep and defend the
possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise may
enter at unawares to the prejudice of both.” Other students may perhaps
have devoted a longer time to continuous application. The celebrated
Jesuit theologian, Father Suarez, is said to have spent seventeen hours
out of the twenty-four between his studies and his devotions. Castell,
the author of the Heptaglot Lexicon, declares, in the feeling address
which accompanied its publication, that his thankless and unrequited
task had occupied him for sixteen or eighteen hours every day during
twenty years.[312] Theophilus Raynaud, during his long life of eighty
years, only allowed himself a quarter of an hour daily from his studies
for dinner;[313] and the Puritan divine, Prynne, seldom would spare
time to dine at all.[314] It may be doubted whether the actual labour
of Mezzofanti, broken up and divided over so many almost incompatible
occupations, did not equal and perhaps exceed them all in amount, if not
in intensity. According to the account of Guido Görres,[315] his time for
sleep, during this period of his life, was limited to three hours.[316]
His self-denial in all other respects was almost equally wonderful.
He was singularly abstemious both in eating and in drinking; and his
power of enduring the intense cold which prevails in the winter months
throughout the whole of Northern Italy, especially in the vicinity of the
Apennines, was a source of wonder even to his own family. During the long
nights which he devoted to study he never, even in the coldest weather,
permitted himself the indulgence of a fire.
I may here mention that he continued the same practice to the end of his
life. Even after his elevation to the cardinalate, he could hardly ever
be induced to have recourse to a fire, or even to the little portable
brazier, called _scaldino_, which students in Italy commonly employ, as a
resource against the numbness of the feet and hands produced by the dry
but piercing cold which characterizes the Italian winter.
CHAPTER III.
[1803-1806.]
From the commencement of 1803, those difficulties of the Abate
Mezzofanti’s position, which merely arose from the straitness of his
income, began gradually to diminish. On the 29th of January in that year
he was appointed assistant librarian of the _Istituto_ of Bologna; one of
those munificent literary institutions of which Italy is so justly proud,
founded in the end of the seventeenth century by the celebrated General
Count Marsigli, and enriched by the munificence of many successive
scholars and citizens of Bologna; especially of the great Bolognese Pope,
Benedict XIV. Its collections and museums are among the finest in Italy;
and the library contains above a hundred and fifty thousand volumes.
But whatever of pecuniary advantage he derived from this appointment, was
perhaps more than counterbalanced by the constant demand upon his time
from the charge of so extensive a library: especially as he confesses
that, up to that period, he had seldom bestowed a thought on the study
of bibliography. To add to the ordinary engagements of librarian, too,
it was determined, sometime after Mezzofanti’s appointment, to prepare
a Catalogue Raisonné, in which the Oriental and Greek department
naturally fell to his share. For the Oriental department of the library
there seems, up to this time, to have been no catalogue, or at least an
exceedingly imperfect and inaccurate one; and as a definite time was
fixed for the completion of the task, it became for Mezzofanti a source
of serious and protracted embarrassment, to which he alludes more than
once in his correspondence.
A more congenial occupation, however, was offered to him soon afterwards.
In the end of the same year, he was restored to his former position in
the university. On the 4th of November in that year, he was appointed
Professor of Oriental Languages;—a place which he was enabled to hold in
conjunction with his office in the Library of the Institute.
A few months after his installation, he read at the university, June
23rd, 1804, on the occasion of conferring degrees, the first public
dissertation of which I have been able to discover any record. The
subject was “The Egyptian Obelisks.” The dissertation itself has been
lost; but Count Simone Stratico, of Pavia, to whom we owe the notice of
its delivery, speaks of it as “most judicious and learned,” and replete
with antiquarian erudition.[317]
The Oriental Professorship in the neighbouring University of Parma, was
at this time held by the celebrated John Bernard de Rossi. Mezzofanti had
long desired to form the acquaintance of this distinguished Orientalist;
and more than once projected a visit to Parma, for the purpose of placing
himself in communication with him on the subject of his favourite
study. His duties as assistant Librarian at length afforded the desired
opportunity. Having occasion to order some of De Rossi’s works from
Parma, he addressed to De Rossi himself a letter which soon led to a warm
and intimate friendship, and was the commencement of an interesting,
although not very frequent, correspondence, which continued, at irregular
intervals, up to the time of De Rossi’s death. Some of Mezzofanti’s
letters to De Rossi, which are preserved in the Library of Parma, have
been kindly placed at my disposal. They are chiefly interesting as
throwing some light on the progress of his studies.
The first is dated September 15th, 1804—
_To the Abate John Bernard de Rossi, Professor of Oriental
Languages._
_Bologna, September 15, 1804._
Most illustrious Signor Abate.—I have long admired and
profited by your rare acquirements, which your learned works
have made known all over Europe; and I have, for some time,
been projecting a visit to Parma, for the double purpose of
tendering to you a personal assurance of my esteem, and of
examining your far-famed library. Finding my hope disappointed
for the present, I take advantage of a favourable opportunity
to offer you, at least in writing, some expression of the
profound respect which I feel for one so distinguished in the
same studies which I myself pursue with great ardour, although
with very inferior success. I am desirous also to procure those
of your works marked nos. 22, 24, 25, and 26, in the catalogue
kindly forwarded by you through Professor Ranzani. Pray give to
the bearer of this letter any of the above numbers which may be
in readiness: he will immediately settle for them.
May I venture to hope that, for the future, you will allow
me, when any difficulty occurs to me in my Oriental reading,
to have recourse to your profound knowledge of Oriental
literature, and also that you will accept the sincere assurance
of the esteem with which I declare myself
Your most humble and devoted servant
D. Joseph Mezzofanti,
Professor of Oriental Languages.
De Rossi replied by an exceedingly courteous letter, accompanied
by a present of several books connected with Oriental literature,
and manifesting so friendly an interest in the studies of his young
correspondent, that Mezzofanti never afterwards hesitated to consult him
when occasion arose. Their letters, in accordance with the ceremonious
etiquette which characterizes all the correspondence of that period, are
somewhat stiff and formal; but their intercourse was marked throughout by
an active and almost tender interest upon the one side, and a respectful
but yet affectionate admiration upon the other.
Meanwhile, however, Mezzofanti’s own increasing reputation led to his
being frequently consulted upon difficulties of the same kind. On one
of these—a book in some unknown character which had been sent for his
examination by Monsignor Bevilacqua, a learned prelate at Ferrara—he,
in his turn, consults De Rossi. His letter is chiefly curious as showing
(what will appear strange to our modern philologers) that up to this
date Mezzofanti was entirely unacquainted with Sanscrit. The importance
of that language and the wide range of its relations, which Frederic
Schlegel was almost the first to estimate aright, were not at this time
fully appreciated.
_To Professor Ab. John Bernard De Rossi._
_Bologna, February 4, 1805._
The works which I lately received from you have only served
to confirm the estimate of your powers which I had formed
from those with which I was previously acquainted; while the
obliging letter and valuable present which accompanied them,
equally convinced me of the kindness of your heart. May I
hope that this kindness, as well as your profound erudition,
may establish for me a title to claim the permission which I
solicited in my last letter? I venture, therefore, to enclose
to you a printed page in unknown characters, which the owner
of the original, Mgr. Alessandro Bevilacqua of Ferrara, tells
me has been already examined by several savants, but to no
purpose. The book comes originally from Congo;[318] having
been brought thence to Ferrara by a Capuchin of the same
respectable family. Being full of the idea of Sanscrit, to
which I earnestly long to apply myself as soon as I shall find
means for the study, I was at first inclined to suspect that
this might be the Sanscrit character; but this is a mere fancy
of mine, or at best a guess. I look, therefore, to your more
extensive knowledge for a satisfactory solution of the doubt;
and meanwhile pray you to accept the assurance of my sincere
gratitude and esteem.
This correspondence with De Rossi, also, shows very remarkably that,
however, at a later period of his career, Mezzofanti’s wonderful faculty
of language may have been sharpened by practice into what appears almost
an instinct, his method of study at this time was exact, laborious, and
perhaps even plodding. He appears, from the very first, to have pursued
as a means of study that system of written composition which was the
amusement of his later years; and he occasionally availed himself of
De Rossi’s superior knowledge and experience so far as to submit these
compositions for his judgment and correction.
It is to one of these he alludes in the following letter:—
_Bologna, April 15, 1805._
I send you a translation in twelve languages of a short Latin
sentence, in the hope that you will kindly correct any mistakes
into which I may have fallen. I have been obliged to write it
almost impromptu (_su due piedi_). I mention this, however,
not to excuse my own blunders, but to throw the blame of
them on those who have forced me to the task. Not having a
single individual within reach with whom to take counsel, I
have been obliged to impose this trouble upon one whose kind
courtesy will make it seem light to him. Accept my thanks in
anticipation of your compliance.
P. S. I should feel obliged if you could let me have your
observations by return of post. Pray attribute this, perhaps
excessive, liberty to the peculiar circumstances in which I am
placed.
I have in vain endeavoured to ascertain what were the twelve languages
of this curious essay. As no trace of the copy is now to be found among
De Rossi’s papers, it seems probable that De Rossi, in complying with
the request contained in the letter, returned the paper to the writer
with his own corrections. But whatever these “twelve languages” may have
been, it is certain that, even at the date of this letter, Mezzofanti’s
attainments were by no means confined to that limit. My attention
has been called to a notice of him contained in a curious, though
little-known work, published at Milan in 1806,[319] which describes his
range of languages as far more extensive.
The work to which I refer is the narrative of an occurrence, which,
although not uncommon even down to a later date, it is difficult
now-a-days,—since Islam has ceased to
——————————wield, as of old, her thirsty lance,
And shake her crimson plumage to the skies,—
to realize as an actual incident of the nineteenth century;[320]—the
adventures of an amateur antiquarian, who was made captive by Corsairs
and carried into Barbary. The hero of this adventure was a Milanese
ecclesiastic, Father Felix Caronni. He embarked at Palermo for Naples, in
a small merchant vessel laden with oranges, but had scarcely quitted the
shore when a pirate-ship hove in sight. The crew, as commonly happened
in such cases, took to the boat and escaped, leaving Father Caronni and
eighteen other passengers to the mercy of the Corsairs, who speedily
overpowered the defenceless little vessel. Caronni, as a subject of the
Italian Republic and a French citizen,[321] would have been secured
against capture; but his passport was in the hands of the captain who had
escaped; and thus, notwithstanding his protestations, he was seized along
with the rest, and, under circumstances of great cruelty and indignity,
they were all carried into Tunis. Here, however, at the reclamation of
the French, supported by the Austrian Consul, Father Caronni was saved
from the fate which awaited the rest of the captives—of being sold into
slavery,—and at the end of three months, (part of which he devoted to the
exploration of the antiquities of Tunis and the surrounding district,)
he was set at liberty and permitted to return to Italy.
Being at a loss, while preparing the narrative of his captivity for
publication, for a translation of the papers which he received at Tunis
when he was set at liberty, he had recourse to the assistance of the
Abate Mezzofanti, as he explains in the following passage.
“No sooner,” says he, “had I obtained the _Tiscara_[322] [passport,] than
I made an exact copy of it (with the exception of the Bey’s seal,) in
the precise dimensions of the original. It was not so easy, however, to
obtain a translation of this document in Italy, both because it had been
hastily written with a reed—the instrument which the Moors employ for
that purpose—and because there were introduced into it certain ciphers
which are peculiar to the Arabs of Barbary. These difficulties, however,
were happily overcome, thanks to the exceeding courtesy, as well as the
distinguished learning of the Abate Mezzofanti, Professor of Oriental
Languages in the Institute of Bologna, who is commonly reputed to be
master of more than twenty-four languages, the greater number of which he
speaks with fluency and purity. He has favoured me (in four long letters
which contain as much information as might supply a whole course of
lectures) with a literal and critically exact version of it, accompanied
by copious explanations, as also by a free translation in the following
terms:—
“‘THERE IS BUT ONE GOD, AND MAHOMET IS HIS PROPHET.’
“‘We have liberated Father Felix Caronni. He is hereby
permitted to embark from Goletta for the country of the
Christians, at the intervention of the French Consul, through
the medium of his Dragoman, in consideration of the payment of
ninety-nine sequins mahbub, and by the privilege of the mighty
and generous Hamudah[323] Basha Bey, Ben-Dani, whom may God
prosper!
“Second Giomada, in the year 1219.’
“_Giomada_[324] is the name of the sixth month of the Arabs, and the
year indicated is the year of their Hegira.[325] And, as the Oriental
writing runs in the reverse order to ours, (that is, from right to
left,) it is necessary, in order that the words of the translation may
correspond with those of the original, to take the precaution of reading
it backwards, or, what will answer the same purpose, in a mirror. What
will strike the reader, however, as most strange, (as it did myself when
first the Tiscara was translated for me) is its particularizing the
‘payment of ninety-nine gold mahbubs,’ which, at the rate of nine _lire_
to each, would make eight hundred and ninety-one Milanese _lire_: whereas
this is utterly false as far as I am personally concerned, and the French
commissary did not give me the least intimation of any payment whatever.
The Abate Mezzofanti suggests with much probability, that it may be a
part of the _stylus curiæ_ of these greedy barbarians to boast in their
piratical diplomacy that no Christian, and still more no ecclesiastic,
has ever been made captive by them without being, even though a Frank,
supposed to be a lawful prize, and consequently without being made ‘to
bleed’ a little.”[326]
This is the first published notice of Mezzofanti which has come under my
observation; and it is particularly interesting as an early example of
his habit of cultivating not only the principal languages, but the minor
varieties of each. The knowledge that, when he had barely completed his
thirtieth year, he was reputed to be master of _more than twenty-four
languages_, may perhaps prepare us to regard with less incredulity the
marvels which we shall find related of his more advanced career.
In the autumn of the same year the Abate Mezzofanti paid his
long-intended visit to Parma and De Rossi. The Italians, and especially
the literary men of Italy, are proverbially bad travellers. Magliabecchi
never was outside of the gates of Florence in his life, except on two
occasions;—once as far as Fiesole, which may almost be called a suburb
of the city, and once again to a distance of ten miles. Many an Italian
Professor has passed an entire life without any longer excursion than
the daily walk from his lodgings to the lecture-room. Even the great
geographer, D’Anville, who lived to the age of eighty-five, is said never
to have left his native city, Paris;[327] and yet he was able to point
out many errors in the plan of the Troad made upon the spot by the Comte
de Choiseul. It has been frequently alleged of Mezzofanti, also, as
enhancing still more the marvel of his acquirements in languages, that,
until his fortieth year, he had never quitted his native city. That this
statement is not literally true appears from a letter which he wrote to
the Abate de Rossi, on his return to Bologna, after the visit to which I
have alluded.
“Pressed as I am, by my many occupations,” he says, November
11, 1805, “I cannot delay writing at least a few lines, in
grateful acknowledgment of the kindnesses which I received from
you during my happy sojourn in your city.
“I had been prepared for this, as well by the reports of others
regarding your amiable disposition, as by the courtesy which
I had myself experienced; but all my anticipations had fallen
far short of the reality. Feeling that it is impossible for me
to offer you a suitable acknowledgment, I beg that, although
I have neither words to express it, nor means of giving it
effect, you will believe me to be deeply sensible of my
obligation to you. I shall preserve all your valued presents
with most jealous care. The ‘Persian Anthology’[328] has been
greatly relished by all here who apply to the study of that
language.
“I shall often have to claim your indulgence for the trouble
which I shall not fail to give you. After the many proofs I
have had of your kindness, I feel that I should be offending
you, were I to ask you to let me hope to reckon myself
henceforward among your friends.”
The friendly courtesy of the Abate De Rossi rendered Mezzofanti’s stay at
Parma exceedingly agreeable. One of the friends whom he made during this
visit, the learned and venerable Librarian of the Ducal Library of that
city, Cavaliere Angelo Pezzana, still survives, and still speaks with an
affection which borders upon tenderness of the friendship which resulted
from their first meeting, and which was the pride of his later life.
Among the subjects of their conversation, Cavaliere Pezzana particularly
remembers some observations of Mezzofanti on certain affinities between
the Russian and Latin languages, which struck him by their acuteness and
originality.
A commission which M. Pezzana gave him at his departure led to the
following letter:—
_Bologna, November 11, 1805._
In the hope of being able to execute the little commission you
gave me regarding the Aldine edition of Aristotle, I have put
off writing until I should have searched in our Library.—On
doing so, I find that I have been mistaken, as there is no
copy of that edition here. I avail myself, however, of this
opportunity to renew the assurance of my gratitude for the
numberless kindnesses which you shewed me during the time it
was my good fortune to be in your society;—kindnesses which I
never can forget, and for which it is my most anxious desire
to find some opportunity of making you a return. I beg you
to present my respects to Dr. Tommasini, and to offer to
Signor Bodoni and his lady my acknowledgments for their great
courtesy. Should any occasion arise in which my humble services
can be of use, I shall consider myself happy, if you will
always put aside every idea of my occupations, and will honour
me with your valued commands. Meanwhile accept the assurance of
my sincere esteem and attachment.
Mezzofanti’s intimacy with the two gentlemen named in this letter,
Tommasini and Bodoni, was lasting and sincere. Tommasini, although an
eminent physician of Parma and an active member of most of the scientific
societies of his day, is little known outside of Italy: but Bodoni, the
celebrated printer and publisher of Parma, whose magnificent editions of
the classics are still among the treasures of every great library, was
a man of rare merit, and a not unworthy representative of the learned
fathers of his craft, the Stephens, the Manuzi, and Plantins of the
palmy days of typography. He was a native of Saluzzo in the kingdom of
Sardinia. His early taste for wood-engraving induced him to visit Rome
for the purpose of study: and he set out in company with a school-fellow,
whose uncle held some office in the Roman court. Bodoni supported himself
and his companion upon the way by the sale of his little engravings,
which are now prized as curiosities in the art. On their arrival,
however, being coldly received by the friend on whom they had mainly
relied, they resolved to return home; but before leaving Rome, Bodoni
paid a visit to the printing-office of the Propaganda, where he had the
good fortune to attract the notice of the Abate Ruggieri, then director
of that great press. He thus obtained employment in the establishment,
and at the same time was permitted to attend the Oriental Schools of the
Sapienza; and thus having learned Hebrew and Arabic, he was employed
exclusively upon the Oriental works printed by the Propaganda. The
excellence and accuracy of the editions of the _Missale Arabico-Coptum_,
and the _Alphabetum Tibetanum_ of Padre Giorgi which Bodoni printed,
excited universal admiration; and when, on occasion of the tragical death
of his friend and patron Ruggieri, he resolved to leave Rome, he was
earnestly invited to settle in England: but he accepted in preference an
invitation to Parma, where he was appointed Director of the Ducal Press,
and where all the well-known master-pieces of his art were successively
produced. Himself a man of much learning, and of a highly cultivated
mind, he enjoyed the friendship of most of the literati of Italy.
Blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined,
A knowledge both of books and human kind—
his conversation was in the highest degree entertaining and instructive;
and his correspondence, which has been published, is full of interest.
With the Abate De Rossi, who employed his press in all his Oriental
publications,[329] he was for years on terms of the closest intimacy;
and during Mezzofanti’s visit to Parma, he treated De Rossi’s young
disciple with a courtesy which Mezzofanti long and gratefully remembered.
Bodoni’s wife, who, upon his death in 1813, succeeded to his vast
establishment, was, like her husband, highly cultivated, and a most
amiable and excellent woman.
Among the languages which occupied Mezzofanti at this time, Persian
appears to have received the principal share of his attention. One of the
first presents which he received from De Rossi was, as we have seen, a
“Persian Anthology;” and in a letter to De Rossi, written early in 1806
(which Cavaliere Pezzana has published in the Modena Journal, _Memorie
di Religione_,) he expresses much anxiety to obtain a copy of the great
Persian classic, Kemal Eddin.
The same letter, however, contains another request from which it may be
inferred that much of his time was still drawn away from these studies by
his duties as librarian. Speaking of the catalogue then in preparation,
he complains of the miserably defective condition of the library in the
department of Bibliography; and begs of his correspondent to send him the
titles of the _Bibliotheca_ of Hottinger, (perhaps his _Promptuarium, seu
Bibliotheca Orientalis_, Heidelberg, 1658) and that of Wolff, in order
that he may provide himself with these works, as a guide in his task.
On this subject he speaks more explicitly in a letter of the 3rd of
March, in the same year. After alluding to a commission of De Rossi’s
which he had failed in executing, he proceeds:—
The preparation of the Catalogue keeps me in constant
occupation, because these Oriental books are for the most part
without the name of the author or the title of the work. Their
value, that is to say their scientific importance, bears no
proportion to the labour they cost; inasmuch as they are all
Grammatical Treatises, books of Law, and such like. However,
should I meet any work of interest, I shall not fail to
communicate it to you; although, I fancy, it will be difficult
to meet with anything that you do not know already.
I received from Vienna immediately on its publication, the
Grammar of the learned Dombay,[330] who is well known for other
works, particularly upon the language and history of Morocco.
It happens that I have got two copies of it; and I have set one
of them apart for you, for which you may perhaps give me in
exchange one of your own duplicates. It contains the Grammar
arranged after the manner of the Latin Grammarians; the rules
of Persian according to Meninski,[331] with this advantage,
that here they are given in consecutive order, whereas in
Meninski they are found mixed up with those of the Arabic and
Turkish. Your friend, M. Silvestre de Sacy, reviewed it in
the _Magazin Encyclopedique_, and took exception to Dombay’s
reducing the Persian to the system of the Latin Grammar. I hope
shortly to receive the other from Leipsic, as also the tales of
Nizami, in Persian and Latin, printed by Wolff, and published
by L. Hill, who promised for the same year, 1802, an edition of
the _Divan_ of Hafiz.[332]
I am only waiting for a safe opportunity to forward your books.
We cannot fail of one in the coming spring. As to the “Oriental
Anthology,” I have given it in charge to the courier as far as
Milan, but have not yet heard intelligence of it.
Book-buying is undoubtedly very troublesome, and the least
disagreeable part of it is the money the books cost, although
in Oriental works I always find this excessive. I beg you not
to spare me whenever any occasion offers in which my services
may be useful.
The Abate de Rossi had requested to be furnished with a note of the
principal Oriental MSS. of the Bologna collection; but Mezzofanti’s
labour in preparing the general Catalogue was so great, and the time
fixed for its completion was so entirely inadequate, that, for a
considerable time, he was unable to comply with his friend’s request.
It is to this he alludes in the following letter, dated May 11, 1806.
After apologizing for the delay in forwarding the book referred to in the
letter of March 3rd, he proceeds:—
My labour at the Catalogue still continues, nor can I hope at
the period appointed for its close, to have done more than
merely sketch it out;—that is, we shall have nothing entered
but the bare titles of the works. This, however, in itself,
is a task so difficult in our Oriental MSS., that, up to the
present time, it has never been satisfactorily done. Besides
the Oriental books, I have also to deal with the Greek; and all
must be in readiness within the coming month. The truth is that
I should require a year at least to give a proper shape to my
labour, and in the beginning my impression was that it would
require two. And in my present difficulty, what gives me most
pain is that I am not able to send you, as early as I could
wish, the note which you have often expressed a wish to obtain;
but I shall send it the very first moment in my power.
I have received your new work,[333] for which I beg you to
accept my best thanks. I did not write at the moment, knowing
you do not like very frequent letters; I have besides too much
respect for time devoted like yours to the honour of Italy, on
which your works in Oriental literature have shed a lustre. I
long nevertheless for a fitting opportunity to prove to you the
sincerity of my gratitude.
Under this constant and protracted labour Mezzofanti’s health began
to give way. His chest was seriously threatened during the summer of
1806, and had it not been that he fortunately obtained an extension of
the time allotted for the completion of his task at the Catalogue, it
is not unlikely that his constitution, naturally weak, might have been
permanently enfeebled. Family cares, too, formed no inconsiderable part
of his burden. The health of his mother, which had for a long time been
very uncertain, was completely broken down. She was now entirely blind.
For many weeks of this season he was in daily apprehension of her death;
and, in the pressure of his engagements, his hours of attendance on her
sick bed were subtracted from the time hitherto devoted to rest, already
sufficiently curtailed.
In the midst of these cares and occupations, Mezzofanti was surprised
by a flattering invitation to transfer his residence to Paris, with a
promise of patronage and distinction from the Emperor Napoleon, who was
at this time eagerly engaged in plans for the development of the literary
and artistic glories of his capital. More than one of Mezzofanti’s
countrymen were already in the enjoyment of high honours at Paris. First
among them may be named Volta, for many years Professor of Natural
Philosophy in the University of Pavia. More pliant than his great
fellow-discoverer, Galvani, or perhaps more favourably circumstanced as
not being, like him, a member of a Papal University, he had escaped the
proscription which brought Galvani to his grave—one of those victims of
loyalty whom Petrarch declares
————assai più belli
Con la lor povertà, che Mida o Crasso
Con l’oro, ond’ a virtù furon ribelli;—
Volta was called from Pavia to Paris, where he was rewarded with
distinctions, emoluments, titles, and, more flattering than all, with the
personal notice and patronage of the great conqueror himself, who was
often present at his experiments, and displayed a warm interest in the
results to which they led.[334]
Such were at this period the tempting rewards of scientific or literary
eminence in France. Moreover, Count Marescalchi, in whose family
Mezzofanti had acted as tutor and librarian during the years of his
deprivation, was now Resident Minister of the Kingdom of Italy at Paris.
The Count’s intercourse with Mezzofanti was but little interrupted by
their separation; and, even during his residence in Paris, the latter
continued to correspond with him; chiefly on matters connected with the
education of his children, or with the completion or extension of his
noble library. The extent of their intimacy indeed may be inferred from
one of Mezzofanti’s letters to the Count, dated September 16, 1806,
in which we find him freely employing the services of the minister in
procuring books at Paris, not only for himself but for his literary
friends in Bologna.[335]
It was through this Count Marescalchi that the invitation to Paris was
conveyed to Mezzofanti, and it cannot be doubted that it was accompanied
by a warm recommendation from the Count himself. No trace of this formal
correspondence is now discoverable; but probably far more interesting,
as it is certainly far more characteristic, than the official letter or
reply, is the following playful letter to one of Count Marescalchi’s
sons, Carlino (Charlie), Mezzofanti’s former pupil—now the representative
of the house—who had written a special letter, to add the expression of
his own wishes to those of his father, that his old instructor should
join them once again at Paris.
_Bologna, September 16, 1806._
But three letters, dearest Charlie, in an entire year—two
from Lyons, and one from Paris—to cheer my regrets in being
separated from you! If I were to take this as the measure of
your love for me, I should indeed have reason to be sad. But I
have abundant other proofs of your feelings in my regard; and
at all events, I am not one who can afford to be too rigid in
insisting upon the frequency of correspondence, unless I wish
to furnish grave grounds of complaint against myself.
Few, however, as your letters have been, I am deeply grateful
for their warm and affectionate sentiments, which carry with
them such an evidence of sincerity as to leave me, even when
you do not write, no ground for doubting what your feelings
still are towards me. I am not sure whether in your regard I
shall be equally fortunate; for I am fully sensible that I have
not the power of infusing into what I write all the warmth and
sincerity that I really feel. However, you are not dependent
on my words, in order to be satisfied of the truth of my
affection; and, knowing it as you do, even a lesser token of it
than this will suffice to convince you.
I am still here at Bologna following the same old round of
occupations. Nor am I dissatisfied with my lot, for I am quite
sensible of my inability to take a loftier flight. I feel that
the shade suits me best. Were I to go to Paris, I should be
obliged to set myself up upon some candlestick, where I should
only give out a faint and flickering gleam, which would soon
die utterly away. Nevertheless I am not the less grateful for
your advice; though I perceive that you are dissatisfied with
me because I am such a little fellow.
A thousand, thousand greetings to your dear little sisters.
Renew my remembrance to your father, and when you have an
occasional moment of leisure from your tasks, pray bestow it
upon
Your sincere friend,
D. JOSEPH MEZZOFANTI.
Besides the unaffected modesty and the distrust of his own fitness for
a prominent position (even with such advantages as those offered to him
at Paris,) which are expressed in this letter, the Abate Mezzofanti
was also moved to decline the invitation, both by affection for his
native city and love of its university life (to which we shall find him
looking back with fondness even after his elevation to the cardinalate,)
and by unwillingness to part from his family, to whom he was tenderly
attached. To the latter he had always felt himself bound by duty as well
as by affection. The expense of the education of his sister’s children,
who at this time, (as appears from a little Memoir in the archives of
the University drawn up in 1815,) were seven in number, amounted to a
considerable sum. They, as well as their parents, still continued to
reside in his house; and the same Memoir alludes to another near relative
who was at least partially dependent upon him for support.
To these children, indeed, he was as a father. Cavaliere Minarelli, in
the interesting note already cited, describes him as “most affectionately
devoted to them, and uniting in his manners the loving familiarity of
a friend with the graver authority of an instructor.” In his brief
intervals of leisure from business or study, he often joined them in
their little amusements. Without the slightest trace of austerity,
he generally managed to give their amusements, as far as possible, a
religious character. He usually made the festivals memorable to them by
some extra indulgence or entertainment. He encouraged and directed their
childish tastes in the embellishment of their little oratories, or in
those well-known Christmas devices of Catholic children, the preparation
of the “Crib of the Infant Jesus,” or the decoration of the “Christmas
Tree.” He hoarded his little resources in order to procure for them
improving and instructive books. He composed simple odes and sonnets for
the several festivals, which it was his greatest enjoyment to hear them
recite. The simplicity of his disposition, and a natural fondness for
children which was one of the characteristics even of his later life,
made all this easy to him. He was always ready, if not to take a part, at
least to manifest an interest, in the pleasures of his young friends. In
the carnival especially, when amusement seems, for a time, to form the
serious business of every Italian household, he was never wanting; and,
on one memorable occasion, he actually composed a little comedy, to be
acted by his nephews and nieces for the humble family circle.
During the whole winter of 1806-7 his time was still occupied in the
uncongenial labour of compiling the Catalogue.
On the 25th of September, he writes to the Abate De Rossi, apologizing
for delay in replying to a letter received from him.
“A complication of unfortunate accidents has, up to this
moment, prevented me from answering your kind letter of last
July. My poor mother has frequently, during the summer, been
in extreme danger of death. My own chest, too, has more than
once been threatened, and is still far from strong. All this,
however, does not save me from a feeling of remorse at having
been so tardy towards one whose scientific reputation, as well
as his courteous manners, entitle him to so much consideration.
My labour, as you say, is not yet over. The task, as I
had indeed anticipated from the beginning, has proved an
exceedingly difficult one. As an evidence of the difficulty I
need only mention that the celebrated Giuseppe Assemani, in
the similar work which he undertook,[336] has made numerous
mistakes, having in one instance given no less than six
different titles to seven copies of the same work. This great
orientalist, with all his learning, could not command the time
necessary for so troublesome a task as that of ascertaining the
titles and authors of books which are quite unknown and often
imperfect. For my part, I resolved from the beginning that I
would not, willingly at least, add to the other deficiencies of
which I am conscious, that of haste and insufficient time. _Nam
quo minus ingenio possum, subsidio mihi diligentiam comparavi_;
and the condescension of his Serene Highness has in the end
relieved me, by extending until April the time allowed for the
completion of the task. The grammarians, rhetoricians, poets,
prosodians, logicians, and theologians, have taken up all my
time hitherto; in the course of the next two months, I hope to
complete the enumeration of the other authors; and then I shall
at last fulfil my promise of sending you, when occasion serves,
whatever I think may interest you.”
De Rossi, in his letter, to which this is a reply, had put some
questions regarding the contents of the octavo edition of D’Herbelot’s
_Bibliothèque Orientale_, the preface of which had contained a promise
of many important improvements. Mezzofanti, referring to these promised
additions, goes on to say, “In the articles which I have compared, I
have only found a few verbal corrections. But in the preface, we are
promised additional articles, drawn from the narratives of travellers
subsequent to D’Herbelot. From this promise you will be able to infer
what information you may expect to derive from the edition, and whether
it is likely to be useful for your purpose. I have not yet received
the supplement, which was to contain certain articles which have been
postponed for reasons explained in the preface. Perhaps the reason of its
not having been printed, may be, that the articles in question, being of
use to orientalists alone, may be found by them in the former editions.
“As it would be no small distinction for the collection of Oriental MSS.
belonging to this Royal Library of ours, if among them there should be
found any deserving of a place amongst the MSS. cited in your dictionary,
I shall endeavour, in the hope that it may prove so, to complete my task
as speedily as possible, so as to send you at least an index, out of
which you may yourself choose the name of any author whom you shall judge
deserving of notice.
“I believe Dombay’s work has been published. I have the title,
‘_Geschichte der Mauritan. Könige; aus dem Arabischen übersetzt_’;[337]
but without date or place. I shall write to Vienna as soon as I can, to
order it, if it should be published. I have made a good many interesting
acquisitions lately; as for instance, _Albucasis ‘De Chirurgia.’_[338]
Oxonii, 1778. ‘_Maured Allatafet Jemaleddini filii Togri Bardii; seu
Rerum Aegyptiacarum Annales ab Anno C. 971 ad 1453_’;[339] several
‘_Anthologias_’ and ‘_Chrestomathias_;’ one of which, that of Rink and
Vater, has at the end a _Bibliotheca Arabica_ continued up to 1802; and
some other books.”
* * * * *
At this date, Mezzofanti’s correspondence with De Rossi is interrupted;
and, although there appears to have been a pretty regular interchange of
correspondence between them for some years longer,[340] no further letter
has been found among those of De Rossi’s papers which are deposited in
the library of Parma, except one written in the year 1812.
Scanty as are the details supplied by those which are preserved, they,
at least, afford some insight into the process by which the writer’s
extraordinary faculty was developed and perfected. However acute and
almost instinctive this faculty may have been, it is plain from these
letters, that it was at this time most systematically and laboriously
cultivated. However much Mezzofanti may have owed to nature, it is
certain, that for all the practical results of his great natural gifts
he was indebted to his own patient and almost plodding industry; and
it may cheer the humble student in the long and painful course through
which alone he can aspire to success, to find that even this prodigy of
language was forced to tread the same laborious path;—to see the anxious
care with which he collected and consulted grammars, dictionaries,
manuals, reading books, and other similar commonplace appliances of the
study; and to learn, that, with all his unquestioned and unquestionable
genius, he did not consider himself above the drudgery at which even less
gifted students are but too apt to murmur or repine.
It may be added that the toilsome practice of writing out translations
from one language into another which these letters disclose, was
continued by Mezzofanti through his entire career of study, although in
his latter years he pursued it more as an amusement than as a serious
task.
It is hard, in ordinary cases, to infer from such performances the exact
degree of proficiency in the language which they should be presumed
to indicate. Some translations are only the fruit of long and careful
study.[341] On the contrary, there are instances on record in which
excellent translations have been produced by persons possessing a very
slight knowledge of the original. Thus Monte, the author of the best
Italian translation of Homer, was utterly unacquainted with Greek;[342]
Halley, without knowing a word of Arabic, was able to guess his way,
(partly by mathematical reasoning, partly by the aid of a Latin version,
which, however, only contained about one-tenth of the entire work,)
through an Arabic translation of Apollonius _De Sectione Rationis_;[343]
and M. Arnaud, the first French translator of Lalla Rookh, did not know a
word of the English language.[344]
But on all these points Mezzofanti’s fame is beyond suspicion. His
translations, at least in his later life, were at once produced with
the utmost freedom and rapidity, and are universally acknowledged to
have been models of verbal correctness; and in most instances where the
same passage is translated into many languages, the versions display a
remarkable mastery over the peculiar forms and idioms of each.
This wonderful success must be ascribed, no doubt, to his early and
systematic exercise in translation, of which the specimen submitted to De
Rossi is but one example.
CHAPTER IV.
[1807-1814.]
The _Catalogue Raisonné_ of the Oriental and Greek manuscripts was not
completed until 1807, having thus absorbed the greater part of Abate
Mezzofanti’s time during two years.
A large proportion of the Oriental MSS. had never even been entered upon
the ordinary library catalogue, and no attempt at all had been made
to describe them accurately, much less to register their character or
contents. Very many of them too, as we learn from Mezzofanti’s letters,
were imperfect; and a still more considerable number wanted at least the
title and the name of the author. It was no trivial labour, therefore,
to examine the entire collection; to decide on the name, the age, and
the authorship of each; to describe their contents; and to reduce them
all into their respective classes. For most of these particulars the
compiler of the catalogue was utterly without a guide. It is true that
Joseph Assemani’s catalogue of the Oriental MSS. of the Vatican, and
the catalogue of those of the Medicean Library at Florence by his
nephew Stephen Evodius, were in some cases available. But many of the
Bologna MSS. are not to be found in either catalogue; and for all these
Mezzofanti was of course compelled to rely altogether on his own lights.
The catalogue, as drawn up by him, is still preserved, and,
notwithstanding these disadvantages, is described as a highly creditable
performance, and “a valuable supplement to the labours of Talmar and
the Assemanis;”[345] and at all events it was to his long and laborious
researches while engaged in its preparation, that he owed that minute
familiarity with the whole literature of the East, ancient and modern,
which, as we shall see, was a subject of wonder even to learned orientals
themselves.
During the year 1807, an opportunity occurred for testing practically
how far the reputation which he had acquired corresponded with his real
attainments. On the outbreak of hostilities between the Porte and Russia
in that year, the Russian ambassador, Italinski, withdrew (not without
some risk and difficulty)[346] from Constantinople, and, being conveyed
on board the British ship of war, Canopus, to Malta, afterwards made his
way to Ancona. While the ambassador remained at Ancona, the chancellor of
the embassy, Angelo Timoni, who was of Bolognese origin, came to visit
his native city; accompanied by Matteo Pisani, the official interpreter,
who was one of the best linguists of his time, and especially a perfect
master of all the modern languages of the East. As they resided, during
their stay at Bologna, in the house of his friend, Dr. Santagata, their
visit was a severe ordeal for Mezzofanti, who was constantly in their
society; but he withstood it triumphantly; and Santagata records their
wonder and delight to find that, without ever having visited the East,
or mixed in Oriental society, the Bolognese professor had nevertheless
attained a “mastery over the many and various languages, especially
Oriental ones, in which they tried him, and that the marvellous and all
but inconceivable accounts which they had received regarding him, proved
to be not only credible but actually true.”[347]
A great and lasting mortification nevertheless soon afterwards befel
Mezzofanti, in the unexpected deprivation of his beloved professorship.
The circumstances which accompanied his removal have not been fully
detailed, but there is enough in the history of the period to supply an
intelligible explanation. The conflict of Napoleon with the Holy See
was just then approaching its crisis. From the beginning of this year
the French troops had occupied Rome. Two cardinal secretaries of state
had been forcibly ejected from office. The Pope was a prisoner in his
own palace and his authority was completely superseded. Now upon these
and the many similar outrages to which the venerable Pontiff was daily
subjected, the opinions of Mezzofanti were no secret; and there can be
no doubt that the determination of the Government to remove him from
the university was mainly influenced by this knowledge; although in
deference to public opinion, and to the universal feeling of respect
with which he was regarded, they abstained from formally depriving him
of his professorship. His removal was effected indirectly by a decree,
dated November 15, 1808, by which the Oriental professorship itself was
suppressed.
Although a pension, and as it would seem, not a very illiberal one,
was assigned to him, he felt very deeply this exclusion from a career
so congenial to his tastes. He continued nevertheless, as before, to
instruct pupils privately in these and other languages; and although, as
to details, the history of his own studies at this time is a complete
blank, yet from his known habits it may reasonably be presumed that when
the first feeling of mortification had subsided, the ultimate result of
his release from the duties of his chair, was to direct his untiring
energies into new fields of research; and it seems to have been during
this interval that he first gave his attention to the Sanscrit and other
Indian languages;—a family which had till then been but little cultivated
except in England, but to whose vast importance, as well as widely
extended philological relations, Frederic Schlegel[348] had just awakened
the attention of the learned throughout continental Europe.
* * * * *
From the date of this second deprivation, till the year 1812, his quiet
and uniform course of life presents hardly a single interesting incident.
In June, 1810, his mother died. But her advanced age and infirm health
had long prepared him for this bereavement. She died on the feast of St.
Aloysius (June 21,) in her seventy-third year.
The only detail regarding his personal occupations, which I have been
able to discover, is derived from a letter, dated November 30th,
1811,[349] to his friend Pezzana, at Parma, which exhibits him again
engaged in the drudgery of compiling a catalogue—that of the library
of Count Marescalchi. Pezzana had published, some time before, a short
bibliographical essay on two very rare editions of Petrarch, which are
still preserved in the Parma Collection. Mezzofanti, while engaged in
cataloguing the Marescalchi library, discovered a copy of one of these
editions, and at once wrote to communicate the fact to Pezzana.
I may also mention, what, in a life so uneventful, must claim to be
regarded as an event—a short journey which he made to Modena and Mantua.
Joseph Minarelli, the eldest of his sister’s sons, was summoned to
Modena in 1813, to ballot in the conscription which followed the terrible
campaign of 1812, so fatal to the armies of France. Signora Minarelli
was naturally much alarmed at the chance of her son’s being drawn in the
conscription, and in consideration for her anxiety, his uncle accompanied
him to Modena upon the occasion.
It becomes especially difficult henceforward to follow the history of his
studies. The literary friends of this part of his career;—his colleagues
in the University; Ranzani; Caturegli, the astronomer; the eminent
botanist, Felippo Re; his fellow-pupil and fellow-teacher, Clotilda
Tambroni; Schiassi; Magistrini; and others of less note, who could have
supplied information, not only as to his habits and pursuits, but as to
the actual stages of his progress, are long since dead. The letters of
Pietro Giordani,[350] however, recently published, may, in some measure,
fill up the blank; not, it is true, as to the details of his biography,
but at least in so far as regards the opinion entertained in Bologna of
his character and acquirements. Indeed the testimony of Giordani is less
open to exception than any which could have emanated from the personal
friends of Mezzofanti. Giordani had entered the Benedictine congregation,
and had even received the order of sub-deaconship; but on the outbreak
of the Revolution, he had renounced the monastic life, cast aside the
Benedictine habit, and thrown himself into the arms of the revolutionary
party in Italy. Under the French rule at Bologna, he obtained as the
reward of his principles, the place of Assistant Librarian, and also that
of Deputy Professor of Latin and Italian Eloquence. Hence it will easily
be believed that his relations with the Papal party in the University
were by no means friendly; and, as he had had with the Abate Mezzofanti
himself (as I learn from an interesting letter of M. Libri which shall be
inserted hereafter,) some personal misunderstandings, he may be presumed
to have been but little disposed to over-rate the qualifications of an
antagonist. It is no mean evidence of Mezzofanti’s merit, therefore, that
Giordani has specially excepted him from the very disparaging estimate
which he expresses regarding the literary men of Italy at this time.
“I have held but little intercourse with literary men,” he writes to
his friend Lazzaro Papi, “finding them commonly possessed of but little
learning and a great deal of passion. Here, however, I have met an
exception to the rule—the Abate Mezzofanti—a man not only of the utmost
piety, but of attainments truly wonderful and all but beyond belief. You
must, of course, have heard of him; but indeed he well deserves a wider
fame than he enjoys, for the number of languages which he knows most
perfectly, although this is the least part of his learning. Nevertheless,
such is his excessive modesty, that he lives here in obscurity, and I
must add, to the disgrace of the age, in poverty.”[351]
Nor is Giordani’s report to be regarded as one of those vague panegyrics,
which, when Mezzofanti’s fame was established, each new visitor was
wont to re-echo. Giordani is not only well-known as one of the purest
Italian writers of the century, but enjoyed the highest reputation as a
critical scholar; and the subject on which, in another of his letters,
he defers to the judgment of Mezzofanti—a delicate question of Greek
criticism—was precisely that on which he himself was best qualified to
pronounce. In a letter to the Abate Canova (Feb 3, 1812,) he mentions a
conjecture that had recently interested him very much; viz., that the
great Roman architect, Vitruvius, was a Greek, although he wrote in
Latin. His chief argument is based upon Vitruvius’s Latinity, in which
he detects traces of foreign idiom. But, lest he should yield too much
to fancy, he had appealed to the judgment of some of his colleagues, and
he communicates the result to his correspondent. One of the persons thus
consulted was Mezzofanti. “I should not rely on my own judgment,” says
Giordani, “had I not convinced Cicognara and Mezzofanti that it is right.
The authority of the latter is the more important, because my argument
rests chiefly on the style, in every line of which I find impressed, even
where the subject is not technical, traces of halting [_storpiato_] and
ill-translated Greek; and you know what a judge Mezzofanti is of this
point.”[352]
In a letter to another friend, Count Leopoldo Cicognara, (since known
as the biographer of Canova)[353] Giordani reports the sequel of this
discussion, which confirms in a very remarkable manner, Giordani’s
judgment of Mezzofanti’s critical sagacity. Mezzofanti had at first
assented to Giordani’s conjecture; but on a closer examination he
discovered, that what Giordani had considered the Grecisms of Vitruvius’s
style, were, in reality, but _translations from various Greek authors_,
from whom Vitruvius largely borrows, and whom he actually enumerates in
the preface of the seventh book. Mezzofanti further pointed out a phrase
in the same preface which at once put an end to the discussion, and the
discovery of which, as Giordani justly observes, in itself “indicated an
inquiring and critical mind.” Vitruvius, in speaking of the Latin writers
upon his art, as contradistinguished from the Greek, calls them “antiqui
_nostri_.”[354]
To the same friend, Count Cicognara, Giordani in a previous letter,
dated January 30th, 1812, had written of Mezzofanti’s own peculiar
faculty of languages, in terms of almost rapturous admiration. “You
know Mezzofanti,” he says;—“Mezzofanti—the rarest, most unheard of,
most inconceivable of living men. I call him, and he is, the man of all
nations and all ages. By Jove! he appears as though he had been born in
the beginning of the world, and, like St. Anthony, had lived in every
age and in every country!”[355]
In connexion with this very remarkable testimony to the accuracy of
Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Greek, I may mention (although it more properly
belongs to a later period of his life) an amusing anecdote illustrative
of his accomplishments as a Latinist, which is recorded by Dr. Santagata,
and the hero of which was M. Bucheron, Professor of Latin Literature
in the University of Turin, and one of the most celebrated classical
philologists of modern Italy. M. Bucheron came to Bologna, from some
cause strongly prepossessed against Mezzofanti, and disposed to regard
him in the light of a mere literary charlatan, of showy but superficial
acquirements. Of his Latinity—especially in all that bears upon the
critical niceties of the language, and the numberless philological
questions regarding it which have arisen among modern scholars, M.
Bucheron entertained the lowest possible estimate;—considering it, in
truth, impossible, that one whose attention had been divided over so many
languages as fame ascribed to Mezzofanti, _could be_ solidly grounded
in any of them. He resolved, therefore, to put the Abate’s Latinity
to a rigorous test; and came to the library prepared with a number of
questions, bearing upon the niceties of the Latin language, which he
proposed to introduce, as it were casually, in his expected conversation.
He was presented to Mezzofanti by his friend, Michele Ferrucci, Librarian
of the University of Pisa, from whom, I may add, Dr. Santagata received
the account of their interview. The conversation, as Bucheron had
pre-determined, began upon some common-place subject: but in a short time
he artfully contrived to turn it upon those topics on which he desired
to probe his companion. The trial was a most animated one. From a series
of obscure and difficult questions of Latin philology, they passed to a
variety of oriental, historical, and archæological topics. At the moment
when the interest of the conversation was at its very height, Ferrucci
was unfortunately called away by business; but the result may be judged
from the sequel. On his return, after a somewhat lengthened absence, he
met Bucheron coming from the Library.
“Well,” said he, “what do you think of Mezzofanti?”
“_Per Bacco!_” replied the astounded Piedmontese. “_Per Bacco! é il
Diavolo!_”[356]
His celebrity, indeed, was by this time universally established. With all
his unaffected humility; with the full consciousness (which he expressed
in all simplicity and truth to his young friend, Carlino Marescalchi)
that he was “best fitted for the shade”—he had insensibly grown into
one of the notabilities of Bologna. He was constantly visited and
consulted, especially by Oriental students, from foreign countries. What
is more remarkable, more than one Jewish scholar appears in the record
of his visitors. Among the papers of the Abate De Rossi is a letter
of this period (March 18th, 1812,) in which Mezzofanti introduces to
him a certain “Signor Moise Ber;” and, notwithstanding the variety of
orthography, (a variety quite natural in an Italian letter,) there can be
no doubt that this Signor Moise Ber was no other than Rabbi Moses Beer
of the Israelite University of Rome, whose Orations and Discourses have
since been published.[357]
* * * * *
Mezzofanti’s opportunities of conversing with foreigners were much
increased by his becoming permanently attached to the Library of the
University (with which the Library of the Institute had been incorporated
by the French) as Deputy-Librarian. This appointment he received on the
28th of March, in 1812. As the chief librarian at this time was the
Abate Pozzetti, who, like Mezzofanti, was an honorary professor of the
University, and one of his most valued friends, the appointment was
especially agreeable to him: and, independently of its other advantages,
it became for him, as I said, from the constant passing and re-passing of
strangers from every country, a school in which he was able to exercise
himself, almost hourly, in every department of his multilingual studies.
The late Lord Guilford, who was Chancellor of the University of Corfu,
made his acquaintance during one of his visits to Bologna; and on every
subsequent occasion on which he passed through that city, Mezzofanti was
invariably his guest, accompanied by all the Greeks who chanced to be at
the time students of the University.
As his reputation extended, the literary societies of the various cities
of Italy were naturally desirous to number him among their members. He
was already an associate of the _Societá Colombina_ at Florence, and of
the “Society of Letters, Sciences, and Arts,” at Leghorn; and he received
about this time, the decoration of the Royal Order of the Two Sicilies.
The only literary society, however, in whose proceedings he took an
active part, was the Scientific Academy of the Institute of his native
city. It has been commonly supposed that he rarely, if at all, appeared
in the literary arena, and it is true that he has not left behind him
anything at all commensurate with his reputation; but he frequently read
papers, chiefly on philological subjects, in the Bolognese Academy. The
first of these which is noticed by Dr. Santagata was read on the 22nd of
July, 1813; and another, “On the Symbolic Paintings of the Mexicans,” was
delivered in the following session, on the 23rd of March, 1814. Owing
to his early association with several ex-Jesuit American Missionaries
who had settled in Bologna, he had long felt an interest in the curious
subject of Mexican Antiquities. Among his MSS., which still remain in the
possession of the Cavaliere Minarelli at Bologna, is a Mexican Calendar,
drawn up by Mezzofanti’s own hand, and illustrated with fac-similes of
the original pictures and symbolical representations from the pencil of
his niece, Signora Anna Minarelli; but of the paper read in the Academy,
no trace has been found.
CHAPTER V.
[1814-1817.]
The year 1814, so memorable in general history, was also an important one
in the humble fortunes of the Abate Mezzofanti.
The success of the papal cause in Italy naturally opened a new career to
the men against whom fidelity to the papal interest had long closed the
ordinary avenues to distinction.
In the close of 1813, the reverses, which, from the disastrous Russian
expedition, had succeeded each other with startling rapidity, at length
forced upon Napoleon the conviction that he had overcalculated the
endurance of the people of France. He now learned, when too late, that
the reckless expenditure of human blood with which his splendid successes
were purchased, had brought sorrow and suffering to every fireside in
every hamlet through his wide empire, and that the enormous levies which
he still continued to demand, and which were called out only to perish
in the fruitless contest with his destiny, consummated the popular
discontent. No longer, therefore, in a position to brave the public
reprobation with which his treatment of Pius VII. had been visited,
he found it necessary to restore the semblance of those more friendly
relations which he had maintained with him in the less openly ambitious
stage of his career. Accordingly, although among the provisions of the
extorted Concordat of Fontainebleau, there was none to which Napoleon,
in his secret heart, clung more tenaciously than the renunciation which
it implied on the part of the Pontiff of the sovereignty of Rome, he
found it necessary, notwithstanding, to yield so far to public sympathy
as to issue an order for the Pope’s immediate return to Italy, dated the
22nd of January, 1814. This measure, nevertheless, had evidently been
extorted from his fears; and, as he desired nothing from it beyond the
effect which he expected it to produce on the public mind, he contrived
that upon various pretences the Pope’s progress should be interrupted
and delayed. For a short time, too, the varying success with which the
memorable campaign of 1814 commenced; the opening of the Congress of
Chatillon; the conclusion of the armistice of Lusigny;—all served to
re-animate his sinking hopes. Thus the Pope was detained day after day,
week after week, in the south of France, until the close of the Emperor’s
death struggle, by the capitulation of Paris; when Pius VII. was at
length set free to return to his capital, by an order of the provisional
government, dated the 2nd of April, 1814.
Within a few days after the communication of this order, Pius VII.
reached Bologna. Among the ecclesiastics who there hastened to offer
homage to their restored sovereign, there were few who could approach
his throne with a fuller consciousness of unsullied loyalty, or who could
present more unequivocal evidences of the truth and sincerity of the
allegiance which they tendered, than the ex-Professor Mezzofanti, driven
from his chair because he refused to compromise his loyalty even by an
indirect recognition of the Anti-Papal government, and only restored,
when, after the concordat of 1801, the occupation of the Legations had
been acquiesced in by the Pontificial government itself, he had a second
time suffered the penalty of loyalty in a similar deprivation. It will
easily be believed, therefore, that, in the more than gracious reception
accorded to him by the Pontiff, a feeling of grateful recognition of
his fidelity and of sympathy with the sacrifices which he had made, was
mingled with undisguised admiration of his talents and acquirements.
Hence the first impulse of this munificent pope was to attach to his
own immediate service a scholar who was at once eminent for learning,
distinguished by piety, by priestly zeal, and by loyalty in the hour of
trial, unstained even by the slightest compromise. The re-construction of
the various Roman tribunals and congregations which, during the captivity
of the Pope and Cardinals, had been, for the most part, suspended,
suggested an opportunity of employing, with marked advantage for the
public service, the peculiar talents which seemed almost idly wasted in
the obscurity of a provincial capital. The halls and public offices of
Rome had been the school or the arena of all the celebrated linguists of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; and the very constitution of
the congregation and college, “De Propaganda Fide,” appeared specially to
invite the services of one so eminent in that department. Accordingly,
Pius VII. surprised the modest Abate by an invitation to accompany him
to Rome, and proposed for his acceptance the important office of the
secretaryship of the Propaganda[358]—one of those so called _poste
cardinalizie_, which constitute the first step in the career towards the
cardinalate.
Mezzofanti was deeply affected by this mark of the favour and confidence
of his sovereign. Independently, too, of these flattering considerations,
and of the advantages of rank and fortune which it involved, the mere
residence in Rome, and especially in the Propaganda—the great polyglot
centre of the ancient and modern world—had many attractions for a
student of language so enthusiastic and indefatigable. It was a proud
thought, moreover, to follow in the track of Ubicini, and Giorgi, and
Piromalli, and the Assemani’s. But his modesty was proof against all
these temptations. He shrank from the responsibility which this great
office involved;—and, with the every expression of gratitude for so
distinguished an honour, he declined to exchange the quiet and seclusion
of his life at Bologna, for the more brilliant, but far more anxious
position held out for his acceptance at Rome.
Not content, however, with personal solicitations, the Pope employed
Cardinal Consalvi to use his influence with Mezzofanti. But it was to no
purpose. The humble Abate could not be induced to leave his native city.
The only mark of favour, therefore, which remained at the disposal of
the pontiff, was one which Mezzofanti prized infinitely beyond the more
solid, as well as more brilliant, offer which awaited him at Rome,—his
re-establishment in the Professorship of Oriental Languages. He was
formally restored on the 28th of April, 1814,[359] a few days after the
departure of the Pope from Bologna.
There is no doubt that on this occasion, as on that of his declining
the invitation to Paris several years earlier, he was much influenced
by those considerations, arising from his relations to the children of
his sister, to which I already alluded, his presence in Bologna being
now more than ever necessary for the completion of their education.
Indeed this was now the chief family duty which bound him to Bologna; for
his father, who had survived his mother by several years, died, at the
advanced age of eighty-one, in April, 1814, during the visit of Pius VII.
to that city.
* * * * *
The few notices of the Abate Mezzofanti which we have met up to
this period, are derived almost exclusively from Bolognese, or at
least Italian sources. During the long continental war, the ordinary
intercourse with Italy was, in great part, suspended, and few tourists,
especially of the literary class, visited the north of Italy. But the
cessation of hostilities in the spring of 1814, re-opened the long
interrupted communication, and the annual stream of visitors to Rome
and Naples again began to flow, with its wonted regularity, through the
cities of the north. Few of the tourists who published an account of
their travels at this date failed to devote some of their pages to one
who had now become one of the chief “sights” of his native city. It is
hardly necessary to say, that, in some instances, these accounts are but
the echoes of popular fame, and exhibit the usual amount of ignorance,
credulity, and superficial information, which characterise “travellers’
tales.” But very many, also, will be found to contain the judgment of
acute, learned, and impartial observers; many of them are the result
of a careful and jealous scrutiny of Mezzofanti’s attainments, made by
critics of indisputable capacity; most of them will be admitted to be of
unquestionable value, as to one point at least—Mezzofanti’s familiarity
with the native language of each particular traveller; and all, even the
least solid among them, are interesting, as presenting to us, with the
freshness of contemporary narrative, the actual impressions received by
the writer from his opportunities of personal intercourse with the great
linguist.
I have collected from many sources, published[360] and unpublished,
a variety of these travellers’ notices, which I shall use freely in
illustrating the narrative of the remaining years of the life of
Mezzofanti. I shall be careful, however, in all that regards the critical
portion of the biography, and especially in estimating the actual
extent of Mezzofanti’s linguistic attainments, only to rely, for each
language, on the authority of one who, either as a native, or at least an
unquestioned proficient in that particular language, will be admitted to
be a perfectly competent judge in its regard.
The autumn of the year 1814 supplies one such notice, which is
remarkable, as the first direct testimony to Mezzofanti’s proficiency
in speaking German. He had learned this language in boyhood; and it is
clear from his letters to De Rossi, and from the books to which he freely
refers in that correspondence, that he was intimately acquainted with it
as a language of books. But in this year we are able for the first time
to test his power of speaking German by the judgment of a native.
The writer in question is a German tourist, named Kephalides, professor
in the University of Breslau,[361] who (as may be inferred from his
alluding to the Congress of Vienna, as just opened) visited Bologna
in the October or November of 1814. “The Professor Abate Mezzofanti,”
writes this traveller, who met him in the Library, “speaks German with
extraordinary fluency, although he has never been out of Bologna. He is a
warm admirer, too, of the literature of Germany, especially its poetry;
and he has stirred up the same enthusiasm among the educated classes in
Bologna, both gentlemen and ladies.”[362] We learn incidentally, too,
from this writer’s narrative, that German was among the languages which
Mezzofanti taught to his private pupils. In a rather interesting account
of an interview which he had with old Father Emmanuel Aponte, (one of
Mezzofanti’s first instructors,) and with the celebrated lady-professor
of Greek, so often referred to, Clotilda Tambroni, Kephalides mentions
that the youth whom Mezzofanti sent to conduct him to Aponte was one of
his own pupils, who had just begun to “lisp German.” Strangely enough,
nevertheless, Kephalides does not allude to any other of Mezzofanti’s
languages, nor even to his general reputation as a linguist of more than
ordinary attainments.
In the commencement of the year 1815, the chief Librarianship of the
University became vacant by the death of Father Pompilio Pozzetti.
Pozzetti was one of the congregation of the _Scuole Pie_, and in earlier
life had been Librarian of that Ducal Library at Modena, which Tiraboschi
has made familiar to every student of Italian literature. From the time
of his appointment as Prefect of the Bologna Library, a close intimacy
had subsisted between him and Mezzofanti; and on the latter’s being
named his assistant, this intimacy ripened into a warm friendship.
Mezzofanti was at once appointed as his successor, on the 25th of April,
1815.[363] In the letter in which (May 15th,) he communicated his
appointment to his friend, Pezzana, who held the kindred office at Parma,
he speaks in terms of the highest praise of his predecessor and of the
services which he had rendered during his tenure of office, and deplores
his death as a serious loss to the institution.
The revenue of this office, which he held conjointly with his
professorship, (although both salaries united amounted to a very
moderate sum)[364] placed the Abate Mezzofanti in comparatively easy
circumstances, and for the first time above the actual struggle for
daily bread. That he still continued, nevertheless, to instruct pupils
in private, need hardly be matter of surprise, when it is remembered
that, as we have seen, the support of no less than ten individuals was
dependent upon his exertions.[365]
Indeed, once released from the sordid cares and excessive drudgery of
tuition to which his earlier years had been condemned,—
The starving meal, and all the thousand aches
Which patient merit of the unworthy takes—
the exercise of teaching was to him rather an enjoyment than a labour.
After his removal to the Vatican Library, and even after his elevation to
the Cardinalate, we shall find it his chief, if not his only, relaxation.
Few men have possessed in a higher degree the power of winning at
once the confidence and the love of a pupil. The perfect simplicity
of his character—his exceeding gentleness—the cheerful playfulness of
his manner—the total absence of any seeming consciousness of superior
attainments—his evident enjoyment of the society of the young, and
above all the unaffected goodness and kindness of his disposition,
attracted the love of his youthful friends, as much as his marvellous
accomplishments challenged their admiration. It is only just to add that
he repaid the affection which he thus invariably won from them by the
liveliest interest in all that regarded their progress, and a sincere
concern for their happiness which followed them in every stage of their
after life.
By degrees, too, he was beginning, in the natural advance of years, to
enjoy the best fruit of the labour of instruction, in the success, and
even distinction, attained by his quondam pupils. One of these to whom he
was especially attached, the young Marchese Angelelli, had passed through
the University with much honour; and, in the beginning of 1815, published
anonymously a metrical translation of the Electra of Sophocles, which met
with very marked favour. Mezzofanti who was much gratified by the success
of this first essay, communicated to his friend Pezzana the secret of
the authorship. “I send you,” he writes, May 8, 1815, “a first essay in
translation from the Greek, published by an able pupil of mine, whose
modesty has not permitted him to put his name to his work. From you,
however, I make no secret of it. The author is one of our young nobles,
the Marchese Maximilian Francis Angelelli, an indefatigable cultivator
of every liberal study. I may add, as there is no danger of its reaching
the ears of the modest translator, that this first effort is only the
beginning of greater things. You will accept a copy for yourself, and
place the other in your library, which I am happy to know grows daily,
both in extent and reputation, through the care of its librarian, no less
than by his distinguished name.”
This first essay of the young poet was followed in the next year by
a further publication, containing the Electra, the Antigone, and the
Trachiniæ; and, a few years later, his master had the gratification of
witnessing the successful completion of his favourite pupil’s task,
by the publication of the entire seven tragedies of Sophocles, in
1823-4.[366]
One effect of Mezzofanti’s appointment as librarian was to separate him
somewhat from his sister and her family. He occupied thenceforward the
apartments of the librarian in the Palace of the University. But he still
continued towards them the same affectionate protection and support.
Hitherto he had himself in part superintended or directed the education
of his nephews, and especially of his namesake Joseph, a youth of much
promise, whose diligence and success fully requited his uncle’s care.
Joseph had made choice of the ecclesiastical profession; and, although
falling far short of his uncle’s extraordinary gift, he became an
excellent linguist, and was especially distinguished as a Greek and Latin
scholar; so that his uncle had the satisfaction, when his own increasing
occupations compelled him to diminish the number of his pupils, of
finding the young Minarelli fully competent to undertake a portion of the
charge.
His first public appearance at the Academy after he entered upon his new
office, was for the purpose of reading, (July 11th, 1815,) a paper “On
the Wallachian Language and its Analogies with Latin;”—a subject which
has engaged the attention of philologers and historians from the days
of Chalcocondylas, and which involves many interesting ethnological, as
well as philological considerations.[367] As we shall find him, a few
years later, astonishing a German visitor by his familiarity with this
out-of-the-way language, it is worth while to note this essay, as an
evidence that here, too, his knowledge was the result of careful study,
and not of casual opportunity, or of sudden inspiration.
For a considerable time after he took charge of the Library, he seems
to have been much occupied by his duties in connexion with it. The only
letter which I have been able to obtain about this period, one addressed
to Pezzana, March 5th, 1816, is entirely occupied with details regarding
the library; and M. Manavit mentions that he not only obtained from the
authorities a considerable addition to the funds appropriated to the
purchase of books, but, moreover, devoted no trifling share of his own
humble resources to the same purpose.[368] In the course of a few months,
too, he was quite at ease in his new pursuit; and the familiarity with
the contents of the library, and even of the position of particular books
upon its shelves which he soon possessed, would, in a person of less
prodigious memory, have been a subject of wonder. His nephew, Cavaliere
Minarelli of Bologna, was present on one occasion when Professor Ranzani,
while passing an evening in the librarian’s apartments, happened to
require some rare volume from the library; and, though it was dark at the
time, Mezzofanti left the room without a light, proceeded to the library,
and in a few moments returned with the volume required.
In July, 1816, Mezzofanti read at the Academy an essay “on the Language
of the Sette Communi at Vicenza,” which has been spoken of with much
praise. This singular community—descended from those stragglers of the
invading army of Cimbri and Teutones which crossed the Alps in the
year of Rome, 640, who escaped amid the almost complete extermination
of their companions under Marius, and took refuge in the neighbouring
mountains—presents, (like the similar Roman colony on the Transylvanian
border,) the strange phenomenon of a foreign race and language preserved
unmixed in the midst of another people and another tongue for a space of
nearly two thousand years. They occupy seven parishes in the vicinity
of Vicenza,[369] whence their name is derived; and they still retain
not only the tradition of their origin, but the substance, and even the
leading forms of the Teutonic language; insomuch that Frederic IV.,
of Denmark, who visited them in the beginning of the last century,
(1708,) discoursed with them in Danish, and found their idiom perfectly
intelligible.[370]
This was a theme peculiarly suited to Mezzofanti’s powers. His essay
excited considerable interest at the time, but unfortunately was never
printed.
CHAPTER VI.
[1817-1820.]
Southey, in one of his pleasant gossiping letters to Bedford, tells that
when M. de Sagrie was going to publish a French translation of Southey’s
“Roderick,” his publisher, Le Bel, insisted upon having a life of the
poet prefixed. M. de Sagrie objected; and at last, in order to get rid of
the printer’s importunities, said that he knew nothing whatever of the
life of Mr. Southey. “N’importe!” was the printer’s cool reply, “Ecrivez
toujours, brodez! Brodez-la un peu; que ce soit vrai ou non, ce ne fait
rien.”[371]
We have come to a part of Mezzofanti’s quiet and uniform life in which
there are so few incidents to break the monotony of the uneventful
narrative, that, at least in so far as its interest is concerned, his
biographer is almost in the same condition with M. de Sagrie. The true
purpose of this narrative, however—to exhibit the faculty rather than the
man—seems to me to depend less on the accumulation of piquant anecdotes
and striking adventures, than upon a calm and truthful survey of his
intellectual attainments in the successive stages of his career. Instead,
therefore, of having recourse to the device suggested by De Sagrie’s
enterprising publisher, and supplying, by a little ingenious “broderie,”
the deficiency of exciting incident, I shall content myself with weaving
together, in the order of time, the several notices of Mezzofanti, by
travellers and others, which have come within my reach; interspersing
such explanations, incidents, illustrations, and anecdotes, as I have
been able to glean, among the scanty memorials of this period which
have survived. Fortunately, from the year which we have now reached,
there exists a tolerably connected series of such sketches. They are, of
course, from the most various hands—from authors
of all tongues and creeds;—
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church,
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;—
but their value, it need hardly be said, is enhanced by this very
variety. Proceeding from so many independent sources, produced for the
most part, too, upon the spot, and in the order of time in which they
appear in the narrative;—these unconnected sketches may be believed to
present, if a less minute and circumstantial, certainly a more vivid as
well as more reliable, portraiture of Mezzofanti, than could be hoped
even from the daily scrutiny of familiar friends, intimately conversant
with his every day life, but always viewing his character from the same
unvarying point, and rather submitting the result of their own matured
observations of what Mezzofanti seemed to them to be, than affording
materials for a calm and dispassionate estimate of what he really was.
Nor must it be forgotten that no single chronicler, even had he the
circumstantiality of a Boswell, could be capable of keeping a record
of Mezzofanti’s life, which could be available as the foundation of a
satisfactory judgment as to the real extent and nature of his linguistic
accomplishment. It is only another Mezzofanti who would be a competent
witness on such a question; and, in default of a single Polyglot critic
of his attainments in all the languages which he is supposed to have
known, we shall best consult the interests of truth and science, by
considering severally, in reference to each of these languages, the
judgment formed regarding his performance therein by those whose native
language it was.
I have already said that the office of librarian brought him into contact
with most of the strangers, especially of the literary class, who visited
Bologna. In Bolognese society, too, he was more courted and sought after
than his modest and retiring disposition would have desired. In the house
of the Cardinal-Archbishop Opizzoni, and of the Cardinal Legates, Lanti,
and Spina, he was always an honoured guest. With several of the noble
families of the city, especially the Marescalchi, the Angelelli, the
Amerini, and the Zambeccari, he lived on terms of the closest intimacy.
The Cavaliere Pezzana mentions that when, on a visit to Bologna in 1817,
he was dining at the first named palace, Mezzofanti came in uninvited,
and almost as one of the family. At all these houses his opportunities of
meeting foreigners of every race and language may easily be believed to
have been frequent, and of the most various character.
The earliest English visitor of the Abate Mezzofanti whom I have been
able to discover is Mr. Harford, author of the recent “Life of Michael
Angelo Buonarroti,”[372] and proprietor of the valuable gallery of
Blaise Castle, which Dr. Waagen describes in his “Treasures of Art in
England.”[373]
Mr. Harford visited Bologna in the autumn of 1817, at which time he first
made Mezzofanti’s acquaintance. He renewed the acquaintance subsequently
at Rome, and on both occasions had a full opportunity of observing and
of testing his extraordinary gift of language. Mr. Harford has kindly
communicated to me his recollections of Mezzofanti at both these periods
of life, which, (although the latter part anticipates the order of time
by nearly thirty years,) may most naturally be inserted together.
“I first made the acquaintance of the Abbé Mezzofanti,” writes
Mr. Harford, “at the table of Cardinal Lanti, brother of the
Duke of Lanti, then Legate of Bologna. This was in the year
1817. The Cardinal was then living at the public palace at
Bologna, but I had previously known him in Rome. He was a man
of highly cultivated mind, and of gentlemanly and agreeable
manners. He made his guests perfectly at their ease, and I
well recollect, after dinner, forming one of a group around
Abbé Mezzofanti, and listening with deep interest to his
animated conversation, which had reference, in consequence
of questions put to him, to various topics, illustrating
his wonderful acquaintance with the principal languages of
the world. Report, at this time, gave him credit for being
master of upwards of forty languages; and I recollect, among
other things, his giving proof of his familiar acquaintance
with the Welsh. I had some particular conversation with him
upon the origin of what is called Saxon, Norman, and Lombard
architecture, and I remember his entire accordance with the
opinion I threw out, that it resolved itself in each case into
a corruption of Roman architecture.
“My next interview with him was after a long lapse of time,
for I did not meet him again till the year 1846, the winter
of which I passed in Rome. The Abbé was then changed into the
Cardinal Mezzofanti. I found him occupying a handsome suite
of apartments in a palazzo in the Piazza Santi Apostoli. He
assured me he well remembered meeting Mrs. H. and myself at
Cardinal Lanti’s, on the occasion above referred to; and
in the course of several visits which I paid him during
the winter and ensuing spring, his conversation was always
animated and agreeable. He conversed with me in English, which
he spoke with the utmost fluency and correctness, and only
with a slight foreign accent. His familiar knowledge of our
provincial dialects quite surprised me. ‘Do you know much of
the Yorkshire dialect?’ he said to me: and then, with much
humour, gave me various specimens of its peculiarities; ‘and
your _Zummersetshire_ dialect,’ he went on to say, laughing as
he spoke, and imitating it.
“On another occasion he spoke to me with high admiration of the
style of Addison, preferring it to that of any English author
with whom he was acquainted. He commended its ease, elegance,
and grace; and then contrasted it with the grandiloquence of
Johnson, whose powerful mind and copious fancy he also greatly
admired, though he deemed him much inferior in real wit and
taste to Addison. In all this I fully agreed with him; and then
inquired whether he had ever read Boswell’s Life of Johnson,
and, finding he had not, I told him he must allow me to send
it to him, as I felt assured, from the interest he displayed
in our English literature, it would much amuse and delight him.
This promise I subsequently fulfilled.[374]
“Speaking to me about an English lady with whom I was well
acquainted, he eagerly inquired, ‘_Is she a blue-stocking?_’
“He one day talked to me about the Chinese language and its
difficulties, and told me that some time back a gentleman
who had resided in China visited him. ‘I concluded,’ he
added, ‘that I might address him in Chinese, and did so;—but,
after exchanging a few sentences with me, he begged that we
might pursue our conversation in French. We talked, however,
long enough for me to discover that he spoke in _the Canton
dialect_.’
“That one who had never set his foot out of Italy should be
thus able in an instant to detect the little peculiarities of
dialect in a man who had lived in China, did, I acknowledge,
strike me with astonishment.
“This sort of critical sagacity in languages enabled the
Cardinal to render important services to the Propaganda College
at Rome, in which he held a high office. I was not only struck
with the fluency, but with the rapidity with which he spoke
the English language, and, I might also add, the idiomatic
correctness of his expressions.
“So much of celebrity attached itself to his name that
foreigners of distinction gladly sought occasions of making
his acquaintance. On being ushered into his presence on one of
my visits I found him surrounded by a large party of admirers,
including several ladies, who all appeared highly delighted
with his animated conversation.”
We shall have other opportunities of adverting to his curiously minute
acquaintance, not only with English literature, but even with the
provincial dialects of English, by which Mr. Harford was so much struck.
But, as some difference of opinion has been expressed with regard to his
acquaintance with Welsh, I think it right to note the circumstance that
Mr. Harford distinctly remembers him, as early as 1817, to have given
“proofs of familiar acquaintance” with that language.[375]
Somewhat later in the same year, November, 1817, Mr. Stewart Rose visited
Mezzofanti. The ordeal to which his linguistic powers were submitted in
Mr. Rose’s presence was more severe and more varied than that witnessed
by Mr. Harford; the former having heard him tried in German, Greek, and
Turkish, as well as in English. But as we shall have abundant independent
testimony for each of these, Mr. Rose’s testimony is specially important,
as recording the exceeding accuracy of Mezzofanti’s English, which he
tested by “long and repeated conversations.”
“As this country,” he writes, “has been fertile in every variety of
genius, from that which handles the pencil to that which sweeps the
skies with the telescope; so even in this, her least favourite beat,
she has produced men who, in early life, have embraced such a circle of
languages, as one should hardly imagine their ages would have enabled
them to obtain. Thus the wonders which are related of one of these, Pico
di Mirandola, I always considered fabulous, till I was myself the witness
of acquisitions which can scarcely be considered less extraordinary.
“The living lion to whom I allude is Signor Mezzofanti of Bologna, who
when I saw him, though he was only thirty-six years old, read twenty
and wrote eighteen languages. This is the least marvellous part of the
story. He spoke all these fluently, and those of which I could judge
with the most extraordinary precision. I had the pleasure of dining with
him formerly in the house of a Bolognese lady, at whose table a German
officer declared he could not have distinguished him from a German. He
passed the whole of the next day with G—— and myself, and G— told me he
should have taken him for an Englishman, who had been some time out of
England. A Smyrniote servant who was with me, bore equal testimony to
his skill in other languages, and declared he might pass for a Greek or
a Turk in the dominions of the Grand Seignior. But what most surprised
me was his accuracy; for, during long and repeated conversations in
English, he never once misapplied the _sign_ of a tense, that fearful
stumblingblock to Scotch and Irish, in whose writings there is always to
be found some abuse of these undefinable niceties. The marvel was, if
possible, rendered more marvellous by this gentleman’s accomplishments
and information, things rare in linguists, who generally mistake
the means for the end. It ought also to be stated that his various
acquisitions had all been made in Bologna, from which, when I saw him, he
had never wandered above thirty miles.”[376]
Mr. Rose was mistaken in supposing that Mezzofanti at this time was but
thirty-six years old. He was in reality forty-three; but the testimony
which he bears to his “general accomplishments and information” will be
found to be confirmed by very many succeeding travellers.
It was earlier in the same year, probably in June, on his return from
Rome to Venice,[377] that Lord Byron first saw Mezzofanti. The extract
given by Moore from his Journal, in which he describes the impressions
made upon him by their intercourse has no date attached; but as he
also alludes to Mezzofanti as among “the great names of Italy” in the
Dedication of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold, which is dated January,
2nd, 1818, it would seem likely that he had met him at least before
that date.[378] Of the particulars of their intercourse no record is
preserved; but Mezzofanti always spoke with profound interest of his
noble visitor. He was perfectly familiar with his poetry. The late Dr.
Cox of Southampton assured me that his criticism of the several poems,
and especially of Childe Harold, would do credit to our best reviews. And
he often expressed the deepest regret for the early and unhappy fate, by
which this gifted man was called away while he still lay in the shadow
of that cold and gloomy scepticism which so often marred his better
impulses, and—
Flung o’er all that’s warm and bright,
The winter of an icy creed.
“Alas!” he one day said to M. Manavit, “that desolating scepticism which
had long oppressed his soul, was not natural to such a mind. Sooner or
later he would have awakened from it. And then it only remained for
him to open the most glorious page in his Childe Harold’s adventurous
Pilgrimage—that in which, reviewing all his doubts, his struggles, and
his sorrows, and laying bare the deep wounds of his haughty soul, he
should have sought rest from them all in the peaceful bosom of the faith
of his fathers.”[379]
Such a feeling as this on the part of Mezzofanti gives a melancholy
interest to the well-known passage, half laughing, half admiring, in
which Byron records his recollections of the great linguist.
“In general,” he says, “I do not draw well with literary men;—not that
I dislike them; but I never knew what to say to them, after I have
praised their last publication. There are several exceptions, to be
sure; but then they have either been men of the world, such as Scott and
Moore, &c., or visionaries out of it, such as Shelley, &c.; but your
literary every-day man and I never met well in company;—especially your
foreigners, whom I never could abide, except Giordani, &c., &c., &c., (I
really can’t name any other.) I don’t remember a man amongst them whom I
ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti, who is a monster
of languages, the Briareus of parts of speech, a walking polyglot, and
more;—who ought to have existed at the time of the Tower of Babel, as
universal interpreter.[380] He is, indeed, a marvel—unassuming also. I
tried him in all the tongues in which I knew a single oath or adjuration
to the gods, against post-boys, savages, Tartars, boatmen, sailors,
pilots, gondoliers, muleteers, camel-drivers, vetturini, post-masters,
post-houses, post, everything; and egad! he astounded me—even to my
English.”
The Abbé Gaume adds, in reference to the last of these languages, an
anecdote still current in Rome, though doubtless a mere exaggeration[381]
of the real story; viz., that, “when Byron had exhausted his vocabulary
of English slang, Mezzofanti quietly asked: ‘And is that all?’
‘I can go no further.’ replied the noble poet, ‘unless I coin words for
the purpose.’
‘Pardon me, my Lord,’ rejoined Mezzofanti; and proceeded to repeat for
him a variety of the refinements of London slang, till then unknown to
his visitor’s rich vocabulary!”[382]
During the winter of 1817-8, a literary society was formed in Bologna for
the cultivation of poetry and the publication of literary and scientific
essays, of which Mezzofanti was appointed president.
The original members of this body were twenty-one in number, and
included Ranzani, Angelelli, Mezzofanti’s nephew, Giuseppe Minarelli,
several professors, both of the University, and of the Academia delle
Belle Arti, and some literary noblemen and gentlemen of the city.
They met occasionally for readings and recitations; and printed a
serial collection, called _Opuscoli Letterarj di Bologna_. I had hopes
of learning something from the records of this society, or from the
recollections of its members, which might tend to illustrate the history
of Mezzofanti’s studies at this period: but, unhappily, not a single
original member of the society is now living; and their only publication
available for the purposes of this biography is Mezzofanti’s own
_Discorso in Lode del P. Aponte_;—his solitary publication, which was
printed in the _Opuscoli Letterarj_, in 1820.
Mezzofanti continued, even after the formation of this society, to
frequent the meetings of the Academy of the Institute. On the 3rd of
December, 1818, he read a paper in this Academy, “on a remarkable
Mexican MS., preserved in the Library of the Institute.” This paper
was most probably the basis of the Essay upon the Mexican Calendar
already alluded to. As it entered minutely into the whole subject of the
hieroglyphical writings of the Mexicans, and discussed at some length
the opinions of all the various writers on Mexican antiquities down to
Humboldt, the paper created very considerable interest in the Academy,
and was spoken of with praise by the literary journals of the day.[383]
The visit of the Emperor Francis I. of Austria to Bologna in 1819,
contributed still more to establish the reputation of Mezzofanti. Having
appointed an interview with him, the Emperor took the precaution of
securing during the audience the presence of a number of members of his
suite, carefully selected so as to represent the chief languages of the
Austrian Empire. Each in turn, German, Magyar, Bohemian, Wallachian,
Illyrian, and Pole, took occasion to address the astonished professor;
but although naturally somewhat startled by the novelty of the scene, and
perhaps abashed by the presence of royalty, he replied with such perfect
fluency and correctness to each, “as to extort not merely approval but
admiration and applause.”[384]
The year 1819 is further notable as the date of Mezzofanti’s only
published composition, the above-named panegyric of his early friend and
instructor Emanuel Aponte. The death of this excellent and venerable
man had occurred more than three years earlier, (November 22, 1815),
and his funeral oration had been pronounced by Filippo Schiassi, the
professor of numismatics, as also by Pacifico Deani, whose discourse
was translated into Spanish by Don Camillo Salina. Aponte’s grateful
pupil, nevertheless, took advantage of the opportunity afforded by
the opening of the public studies of the university, to offer his own
especial tribute to the piety and learning of the good old father, and
particularly to the excellence of his method of teaching the Greek
language and the merits of a Grammar which he had published for the use
of the higher schools.
The Discourse is chiefly occupied (after a sketch of Aponte’s life and
character) with a criticism of the method pursued in this Grammar,—a
criticism chiefly noticeable as embodying the method, (which we know from
other sources to have been the speaker’s own,) of studying a language
rather by rhythm than by rule; “by ascertaining its normal structure,
the principle which governs its inflexions, and especially the dominant
principle which regulates the changes of letters according to the
different organs of speech.”
As a specimen of this general manner of the Discourse, I shall translate
the concluding paragraphs,—the exhortation to the study of Greek
literature with which the professor takes leave of his audience.
“And still shall these studies flourish, my dear young friends,
perpetuated by you under the guidance of the instructions
which Father Emanuel bequeathed to us. His method, which,
in the acquisition of the language, rather exercises the
reason than burdens the memory, and which makes good sense
the chief basis for the right interpretation of an author,
will assuredly conduct to the desired end that ardour which,
on this solemn occasion, you feel renewed within you: an
ardour so great that, had I to-day spoken solely of the
difficulties and obstacles in the path of learning, it would,
nevertheless, give you strength and courage to encounter and
overcome them. Well, therefore, may we have confidence in
you, and believe that you will preserve to your native land
the fame achieved by your forefathers in Grecian studies.
These studies are the special inheritance of our countrymen.
In Italy the muses of Greece sought an asylum, when they fled
before the invader from their ancient glorious abode. Learned
Greeks were at that period dispersed through our principal
cities, where, establishing schools, they found munificent
patrons and zealous pupils. In Rome Grecian literature enjoyed
the generous patronage of Nicholas V.; and around Cardinal
Bessarion were gathered men of vast erudition, who renewed
the lustre of the old Athenian schools, cultivating a wiser
philosophy, however, than the ancients employed; and, thanks
to the precious volumes accumulated by those two illustrious
Mæcenases and by the princes of Italy; thanks to the skill of
the masters and the aptitude and excellence of Italian genius,
Grecian literature, conjointly with Latin, quickly attained
the highest pitch of cultivation amongst us, ushering in the
golden age of Italian letters. A countless series of names
distinguished in this branch of learning presents itself before
me: but I delight rather to consider in prospect the future
series which begins in you. Be not disturbed by any fear
that the pursuit to which I am exhorting you will hinder the
profounder study of the sciences. Alas, very different are the
thoughts, very different, indeed, the cares which distract the
mind of youth and turn its generous fervour aside, miserably
disappointing the bright hopes that were formed of it. No:
theologians, lawyers, philosophers, physicians, mathematicians,
all men of science and learning, have ever found in the Greek
literature their most agreeable solace. Many of the sciences
had, in Greece, early reached a high degree of perfection;
others made a noble beginning in that country; most of them
are embellished with titles borrowed from its language;
and all of them have recourse to Greek when they wish, with
precision and dignity, to denominate, and thereby to define,
the objects of their consideration. ‘These studies,’ says one
who owed much of his eloquence to the industry with which he
cultivated them, ‘furnish youth with profitable and delightful
knowledge; they amuse maturer years; they adorn prosperity,
and in adversity afford an asylum from care; they delight us
in the quiet of home, and are no hindrance in affairs of the
gravest moment; they discover for us many a useful thing; for
the traveller they procure the regard of strangers, and, in
the solitude of the country, they solace the mind with the
purest of pleasures.’ Let your main study, then, be the sterner
sciences; Greek shall follow as a faithful companion, affording
you useful assistance therein as well as delightful recreation.
And thus, thinking of nothing else, having nothing else at
heart, than religion and learning, let the expectations of your
friends and of your country be fulfilled in you. Thus shall you
correspond with the paternal designs of our best of princes,
His Holiness, the Sovereign Pontiff, who, in his munificence
and splendour, daily enlarges the dignity of this illustrious
University, promoting, by wise provisions, your education and
your glory. And, whilst you vigorously prosecute the career
so well begun, while your love for Greek increases with the
increasing profit you derive from it, I, too, will exult in
your brilliant, progress. To this I will look for a monument,
truly durable and immortal, of my dear Father Emanuel, to whom
I feel myself bound by eternal gratitude; since gratitude,
reverence, and devotion are surely due to them who, by example
and by precept, point out to us the road to virtue and to
learning, inviting and exhorting us, with loving solicitude,
to direct our lives to praiseworthy pursuits and to true
happiness.”[385] (pp. 22-26.)
Soon after the death of Father Aponte, Mezzofanti had the further grief
of losing his friend, the celebrated Signora Clotilda Tambroni, who,
although considerably older than he, had been, as we have seen, his
fellow pupil under Father Aponte, and with whom he had ever afterwards
continued upon terms of most intimate friendship. Like Mezzofanti, the
Signora Tambroni was, after the publication of the concordat, reinstated
in the Greek professorship from which she had been dispossessed at the
occupation of Bologna by the French. She was an excellent linguist,
being familiar with Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and English,[386]
and a poetess of some reputation, not only in her own, but also in the
learned languages.[387] The Breslau professor, already referred to,
Herr Kephalides, was much interested by her conversation; and that
the interest which she created did not arise merely from the unusual
circumstance of a lady’s devoting herself to such studies, but from her
own unquestioned learning and ability, is attested by all who knew her.
“It was a pleasant thing,” says Lady Morgan,[388] “to hear her learned
coadjutor [Mezzofanti] in describing to us the good qualities of her
heart, do ample justice to the profound learning which had raised her
to an equality of collegiate rank with himself, without an innuendo at
that erudition, which, in England, is a greater female stigma than vice
itself.”
The lively but caustic authoress just named, visited Italy in 1819-20. In
her account of Bologna she devotes a note to the Abate Mezzofanti, under
whose escort, (which she recognises as a peculiar advantage,) she visited
the library and museum of the University.
“The well-known Abate Mezzofanti, librarian to the Institute,” she
writes, “was of our party. Conversing with this very learned person on
the subject of his ‘forty languages,’ he smiled at the exaggeration, and
said, that although he had gone over the outline of forty languages, he
was not master of them, as he had dropped such as had not books worth
reading. His Greek master, being a Spaniard, taught him Spanish. The
German, Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian tongues he originally acquired
during the occupation of Bologna by the Austrian power; and afterwards
he had learned French from the French, and English by reading and
by conversing with English travellers. With all this superfluity of
languages, he spoke nothing but Bolognese in his own family. With us, he
always spoke English, and with scarcely any accent, though I believe he
has never been out of Bologna. His tone of phrase and peculiar selection
of words were those of the ‘Spectator;’ and it is probable that he was
most conversant with the English works of that day. The Abate Mezzofanti
was professor of the Greek and Oriental languages under the French: when
Buonaparte abolished the Greek professorship, Mezzofanti was pensioned
off. He was again made Greek professor by the Austrians, again set aside
by the French, and again restored by the Pope.”[389]
Like most of Lady Morgan’s sketches, this account of Mezzofanti, although
interesting, is not free from inaccuracies. Thus she falls into the
common error already noticed, that Mezzofanti up to this time “had never
been out of Bologna,” and a still more important mistake as to the cause
of his first deprivation of his professorship. He was dispossessed of
this professorship, (which, it may be added, was not of Greek but of
Arabic,) not because the professorship was suppressed, but because he
declined to take the oaths to the new government. The account of his
second deprivation is also inaccurate; and the assertion that he never
cultivated any languages except those which “had books worth reading,” we
shall see hereafter, to be entirely without foundation.
The statement too, that “he spoke only Bolognese in his own family” is
an exaggeration. With the elder members of the family—his father, his
mother, and his sister, Signora Minarelli—it was so; and there was a
cousin of his, named Antonia Mezzofanti, a lively and agreeable old dame,
and a frequent guest at the house of his sister, to whom he was much
attached, and with whom he delighted to converse in the pleasant dialect
of Bologna. But the children of his sister were all well educated,
and, like the educated classes throughout all the provincial cities of
Italy, habitually spoke the common and classical Italian language. Even
after Mezzofanti came to Rome, when questioned as to the number of
languages that he spoke, he often used jestingly to reply: “fifty, and
Bolognese.”[390]
Very nearly at the same time with Lady Morgan’s interview, Mezzofanti was
visited by a tourist far more competent to form a just opinion of the
extent of his attainments—M. Molbech, a Danish scholar, author of a Tour
in Germany, France, England, and Italy. I shall close the chapter with
his testimony. It is chiefly valuable, in reference to his own language,
the Danish, in which he had an opportunity of fully testing Mezzofanti’s
knowledge, in an interview of nearly two hours’ duration. It is clear,
too, from the very tone of his narrative, that, while he carried away the
highest admiration for the extraordinary man whom he had seen, he was
by no means disposed to fall into that blind and indiscriminate eulogy
of which other less instructed and more imaginative visitors have been
accused.
“At last, in the afternoon,” he writes, “I succeeded in meeting
one of the living wonders of Italy, the librarian Mezzofanti,
with whom I had only spoken for a few moments in the gallery,
when I passed through Bologna before: I now spent a couple of
hours with him, at his lodgings in the university building,
and at the library, and would willingly, for his sake alone,
have prolonged my stay at Bologna for a couple of days, if I
had not been bound by contract with the vetturino as far as
Venice. His celebrity must be an inconvenience to him; for
scarcely any educated traveller leaves Bologna without having
paid him a visit, and the hired guides never omit to mention
his name among the first curiosities of the town. This learned
Italian, who has never been so far from his birthplace,
Bologna, as to Florence or Rome, is certainly one of the
world’s greatest geniuses in point of languages. I do not know
the number he understands, but there is scarcely any European
dialect, whether Romanic, Scandinavian, or Slavonic, that this
miraculous polyglottist does not speak. It is said the total
amounts to more than thirty languages; and among them is that
of the gipsies, which he learned to speak from a gipsy who was
quartered with an Hungarian regiment at Bologna.
“I found a German with him, with whom he was conversing in
fluent and well sounding German; when we were alone, and I
began to speak to him in the same language, he interrupted
me with a question in Danish, ‘Hvorledes har det behaget dem
i Italien?’ (‘How have you been pleased with Italy?’) After
this, he pursued the conversation in Danish, by his own desire,
almost all the time I continued with him, as this, according
to his own polite expression, was a pleasure he did not often
enjoy; and he spoke the language, from want of exercise,
certainly not with the same fluency and ease as English or
German, but with almost entire correctness. Imagine my delight
at such a conversation! Of Danish books, however, I found in
his rich and excellent philological collection no more than
Baden’s Grammar, and Hallage’s Norwegian Vocabulary; and in
the library Haldorson’s Icelandic Dictionary, in which he made
me read him a couple of pages of the preface as a lesson in
pronunciation. Our conversation turned mostly on Northern and
German literature. The last he is pretty minutely acquainted
with; and he is very fond of German poetry, which he has
succeeded in bringing into fashion with the ladies of Bologna,
so that Schiller and Goethe, whom the Romans hardly know by
name, are here read in the original, and their works are to be
had in the library. This collection occupies a finely-built
saloon, in which it is arranged in dark presses with wire
gratings, and is said to contain about 120,000 volumes. Besides
Mezzofanti, there are an under librarian, two assistants, and
three other servants. Books are bought to the amount of about
1000 scudi, or more than 200_l._ sterling, a year. Mezzofanti
is not merely a linguist, but is well acquainted with literary
history and biography, and also with the library under his
charge. As an author he is not known, so far as I am aware; and
he seems at present to be no older than about forty. I must
add, what perhaps would be least expected from a learned man
who has been unceasingly occupied with linguistic studies, and
has hardly been out of his native town, that he has the finest
and most polished manners, and, at the same time, the most
engaging good nature.”[391]
Herr Molbech is still the chief secretary of the Royal Library in
Copenhagen. He is one of the most distinguished writers on Danish
philology; his great Danish Dictionary[392] is the classical authority on
the language; and, in recognition of his great literary merits, he has
been created a privy councillor and a commander of the Danebrog order.
CHAPTER VII.
[1820-1828.]
Mezzofanti’s regular studies suffered some interruption in the early
part of 1820. Debilitated by the excessive and protracted application
which has been described, his health had for some time been gradually
giving way, and at last he was peremptorily ordered to suspend his
lectures, and to discontinue his private studies for six months.[393]
During this interval he employed himself chiefly in botanizing, a study
in which he is said to have made considerable progress. He also made a
short excursion to the beautiful district of Mantua, and afterwards to
Modena, Pisa, and Leghorn.[394] In the course of this journey he found
an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the Hebrew Psalmody
as followed in the modern synagogues, and with the practical system of
accentuation of the ancient Hebrew Language now in use among the Jews
of Italy. The object of his visit to Leghorn was, that, from the Greek
sailors of that port, he might acquire the pronunciation of modern
Romaic.[395]
After a short time his health was perfectly restored, with the exception
of a certain debility of sight from which he never afterwards completely
recovered; and he resumed his ordinary duties in the university about the
middle of the year 1820.
The solar eclipse of the 20th of September in that year attracted many
scientific visitors to Bologna and the neighbouring cities. Being annular
in that region, the eclipse was watched with especial interest by all the
astronomers of Northern Italy, by Plana at Turin, by Santini at Padua,
by Padre Inghirami at Florence, and by Padre Tinari at Siena. At Bologna
the director of the observatory at this time was Pietro Caturegli, editor
of the Bolognese _Efemeridi Astronomiche_, and one of Mezzofanti’s most
valued friends.
Caturegli’s reputation and the excellent condition of his observatory,
induced the celebrated Hungarian Astronomer, Baron Von Zach, who, after
a career of much and varied adventure, was at that time engaged in
editing at Genoa the Correspondance Astronomique, (a French continuation
of his former German Journal _Monatliche Correspondenz für Erz- und
Himmels-Kunde_,) to select Bologna as the place from which to observe
this interesting phenomenon. He was accompanied by a Russian nobleman,
Prince Volkonski, a man of highly cultivated literary and scientific
tastes, and by Captain Smyth of H. M. Ship, _Aid_, who had just completed
his survey of the Ionian Islands. Notwithstanding numerous and urgent
applications from other quarters, these three distinguished foreigners,
together with his friend Mezzofanti, were the only persons whom Caturegli
admitted to the observatory during his observations of the eclipse.
The Baron published in his Journal[396] a very full account of the
phenomena of the eclipse, to which he appended as a note the following
sketch of his companion on the occasion.
“The annular eclipse of the sun,” he writes, “was one curiosity
for us, and Signor Mezzofanti was another. This extraordinary
man is really a rival of Mithridates; he speaks thirty-two
languages, living and dead, in the manner I am going to
describe. He accosted me in Hungarian, and with a compliment
so well turned, and in such excellent Magyar, that I was
quite taken by surprise and stupefied. He afterwards spoke
to me in German, at first in good Saxon (the _Crusca_ of the
Germans,) and then in the Austrian and Swabian dialects, with
a correctness of accent that amazed me to the last degree,
and made me burst into a fit of laughter at the thought of
the contrast between the language and the appearance of this
astonishing professor. He spoke English to Captain Smyth,
Russian and Polish to Prince Volkonski, not stuttering and
stammering, but with the same volubility as if he had been
speaking his mother tongue, the dialect of Bologna. I was
quite unable to tear myself away from him. At a dinner at the
cardinal legate’s, Della Spina, his eminence placed me at table
next him; after having chatted with him in several languages,
all of which he spoke much better than I did, it came into my
head to address to him on a sudden some words of Wallachian.
Without hesitation, and without appearing to remark what an
out-of-the-way dialect I had branched off to, off went my
polyglot in the same language, and so fast, that I was obliged
to say to him; ‘Gently, gently, Mr. Abbé; I really can’t follow
you; I am at the end of my Latin-Wallachian.’ It was more than
forty years since I had spoken the language, or even thought of
it, though I knew it very well in my youth, when I served in an
Hungarian regiment, and was in garrison at Transylvania. The
professor was not only more ready in the language than I, but
he informed me on this occasion, that he knew another tongue
that I had never been able to get hold of, though I had enjoyed
better opportunities of doing so than he, as I formerly had men
that spoke it in my regiment.
“This was the language of the Zigans, or Gipsies, whom the
French so improperly call Bohemians, at which the good and
genuine Bohemians, that is to say, the inhabitants of the
kingdom of Bohemia, are not a little indignant. But how could
an Italian abbé, who had never been out of his native town,
find means to learn a language that is neither written nor
printed? In the Italian wars an Hungarian regiment was in
garrison at Bologna: the language-loving professor discovered a
gipsy in it, and made him his teacher; and, with the facility
and happy memory that nature has gifted him with, he was soon
master of the language, which, it is believed, is nothing but a
dialect, and a corrupted one into the bargain, of some tribes
of Parias of Hindostan.”[397]
The wide and peculiar circulation of the journal in which this
interesting sketch appeared, contributed more than any previous notice to
extend the fame of Mezzofanti. As might naturally be expected, however,
details so marvellous, were received with considerable incredulity by
some, and were explained away by others as mere embellishments of a
traveller’s tale. In consequence, Von Zach, in a subsequent number of
his journal, not only reiterated the statement, but added fuller and more
interesting particulars regarding it.
“Many persons have doubted,” he writes, “what we said of
this astonishing professor of Bologna in our fourth volume;
as there have also been persons who doubted what Valerius
Maximus relates of the analogous talents of Cyrus and
Mithridates. Although all historians have the character of
being a little given to lying, Valerius, notwithstanding,
passes for a sufficiently veracious author. He says in the
eighth book and 9th chapter of his History, or rather of his
Compendium of History: _Cyrus ommium militum suorum nomina,
Mithridates duarum et viginti gentium quæ sub regno ejus
erant linguas, ediscendo_. People who came several centuries
after, and who probably did not know more than one language,
and possibly not even that one correctly, have pretended that
the twenty-two languages of Mithridates were only different
dialects, and that Cyrus only knew the names of his generals.
It may be so; we know nothing of the reality, and consequently
shall not contradict those critics; but what we do know is,
that Signor Mezzofanti speaks very good German, Hungarian,
Slavonic, Wallachian, Russian, Polish, French and English. I
have mentioned my authorities. It has been said that Prince
Volkonski and Captain Smyth gave their testimony in favour
of this wonderful professor, out of politeness only. But I
asked the prince alone, how the professor spoke Russian, and
he told me he should be very glad if his own son spoke it as
well. The child spoke English and French better than Russian,
having always been in foreign countries with his father. The
captain said, ‘the professor speaks English better than I do;
we sailors knock the language to pieces on board our vessels,
where we have Scotch and Irish, and foreigners of all sorts;
there is often an odd sort of jargon spoken in a ship; the
professor speaks with correctness, and even with elegance; it
is easy to see that he has studied the language.’
“M. Mezzofanti came one day to see me at the hotel where I
was staying: I happened not to be in my own rooms, but on a
visit to another traveller who lodged in the same hotel, Baron
Ulmenstein, a colonel in the King of Hanover’s service, who was
travelling with his lady. M. Mezzofanti was brought to me; and,
as I was the only person who knew him, I introduced him to the
company as a professor and librarian of the university. He took
part in the conversation, which was carried on in German; and,
after this had gone on for a considerable time, the baroness
took an opportunity of asking me aside, how it came to pass
that a German was a professor and librarian in an Italian
university. I replied, that M. Mezzofanti was no German,
that he was a very good Italian, of that city of Bologna,
and had never been out of it. Judge of the astonishment of
all the company, and of the explanations that followed! My
readers, I am sure, will not think such a testimony as the
Baroness Ulmenstein’s open to any suspicion. She is a thorough
German, highly cultivated, and speaks four languages in great
perfection.”[398]
One result of the doubts thus expressed as to the credibility of Von
Zach’s report was to draw out a testimony to Mezzofanti’s familiarity
with a language for which he had not before publicly gotten credit, the
Czechish or Bohemian. A correspondent of the Baron at Vienna, having
read his statement in the _Correspondance_, expressed his satisfaction
at the confirmation which it supplied of what he had before regarded as
incredible.
“I was very glad,” he writes, “to see confirmed by you what the
Chevalier d’Odelga, colonel and commandant of Prince Leopold
of Naples’ regiment, told me of that marvellous man. Chevalier
d’Odelga, who is a Bohemian, conversed in that language with
M. Mezzofanti, and assured me that he would have taken him for
a countryman had he not known him to be an Italian. I frankly
confess that until now, I only half believed the tale, for I
regard the Bohemian language as the very rack of an Italian
tongue.”[399]
Captain (afterwards admiral) Smyth, who accompanied Baron von Zach on
this occasion, still survives, after a career of high professional
as well as literary and scientific distinction. As a reply to the
incredulity to which Von Zach alludes, I may add not only that Admiral
Smyth in his “Cycle of Celestial Objects for the Use of Astronomers,”
adopts the Baron’s narrative and reprints it at length,[400] but that
his present recollections of the interview, which he has been so good as
to communicate to me, fully confirm all the Baron’s statements.[401] The
admiral adds that, although Mezzofanti made no claim to the character of
a practical astronomer, he understood well and was much interested in the
phenomena of the eclipse, and especially in its predicted annularity at
Bologna. “It was at Mezzofanti’s instance also,” he says, “that Caturegli
undertook to compute in advance the elements for an almanac for the use
of certain distant convents of the Levant, to aid them in celebrating
Easter contemporaneously.”[402]
Startling, therefore, as Von Zach’s account appeared at the time of its
publication, we can no longer hesitate to receive it literally and in its
integrity.
In reference to one part of it, that which regards the manner in which
Mezzofanti acquired the gipsy language—viz., “that he learned it from a
gipsy soldier in one of the Hungarian regiments quartered at Bologna,”
it is proper to observe, that he appears also, towards the end of his
life, to have studied this dialect from books. The catalogue of his
library contains two Gipsy Grammars, one in German, and one in Italian.
The peculiar idiom of this strange language in which he himself was
initiated, is that which prevails among the gipsies of Bohemia and
Hungary, or rather Transylvania, which is the purest of all the European
gipsy dialects, and differs considerably from that of the Spanish
gipsies. Borrow has given a short comparative vocabulary[403] of both,
and has also printed the Pater Noster in the Spanish gipsy form.
The notoriety which this and other similar narratives procured for
the modest professor, speedily rendered him an object of curiosity to
every stranger visiting Bologna; and as there was no want of critics
not unwilling to question, or at least to scrutinize, the truth of the
marvels recounted by their predecessors, it may easily be believed that
his life became in some sort a perpetual ordeal. Thus Blume, the author
of the _Iter Italicum_, who visited Bologna some time after Von Zach,
does not hesitate to take the Baron to task, and to declare his account
very much exaggerated.
“Bianconi and Mezzofanti,” says Blume, “are the librarians.
The latter, as is well known, is considered throughout all
Europe as a linguistic prodigy, a second Mithridates; and is
said to speak and write with fluency two-and-thirty dead and
living languages. Willingly as I join in this admiration,
especially as his countrymen usually display little talent
for the acquisition of foreign tongues, I cannot but remark
that the account recently given in the fourth and fifth
volumes of Von Zach’s ‘Correspondance Astronomique,’ is very
much exaggerated. Readiness in speaking a language should
not be confounded with philological knowledge. I have heard
few Italians speak German as well as Mezzofanti; but I have
also heard him maintain that between Platt-Deutsch, or the
Low German, and the Dutch language, there was no difference
whatever.”[404]
It will be remarked here, however, that these condemnatory observations
of Herr Blume do not regard Mezzofanti’s attainments as a linguist, but
only his skill as a philologist. On the contrary, to his linguistic
talents Blume bears testimony hardly less unreserved than that which he
criticises in the Baron; and as regards the rest of Blume’s criticism,
the mistake in philology, (as to the identity of Platt-Deutsch with
Dutch,) which he alleges, and which appears to be the sole foundation
of his depreciatory judgment of Mezzofanti’s philological knowledge, is
certainly a very minor one, and one which may be very readily excused
in any other than a German; especially as Adelung (II. 261), distinctly
states of at least one dialect of Platt-Deutsch, that spoken in Hamburg
and Altona, that it contains a large admixture of Dutch words—so large
that a cursory observer, if we may judge from the specimens which
Adelung gives (II. 268), might very readily consider the two dialects
almost identical. As to another statement of Blume’s, which imputes to
Mezzofanti a want of courtesy to strangers visiting or studying in the
library, it is contradicted by the unanimous testimony of all who ever
saw him whether at Bologna or at Rome. He was politeness and good nature
itself.
But it must not be supposed that all the visits which Mezzofanti received
were of the character hitherto described, and were attended with no fruit
beyond a passing display of his wonderful faculty. Visitors occasionally
appeared, whose knowledge he was enabled to turn to profitable account
in extending his own store of languages. From an Armenian traveller
who came to Bologna in 1818, he received his first initiation in that
difficult and peculiar language, which he afterwards extended in a
visit to the celebrated convent of San Lazzaro, at Venice. He studied
Georgian with the assistance of a young man from Teflis, who graduated
in medicine at Bologna. And even from natives of those countries with
the general language of which he was most familiar, he seldom failed to
learn some of the peculiarities of local or provincial dialects by which
the several branches of each are distinguished. In this way he learned
Flemish from some Belgian students of the university. On the other hand,
select pupils from various parts came to attend his Greek or Oriental
lectures, or to pursue their linguistic studies privately under his
direction. One of these, the Abate Celestino Cavedoni, now librarian of
the Este Library at Modena, and one of the most eminent antiquarians
of Italy, was his pupil from 1816 till 1821. With this excellent youth
Mezzofanti formed a cordial friendship; and after Cavedoni’s return to
Modena, they maintained a steady and affectionate, although not very
frequent, correspondance until Mezzofanti’s final removal from Bologna.
Another was Dr. Liborio Veggetti, the present occupant of Mezzofanti’s
ancient office in the university library, an office which he owes to the
warm recommendation of his former master. A third was the still more
distinguished scholar, Ippolito Rosellini, the associate and successor
of Champollion in his great work on Egyptian antiquities. Rosellini,
who was a native of Pisa, had distinguished himself so much during his
early studies in that university, that, on the death of Malanima, the
professor of oriental languages, in 1819, Rosellini, then only in his
nineteenth year, was provisionally selected to succeed him. It was
ordered, nevertheless, that he should first prepare himself by a regular
course of study; and with this view he was sent, at the charge of his
government, to attend in Bologna the lectures of the great master of
oriental studies. Mezzofanti entered with all his characteristic kindness
and ardour into the young man’s project. He sent him with a warm letter
of recommendation, May 17, 1823, to his friend De Rossi, at Parma; later
in the same year, by the representation which he made of his industry
and progress, he obtained for him an increase of the pension which had
been assigned for his probationary studies; and in the work on the Hebrew
Vowel-points,’ which Rosellini published in Bologna,[405] he owed much to
the kind criticism and advice of his master. He remained at Bologna till
1824, when his appointment was made absolute, and he returned to Pisa to
enter upon its duties. The distinguished after career of Rosellini is
well-known. I shall only add, that through life he entertained the most
grateful recollection of his old master, and that, on his return from the
Egyptian expedition, he made a special visit to Rome for the purpose of
seeing him.[406]
The Abate Cavedoni, who, on his return to Modena, as we have seen,
continued to correspond for many years with Mezzofanti, has kindly
communicated to me those of Mezzofanti’s letters which he has preserved.
They contain some interesting particulars of a portion of his life
regarding which few other notices have been published.
In addition to his public lectures in the university and his occupation
as librarian, he still continued to give private instructions in
languages. Mr. Francis Hare, elder brother of the late Archdeacon Julius
Hare, learned Italian under his direction. The Countess of Granville,
then residing in the family of her aunt, the Countess Marescalchi,
remembers to have received her first lessons in English from him. A
young Franciscan of the principality of Bosnia prepared himself for his
mission by studying Turkish under his tuition. Many other foreigners
were among his pupils. Indeed, the ordinary routine of his day, as
detailed by one of his surviving friends in Bologna and confirmed by
his own letters to Cavedoni, may well excite a feeling of wonder at the
extraordinary energy, which enabled him, from the midst of occupations so
continuous and so varied, to steal time for the purpose of increasing,
or even of maintaining, the stores which he had already acquired. He
rose soon after four o’clock, both in winter and in summer; and, after
his morning prayer and meditation, celebrated mass—in winter at the
earliest light; after which he took a cup of chocolate or coffee. At
eight o’clock he gave his daily lecture in the university; thence he
passed to the library, where, as is plain from many circumstances, he
was generally actively engaged in the duties of his office, although
constantly interrupted by the visits of strangers. As his apartments were
in the library building, his occupations can hardly be said to have been
suspended by his frugal dinner, which, according to the national usage,
was at twelve o’clock, and from which he returned to the library. The
afternoon was occupied with his private pupils. As his habits of eating
and drinking were temperate in the extreme, his supper, (sometimes in his
own apartments, sometimes at the house of his sister or of some other
friend,) was of the very simplest kind. He continued his studies to a
late hour; and, even after retiring to bed, he invariably read for a
short time, till the symptoms of approaching sleep satisfied him that,
without fear of loss of time, he might abandon all further thought of
study.
Such were his ordinary every day occupations; and, amply as they may seem
to fill up the circle of twenty-four hours, he contrived, amidst them
all, to find time for many offices of voluntary charity. He was assiduous
in the confessional, and especially in receiving the confessions of
foreigners of every degree. For the spiritual care of all Catholic
foreigners, indeed, he seems to have been regarded as invested with
a particular commission. In cases of sickness, especially, he was a
constant and most cheerful visitor; and there are not a few still living,
of those that visited Bologna during these years, who retain a lively
and grateful recollection of the kindly attentions, and the still more
consolatory ministrations, for which they were indebted to his ready
charity.
Another extra-official occupation which absorbed a considerable portion
of his time, was the examination of books submitted to him for revision,
particularly of those connected with his favourite studies. It sometimes
happened that he received such commissions from Rome. “I cannot reckon,”
he writes, apologetically, to his friend the abate Cavedoni, “upon a
single free moment. The library, my professorship, my private lectures,
the revision of books, foreigners, well, sick, or dying, do not leave me
time to breathe. I am fast losing, nay I have already lost, the habit of
applying myself to study; and when, from time to time, I am called on to
do anything, I find myself reduced to the necessity of improvising.”
The most interesting record of this portion of his life will be the
series of his letters to his friend and pupil Cavedoni, already alluded
to. Unfortunately they are not numerous, and they occur at rather distant
intervals; but they are at least valuable as being perfectly simple and
unstudied, and free, to an extent very unusual in Italian correspondence,
from that artificial and ceremonious character which so often destroys in
our eyes the charm of the cleverest foreign correspondence. Cavedoni,
during his studies at Bologna, had lived on terms of the most cordial
intimacy with his professor and with his family. Mezzofanti’s nephews,
especially the young abate Joseph Mezzofanti, (whom we shall find
commemorated in some of these letters under the pet name _Giuseppino_,
_Joe_,) had been his constant companion and friend.
The first of these letters was written in reply to one of the ordinary
new-year’s complimentary letters, which the abate Cavedoni, soon after
his return to Modena, had addressed to his old professor.
_Bologna, January 18, 1822._
My most esteemed Don Celestino,
I did not fail, on the first day of the new year, to pray with
all my heart that God may ever bestow abundantly upon you His
best and sweetest graces. May He deign to hear a prayer, which
I shall never cease to offer! I commend myself in turn to your
fervent prayers.
I am delighted to hear that the abate Baraldi is about to
employ his various learning and his great zeal so worthily in
the cause of our holy religion. I shall be most happy to take
a copy of the “_Memorie_,” which, as I am informed, are about
to appear under his editorship. May I beg of you to arrange
that the numbers shall reach me as early as possible after
publication? They may be sent through the post; but it will be
necessary to fold the packet in such a way as to let it be seen
that it is a periodical, in order that it may not be charged
the full postage. My great object is to receive the numbers at
the earliest moment, in order that a work which is intended to
counteract the irreligious principles now unhappily so current,
may be read as extensively as possible.
I shall examine your medal to-morrow, and, should I succeed in
making anything out of it, I will write to you. Let me know how
I shall send it back to you.
Recollect that we are looking forward here to a visit from
you with the utmost anxiety. It was a great surprise and
disappointment to us, not to see you during the late holy
festivals. Do not forget me, and believe me,
Ever your most affectionate servant,
D. Joseph Mezzofanti.
The journal referred to in this letter is the now voluminous periodical,
“_Memorie di Religione, di Morale, e di Letteratura_,” founded at Modena
in 1822, and continued, with one or two short interruptions, up to the
present time. The “Abate Baraldi” was a learned ecclesiastic, afterwards
arch-priest of Modena.
Cavedoni, since his return to Modena, had been chiefly engaged in
archæological studies, and especially in that of numismatics. He
often consulted Mezzofanti on these subjects, to which, without being
a professed antiquarian, the latter had given some attention. In
acknowledgment of this obligation, Cavedoni, several years afterwards,
dedicated to him his Spiecilegio Numismatico.[407]
The following letter throws some light on the time and the manner in
which his attention was first turned to the Georgian language. The youth
to whom it refers was in Bologna in the year 1820 or 1821.
Cavedoni had apologised for occupying his time by his letters.
_Bologna, April 5, 1823._
My Dear Don Celestino,
It will always be a most grateful and pleasing distraction
for me in the midst of my endless occupations, to receive
even a line from you. It is true that occasionally I may not
be able to enjoy this gratification without the drawback
arising from regret at not having it in my power to reply to
you immediately; but I trust that you will be able to make
allowance for me, and that such delays on my part will never
cause you to suspect that I have ceased to remember you with
special affection.
Of the two works which you mention, that of Father Giorgi
still maintains the reputation which its author commanded
during life by his prodigious learning. Will you let me know
whether the little work in Georgian that you refer to is
printed or manuscript? You are quite right in supposing that I
have not thought of that language since the departure of the
young physician of Teflis, who took his medical degree in our
university. Alas! what a large proportion of my life is spent
in teaching! If I but did that well, I might be content; but
when one does too much, he does nothing as it ought to be done.
I had not heard a word of Signor Baraldi’s affliction, for
which I am much concerned. I trust that, when you write again,
you will have better news for me. Pray present my special
compliments to the Librarian.
Do not forget me; and, in order that I may know you do not,
write often to assure me that it is so. Don Giuseppino sends
you a thousand greetings, and I myself more than a thousand.
Ever your most devoted servant and friend,
D. Joseph Mezzofanti.
In this year, Mezzofanti made the acquaintance of the celebrated Duchess
of Devonshire, during one of her visits to the north of Italy. The
success of her magnificent edition of Horace’s Fifth Satire—his journey
to Brundusium—had suggested to her the idea of a similar edition of the
Eneid. The first volume, with a series of illustrations, scenical, as
well as historical, (of Troy, Ithaca, Gaeta, Gabii, &c.,) had appeared in
Rome in 1819;[408] and the object of the duchess in this visit, was to
procure sketches in the locality of Mantua, and especially a sketch of
Pietole, the supposed site of the ancient Andes, the place of the poet’s
birth, upon that plain,
————tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat
Mincius.
One of Mezzofanti’s letters, addressed to his friend Pezzana, shews
the lengths to which this eccentric lady carried her zeal for the
illustration of this really magnificent work. Although the second volume
had been already published, and many of the copies had been distributed,
she continued to add to the number of the illustrations.
“Her Grace, the duchess of Devonshire,” he writes, July 6th,
1823, “on leaving Bologna, commissioned me to forward to you
the second volume of the Eneid, translated by Caro. In order
to secure its safe and punctual delivery, I begged the good
offices of the Abate Crescini, who had just then arrived; and
he at once undertook it with his usual courtesy. This edition
has won the admiration of all our artists; and the duchess, not
content with its present illustrations, has gone to Mantua,
taking with her another excellent landscape-painter, our
fellow-citizen, Signor Fantuzzi, to make a sketch of Pietole,
to be added to the other plates, which already adorn this
splendid work of art.”
In August, 1823, died the venerable Pope Pius VII. The desire, which, on
his return from captivity, he expressed to secure Mezzofanti’s services
in his own capital, had been repeated subsequently on more than one
occasion. The new Pope, Leo XII., regarded him with equal favour; but his
attachment to home still remained unchanged; and the Pope named him, in
1824, a member of the Collegio dei consultori at Bologna.
Of his correspondence during this year no portion has come into my hands;
but there is one of his letters of 1825, (dated April 8th,) which,
although it is but an answer to a commonplace letter written to him by
Cavedoni, with the catalogue of an expected sale of books, seems worthy
to be preserved, at least as an indication of the direction and progress
of his studies.
“It is always difficult,” he writes, “to fix the fair price of
a class of books which either are not in the market at all, or
which appear but seldom for sale, chiefly because there are
but few who seek for such publications. In my case, it becomes
almost impossible to determine it, as I have no opportunity of
seeing the books, and very little leisure even to examine the
catalogue, being obliged to return it in so short a time.
“I only venture, therefore, to select a few, which I should be
disposed to take, provided the price of all together shall not
exceed forty Roman crowns. Try to make a bargain for me, or at
all events, endeavour to prevent the books from being either
scattered or buried in some inaccessible corner.
“I should wish then to take the following:—
The ‘nine MSS., either extracted from printed books, or of
uncertain value.’
The ‘Grammatica Japonica,’ Romæ No. 22, in the Catalogue.
The ‘Grammatica Marasta,’[409] number 32.
The ‘Grammatica Linguæ Amharicæ,’[410] number 43.
The ‘Osservazioni sulla Lingua albanese,’ number 44.
The ‘Grammatica Damulica,’[411] number 46.
Benjamin Schulz’s, ‘Grammatica Hindostanica,’ number 50.
‘Chilidugu; sive ses Chilenses,’[412] number 67.
And the ‘Catecismo en Lengua Española y Moxa,’[413] No 71.
I shall await your reply.”
Only one of these works, the “Observations on the Albanese Language,”
(by Francis Maria da Lecce,) appears in the catalogue of Mezzofanti’s
Library. Benjamin Schulz’s Tamul Bible and New Testament, are both in
that catalogue, but not his Hindostani Grammar. Probably the price of
the books exceeded the very modest limit which Mezzofanti’s humble means
compelled him to fix.
In the August of 1825, he had a visit from the veteran philologist and
_literateur_, Frederic Jacobs, of Gotha. The report of Jacobs may be
considered of special importance, as he had been prepared, by the doubts
expressed as to the credibility of Baron Von Zach’s report, to scrutinize
with some jealousy the real extent of the attainments thus glowingly
described. It is important, therefore, to note that after quoting all the
most material portions of Von Zach’s narrative, he fully confirms it from
his own observations—
“I was most kindly received by him,” says Dr. Jacobs: “we spoke
in German for above an hour, so that I had full opportunity for
observing the facility with which he spoke; his conversation
was animated, his vocabulary select and appropriate, his
pronunciation by no means foreign, and I could detect nothing
but here and there a little of the North German accent. He was
not unacquainted with German literature, spoke among other
things of Voss’s services in the theory of metre, and made
some observations on the imitation of the metrical system of
the ancients. His opinions were precise and expressed without
dogmatism. This fault, so common among persons of talent,
appears quite foreign to him, and there is not a trace of
charlatanism about him.”
As a somewhat different opinion has been expressed by others, the reader
will observe the testimony borne by Jacobs, not only to Mezzofanti’s
scholarship and philological attainments in a department but little
cultivated, but also to the “selectness and appropriateness” of his
German vocabulary, the “facility with which he spoke,” and the general
purity and correctness of his conversational style.
He proceeds to describe another peculiarity of Mezzofanti’s extraordinary
faculty which is equally deserving of notice, but which no other visitor
whom we have hitherto seen, has brought out so strongly.
“Not less remarkable are the ease and readiness with which
he passes in conversation from one language to another, from
the north to the south, from the east to the west, and the
dexterity with which he speaks several of the most difficult
together, without the least seeming effort; and whereas,
in cognate languages, the slightest difference creates
confusion;—so that, for instance the German in Holland or the
Dutchman in Germany, often mixes the sister and mother tongues
so as to become unintelligible;—Mezzofanti ever draws the
line most sharply, and his path in each realm of languages is
uniformly firm and secure.”
We may also add Professor Jacobs’ description of the personal appearance
of the great linguist at this period of his life.
“Mezzofanti,” he says, “is of the middle size, or rather below
it; he is thin and pale, and his whole appearance indicates
delicacy. He appears to be between fifty and sixty years old
[he was really, in 1825, fifty-one]; his movements are easy and
unembarrassed; his whole bearing is that of a man who has mixed
much in society. He is active and zealous in the discharge of
his duties, and never fails to celebrate mass every day.”[414]
I have thought it necessary to draw the reader’s attention to these
points, in reference to Mezzofanti’s German, in order that he may compare
them with the observations of Dr. Tholuck, Chevalier Bunsen, Guido
Görres, and other distinguished Germans, who visited him at a later
period.
All his later letters to the Abate Cavedoni, which are filled with
apologies for his tardiness as a correspondent, tell the same story of
ceaseless occupation.
“A Franciscan friar of the Bosnian province,” he writes,
November 23rd, 1825, “who has been learning Turkish with me
for the purposes of his mission in Bosnia, being on his way
to Modena, has called to inquire whether I have any occasion
to write to that city. The remorse which I feel at not having
written to you for so long a time, makes it impossible for me
to give a denial; and I write this letter, into which I wish
I could crowd all the expressions of gratitude which I owe to
you for your constant and faithful remembrance of one, who,
although he certainly never forgets you, yet rarely gives you,
at least in writing, the smallest evidence of his remembrance.
The truth is that I should only be too happy to do so, and that
it would seem to me but a renewal of the pleasant literary
discussions which we used to hold with one another here. But
unfortunately, I am too much occupied to indulge myself with
this relaxation. I say this, however, only to excuse myself;
for I assure you that I look eagerly for letters from you, and
that it is a great comfort to me to receive one.
As regards those words terminating in _ite_ which are now
commonly used by medical writers, although their formation is
not grammatically exact, and although they do not precisely
correspond with those which were employed by the ancients,
yet as they have now obtained general currency, it would be
hyper-critical and useless to seek to reform them. You may
satisfy grammarians by a brief annotation to show that you do
not overlook what is due to their art—I mean of course Greek
grammarians; for I suppose our own grammarians will perhaps
prefer the termination which has been sanctioned by use, and
which may possibly appear to them less disagreeable. You see
that I am but repeating your own opinion, and if I did not
write sooner to you on the subject, it was because my own
judgment fully agreed with what you had expressed in your
letter.
I congratulate you on the success of your brother’s studies. I
have been much gratified by the learning, the industry, and the
zeal for religion, which he has displayed. Offer him my best
thanks.
Remember me in your prayers: write to me, and believe me
unchangingly yours.”
The same regrets are still more strikingly expressed in the following
letter.
“I have been wishing, for several days past, to write and thank
you heartily for your kindness towards me, but it is only this
day that I have been able to steal a moment for the purpose.
Be assured that I do not forget how patiently you bore with
me, while, in the midst of the thousand distractions to which
I was liable, we were reading together the Greek and Oriental
languages. If I recall to your recollection the manner of my
life at that time, and the ever recurring interruptions of my
studies, it is only for the purpose of letting you see that, as
the same state of things still continues, or rather has been
changed for the worse, I have not time to show my gratitude
for your constant remembrance of me. Still I thank you from my
heart for it.
I have not been able to read much of your Tasso, but I have
observed some readings which appear to me very happy. I told
Count Valdrighi, that I intended to write to you about the
volume which Monsignor Mai has just published, to request
that you, or some others of your friends in Modena, would
take copies of it, as I have some to dispose of. I have since
learned that you are already supplied. I beg, nevertheless,
that you will take some public occasion to recommend it. I
would do so willingly myself, but I cannot find a single free
moment. The library, my professorship, my private lectures, the
examination of books, the visits of strangers, the attendance
on sick or dying foreigners, do not leave me time to breathe.
In all this I possess one singular advantage—the excellent
health with which I am blessed. But on the other hand, I am
losing, or indeed I have already lost, my habit of application;
and now, if I am called from time to time to do anything, I
find myself reduced to the necessity of improvising.
Forgive me, my dear Don Celestino, for entering thus minutely
into my own affairs. Set it down to the account of our
friendship, in the name of which I beg of you to remember me
in your prayers. Continue to write to me as of old; for, in
the midst of my heaviest occupations, I receive your letters
with the greatest pleasure, and find a real enjoyment in them,
and in the reminiscences which they bring with them of the
happiness that I formerly enjoyed in your dear society.
My sister and my nephews present their most cordial greetings.
_Bologna, March, 27, 1826._”
It is about this time that we may date the commencement of that intimacy
between Mezzofanti and Cardinal Cappellari, afterwards Pope Gregory
XVI., which eventually led to Mezzofanti’s removal from Bologna to Rome.
Cappellari, a distinguished monk of the Camaldolese order, was named to
the cardinalate early in 1826; and soon afterwards was placed at the
head of the congregation of the Propaganda. Being himself an orientalist
of considerable eminence, he had long admired the wonderful gifts of
Mezzofanti, and a circumstance occurred soon after his nomination as
prefect of the Propaganda, which led to a correspondence between them,
in reference to an oriental liturgical manuscript on which the opinion
of the great linguist was desired. Cardinal Cappellari forwarded the
MS. to Mezzofanti, who in a short time returned it, not merely with an
explanation, but with a complete Latin translation. The Cardinal was
so grateful for this service, that he wrote to thank the translator,
accompanying his letter with a draft for a hundred doubloons. Mezzofanti,
with a disinterestedness which his notoriously straitened means made
still more honourable, at once wrote to return the draft, with a request
that it should be applied to the purposes of the missions of the
Propaganda.[415]
This appeal from Cardinal Cappellari was not a solitary one. Mezzofanti
was not unfrequently consulted in the same way, sometimes on critical
or bibliographical questions, sometimes as to the character or contents
of a book or MS. in some unknown language. One of his letters to the
abate Cavedoni is a long account of an early Latin version of two of St.
Gregory Nazianzen’s minor spiritual poems, the “Tetrasticha” and the
“Monosticha.” As this letter (although not without interest as being the
only specimen of his critical writings which I have been able to obtain)
would have little attraction for the general reader, and throws but
little light upon the narrative, it is unnecessary to translate it.[416]
There is another letter, however, of nearly the same period, addressed
to his friend count Valdrighi of Modena, on the subject of a MS. in the
Birman language submitted by the count for his examination, which will be
read with more curiosity.
_To Count Mario Valdrighi._
“I have to reproach myself for not being more prompt in my
acknowledgement of your polite letter; or rather I regret the
resolution which I formed of delaying my answer in the hope
of being able to make it more satisfactory; since thus it
has turned out, that while I was only waiting in the hope of
being able to reply with greater accuracy, I have incurred the
suspicion of discourtesy, by delaying to send you the little
information regarding your oriental MS. which I possessed at
the time, and which I regret to say is all that even still I am
possessed of.
Although your MS. is the first in these characters that I
have ever seen, yet I recognized it at once as a MS. written,
or, I should more correctly say, _graven_, in Burmese, the
native language of the kingdom of Ava, and the language also
which is used by all persons of cultivation in the dependent
provinces of that kingdom. I was enabled to recognize the form
of the characters from having once seen the alphabet, which
was printed by the Propaganda, first in 1776, and again in
1787.[417]
As my knowledge in reference to the language when I received
your letter, did not extend any farther, I was unable to give
you any other information regarding your MS. except that it
is composed of that species of palm leaves which they use in
that country, for the purpose of inscribing or engraving their
written characters thereon. The tree, which does not differ
much in appearance from the other species of palm, is said
to live for a hundred years, and then to die as soon as it
has produced its fruit; but perhaps it may be said to live on
by preserving on its leaves the writings which they wish to
transmit to posterity. It is called in Burmese (or Birmese) by
the name of _Ole_.
You will ask what is the character of their writings. The
people are said to be ignorant in the extreme, and even the
class called _Talapuini_, who live together in community in a
sort of Pythagorean college, possess but very little learning.
Their studies are confined to two books, written in a peculiar
character, one entitled _Kammua_, the other _Padinot_.[418]
The Barnabite Fathers also, who founded several churches in
Ava, and preached the gospel with incredible zeal all over
those vast regions, have written in the native language,
several useful books calculated to maintain and increase the
fruit of their apostolic labours. The most remarkable of
them was Mgr. Peristo, who wrote and spoke the language with
great perfection, and whose life has been written by the late
distinguished Father Michael Angelo Griffini.
I was about to write all this to you as soon as I first
received your MS., but I was anxious to be able to tell you
something more; and with this view, I waited for a long time
in the hope of obtaining from Paris, Carey’s Birmese Grammar,
published at Serampore in 1814, and some other books besides;
as such books must necessarily be in existence, now that the
English have added to their Indian possessions a large tract of
the Birmese Empire. But unfortunately, these books either are
not to be had at Paris, or have not been carefully sought for.
Accordingly, after all these months of delay, I return you your
Birmese MS. written on the leaves of the Ole palm. It has most
probably found its way to Italy through some missionary, and
perhaps was written by a missionary. This, however, will likely
be discoverable from the facts which are known as to the place
whence it came.
The information which I am able to give is, you see, very
little compared with what you might have expected, and bears a
still smaller proportion to my desire to oblige you. I should
have wished to translate it all for you, had it been in my
power, if it were only as a means of expressing my gratitude
and my homage to one from whom I receive so many kindnesses,
and to whom I am indebted for so many charming books, either
composed or illustrated by himself. For all these favours it
only remains for me to offer you my most unbounded thanks. I
trust that, if you should chance to honour me again with any
commission, I shall be able to execute it more successfully,
or at all events more satisfactorily. I will at least promise
not to delay as I have now done, in the hope of obtaining more
information; but, relying that your kindness will lead you to
accept what little explanation I shall be able to afford from
myself, I will at least endeavour to show my anxious wish to
oblige by the promptness of my reply.”
Neither Carey’s Birman Grammar, nor any other modern book on the subject,
appears in the catalogue of Mezzofanti’s library. It comprises, however,
a few Birman books, amongst which are the two alphabets referred to in
the above letter, a translation of Bellarmine’s “Doctrina Christiana,”
and an “Explanation of the Catechism for the use of the Birmese.” These
books (all printed at the Propaganda press) appear to have been procured
after his removal to Rome, where by private study and by intercourse with
a few Birmese students in the Propaganda, he acquired the language, as we
shall see, sufficiently for the purposes of conversation.
CHAPTER VIII.
[1828-1830.]
In the year 1828, the Crown Prince of Prussia, (now King Frederic
William,) while passing through Bologna, on his way to Rome, sought
an interview with Mezzofanti. In common with all other visitors, he
was struck with wonder at the marvellous variety and accuracy of his
knowledge of languages. On his arrival at Rome, he spoke admiringly of
this interview to Dr. Tholuck, the present distinguished professor of
Theology at Halle, (at that time chaplain of the Prussian Embassy in
Rome,) who has kindly communicated the particulars to me. “The prince
urged me,” says Dr. Tholuck, in an exceedingly interesting letter which
shall be inserted later, “not to leave Italy without having seen him. ‘He
is truly a miracle,’ exclaimed the prince; ‘he spoke German with me, like
a German; with my Privy-Councillor Ancillon, he spoke the purest French;
with Bunsen, English; with General Gröben, Swedish.’ ‘And what is still
more wonderful,’ subjoined M. Bunsen, then minister resident in Rome,
‘all these languages he has learnt by books alone, without any teacher.’”
This opinion of M. Bunsen’s, Dr. Tholuck afterwards ascertained to be a
mistake, or at least an exaggeration.
It was doubtless to the lessons of his early master, Father Thiulen,
that he owed the knowledge of Swedish which enabled him to converse with
General Gröben. A still more distinct evidence of his familiarity with it
occurred on occasion of the visit of the Crown Prince (now King) Oscar of
Sweden to Bologna. M. Braunerhjelm, now Hof-Stallmastäre at Stockholm,
who was present at the prince’s interview with Mezzofanti, assured Mr.
Wackerbarth, who was good enough to make the inquiry for me last year,
that “the abate spoke the language quite perfectly.” According to another
account which I have received, the prince, having suddenly changed the
conversation into a dialect peculiar to one of the provinces of Sweden,
Mezzofanti was obliged to confess his inability to understand him. What
was his amazement, in a subsequent interview, to hear Mezzofanti address
him in this very dialect!
“From whom, in the name of all that is wonderful, have you learnt it?”
exclaimed the prince.
“From your Royal Highness,” replied Mezzofanti. “Your conversation
yesterday supplied me with a key to all that is peculiar in its forms,
and I am merely translating the common words into this form.”
The Countess of Blessington, in the third volume of her “Idler in
Italy,” has given an account of her intercourse with Mezzofanti during
this year. She adds but little to the facts already known as to
Mezzofanti’s linguistic attainments; but it may not be uninteresting
to contrast with the ponderous and matter of fact sketches of the
professional scholars whom we have hitherto been considering, the
lighter, but in many respects more striking portraiture of a lady
visitor, less capable of estimating the solidity of his learning, but
more alive to the minor peculiarities of his manner, to the more delicate
shades of his character and disposition, and to the thousand minuter
specialities, which, after all, go to form our idea of the man.
Lady Blessington had been present at the solemn mass in the church of St.
Petronius at Bologna on the morning of the Festival of the Assumption. An
adventure which befel her at the close of the ceremony led to her first
meeting with the great linguist, which she thus pleasantly describes.
“While viewing the procession beneath the arcades, I was
inadvertently separated from my party, and found myself
hurried along by the crowd, hemmed in at all sides by a moving
mass of strangers who seemed to eye me with much curiosity.
To disentangle myself from the multitude would have been
a difficult, if not an impossible task; and I confess I
experienced a certain degree of trepidation, inseparable from
a woman’s feelings, at finding myself alone in the midst of
a vast throng not one face of which I had ever previously
seen. Great then was my satisfaction at hearing the simple
remark of ‘We have had a very fine day for the fête,’ uttered
in English, and with as good a pronunciation as possible, by
a person having the air and dress of a clergyman, to another
who answered: ‘Yes, nothing could be more propitious than the
weather.’
Though it is always embarrassing to address a stranger, the
sound of my own language, and the position in which I was
placed, gave me courage to touch the arm of the first speaker,
and to state, that being separated from my party, I must
request the protection of my countryman. He turned round,
saluted me graciously, said that, though not a countryman, he
would gladly assist me to rejoin my party, and immediately
placed me between him and his companion.
‘You speak English perfectly, yet are not an Englishman!’ said
I. ‘Then you can be no other than professor Mezzofanti?’
Both he and his companion smiled, and he answered; ‘My name
_is_ Mezzofanti.’
I had a letter of introduction from a mutual friend, and,
intending to leave it for him in the course of the day, I had
put it into my reticule, whence I immediately drew it and gave
it to him. He knew the hand-writing at a single glance, and,
with great good breeding, put it unopened into his pocket,
saying something too flattering for me to repeat, in which the
remark, that a good countenance was the best recommendation,
was neatly turned. He presented his companion to me, who
happened to be the Abbé Scandalaria, then staying on a visit to
him, and who speaks English remarkably well.
My party were not a little surprised to see me rejoin them,
accompanied by and in conversation with two strangers. When
I presented them to my new acquaintances, they were much
amused at the recital of my unceremonious encounter and
self-introduction to Mezzofanti, who not only devoted a
considerable portion of the day to us, but promised to spend
the evening at our hotel, and invited us to breakfast with him
to-morrow.
The countenance of the wonderful linguist is full of
intelligence, his manner well-bred, unaffected and highly
agreeable. His facility and felicity in speaking French,
German, and English, is most extraordinary, and I am told it
is not less so in various other languages. He is a younger
man than I expected to find him, and, with the vast erudition
he has acquired, is totally exempt from pretension or
pedantry.”[419]
An adventure with Mezzofanti, quite similar to Lady Blessington’s, befel
a party of Irish ecclesiastical students on their way to Rome in the very
same year. They arrived at Bologna late in the afternoon, and, as they
purposed proceeding on their journey early on the following morning, they
were unwilling to lose the opportunity of seeing and conversing with
the celebrated professor. Accordingly they repaired to the university
library; but, as might be expected at so late an hour, they found the
library closed and the galleries silent and deserted. After wandering
about for a considerable time, in search of some one to whom to address
an inquiry, they at last saw an abate of very humble and unpretending
appearance approach. The spokesman of the party begged of him, in the
best Latin he could summon up at the moment, to point out the way to the
library.
“Do you wish to see the library?” asked the abate without a moment’s
pause, in English, and with an excellent accent.
The student was thunderstruck. “By Jove, boys,” he exclaimed turning to
his companions, “this is Mezzofanti himself!”
It _was_ Mezzofanti; and, on learning that they were Irish, he addressed
them a few words in their native language, to which they were obliged
to confess their inability to reply. One of the number, however, having
learned the language from books, Mezzofanti entered into a conversation
with him on its supposed analogies with Welsh.
Of this party, five in number, four are now no more. The sole survivor,
Reverend Philip Meyler of Wexford, still retains a lively recollection
not only of the fluency and precision of Mezzofanti’s English, but of the
friendly warmth with which he received them, of the interest which he
manifested in the object of their journey, and of the cordiality of the
“_Iter bonum faustumque!_” with which he took his leave.
The clergyman alluded to by Lady Blessington, as the “Abbé Scandalaria,”
was, in reality, Padre Scandellari,[420] a learned priest of the
congregation of the Scuole Pie, and one of Mezzofanti’s especial friends.
I was assured by the late Lady Bellew, who knew Padre Scandellari at this
period, that he spoke English quite as well as Mezzofanti. Her ladyship,
(at that time Mademoiselle de Mendoza y Rios) was presented to Mezzofanti
by this father, a few weeks after the visit of Lady Blessington. She was
accompanied by the late Bishop Gradwell, ex-rector of the English College
at Rome, and by her governess, Madame de Chaussegros,[421] a native of
Marseilles. Mezzofanti conversed fluently with Dr. Gradwell in English,
and with Mdlle. de Mendoza, who was a linguist of no common attainments,
in English, French, and Spanish; and when he learned that her companion
was a Marseillaise, he at once addressed her in the Provençal dialect,
which, as the delighted Marseillaise declared, he spoke almost with the
grace and propriety of a native of Provence.
It will be remembered that the Crown Prince of Prussia, on his arrival at
Rome, counselled Dr. Tholuck not to return to Germany, without visiting
the Bolognese prodigy. Having heard of this interview, which took place
while Dr. Tholuck was returning to Germany, in 1829, I was naturally
anxious to learn what was the impression made upon this distinguished
orientalist, by a visit which may be said to have been undertaken with
the professed design of testing by a critical examination the reality of
the accomplishment of which fame had spoken so unreservedly. Dr. Tholuck,
with a courtesy which I gratefully acknowledge, at once forwarded to
me a most interesting account of his interview, a portion of which has
been already inserted. Dr. Tholuck is known as one of the most eminent
linguists of modern Germany. From the clear and idiomatic English of his
letter, the reader may infer what are his capabilities, as a critical
judge of the same faculty in another. After mentioning M. Bunsen’s
statement, that Mezzofanti had learned his languages entirely from books,
Dr. Tholuck continues:—
“This seemed the more incredible to me, having just made the
experience as to Italian, how impossible it is to acquire the
niceties of conversational language only from books. On my
return from Rome, having arrived at Bologna, I considered it my
first duty to call on that eminent linguist, accompanied by a
young Dane who was conversant also with the Frisian language,
spoken only by a small remnant of that old nation in Sleswic
or Friesland. Mezzofanti having commenced the conversation
in German, I continued it a quarter of an hour in my native
language. He spoke it fluently, but not without some slighter
mistakes, of which, in that space of time, I noticed as many
as four, which I took notes of immediately after; nor was the
accent a pure German accent, but that of Poles and Bohemians
when they speak German, which is to be accounted for from
his having acquired that language from individuals of that
nation, from Austrian soldiers. Upon this I suddenly turned my
conversation into Arabic, having obtained an easy practice in
this language by long intercourse with a family in which it
was spoken. Mezzofanti made his reply in Arabic without any
hesitation, quite correctly, but very slowly, composing one
word with the other, from want of practice. I then turned upon
Dutch, which he did not know then, but replied in Flemish, a
kindred dialect. English and Spanish he spoke with the greatest
fluency, but when addressed in Danish he replied in Swedish.
The Frisian he had not yet heard of. When requested to write
a line for me, he retired in his study, and, as we had been
talking together on the Persian, which at that time had been
my chief study, and which he was able to converse in, though
very slowly, and composing only words, as was my own case
likewise, he wrote for me a fine Persian distich of his own
composition, though only after long meditation in his study.
In the mean while he permitted me to examine his library.
Turning up a Cornish (of the dialect of Cornwall) Grammar, I
found in it some sheets containing a little vocabulary and
grammatical paradigms, and he told me that his way of learning
new languages was no other but that of our school-boys, by
writing out paradigms and words, and committing to memory. As
to the statement of M. Bunsen, mentioned before, it was not
confirmed by Mezzofanti’s communication: he confessed to have
acquired the conversational language chiefly from foreigners in
the hospitals, in part from missionaries. The number he then
professed to know _well_ was upwards of twenty; those which
he knew imperfectly, almost the same number. Of the poetical
productions of several nations he spoke as a man of taste, but
what we call the philosophy of language he did not seem yet to
have entered upon.”
Dr. Tholuck, it will be seen, did not suffer himself to be carried
away by the enthusiasm of those who had gone before him. He had eyes
for faults as well as for excellencies. Nevertheless, the reader will
probably agree with me in thinking the undisguised admiration which
pervades his calm and circumstantial statement, even with the drawbacks
which it contains, a more solid tribute to the fame of Mezzofanti than
the declamatory eulogies of a crowd of uninquiring enthusiasts. There
is an irresistible guarantee for his trustworthiness as a reporter upon
Mezzofanti’s German, in the fact that he did not fail to take “a note
of the four minor mistakes,” into which Mezzofanti fell in the course
of their conversation;[422] and one cannot hesitate to receive without
suspicion what he tells of his “speaking Arabic and Persian without any
hesitation, and quite correctly,” when we find him carefully distinguish
between these and the other languages on which he tried him, and note
that in these he proceeded “very slowly, composing one word with another
for want of practice.” It is proper, however, to add that the opportunity
of practice which he afterwards enjoyed at Rome, entirely removed this
difficulty: and the fluency and ease with which Mezzofanti there spoke
these most difficult languages, is the best confirmation of Dr. Tholuck’s
sagacity in ascribing the hesitation which was observable at the time of
his visit to want of practice alone.
Dr. Tholuck’s letter is specially important, also, as establishing the
fact that Mezzofanti’s acquisitions were by no means so easy, or so much
the result of a species of instinctive intuition as has been commonly
supposed. Many of the circumstances which Dr. Tholuck notes, indicate
labour; all point plainly to successive stages of advancement, to various
degrees of perfection, in a word, to all the ordinary accompaniments
of progress. The little vocabulary and grammatical paradigms of the
Cornish language, an extinct and almost forgotten dialect,[423]
which even our English philologists have come to disregard, tell of
themselves the character of the man. Of course the main attraction of
the Cornish dialect for him, was as one of the representatives of the
old British family; but it cannot be doubted that he took a pleasure in
the systematic pursuit of the structure of a language for the mere sake
of the mental exercise which it involved. I am assured by the Cavalier
Minarelli that the deceased Cardinal’s books and papers[424] contain many
such grammatical and phraseological skeletons, even in languages which
might be supposed to have less interest than that in the study of which
Dr. Tholuck found him engaged.[425]
In reply to further inquiries which I addressed to him, Dr. Tholuck added:
“Among the twenty languages which he then professed to know
accurately, he pointed out specially the English and the
Albanese; among these he professed to know imperfectly, was
also the Quichua, or old Peruvian, which he learned from some
of the American missionaries. He mentioned that he was then
engaged in learning the Bimbarra language, studying it from a
catechism translated by a French missionary; an instance which
shows that his _knowing_ a language was in _some_ instances
nothing more than having got a smattering of it, as the
Americans say.[426]
As to the Persian distich, which it took him about half an
hour to compose, it was an imitation of the distichs in Sadi’s
_Gulistan_,[427] and contained, as is the case with these
distichs, some elegant ἐνθύμησεις.”
Whether, at any subsequent time, he acquired the Frisian dialect, of
which “he had not yet heard” when Dr. Tholuck visited him, I am unable to
pronounce from any positive information. But I find in his catalogue[428]
several volumes in this language (to which it is highly probable that
this interview called his attention;) not merely elementary books, such
as Rasck’s _Friesche Spraakleer_, but historical works, as for instance,
Wissers’ History, and even such light literature as Japiek’s Collection
of Frisian Poetry.[429] From his known habits I can hardly doubt that,
once having acquired these books, he must at least have made some
progress towards mastering their contents.
The abate Ubaldo Fabiani, a young Modenese priest of much promise, who,
after completing his studies, had been appointed lecturer in sacred
Scripture and Hebrew in his native university, came to Bologna in 1829,
with letters from the abate Cavedoni to Mezzofanti, under whom he
proposed to perfect himself in Hebrew and other Oriental languages.
Mezzofanti received him with the utmost cordiality; and the great ability
and industry which he exhibited, as well as his exceeding amiableness and
unaffected piety, completely won the heart of his master. On his return
to Modena, after a residence of a few months, Mezzofanti wrote to his
friend Cavedoni.
_Bologna, 17 October, 1829._
“Don Ubaldo Fabiani is just about to return to Modena, after
a sojourn of three months here, the entire of which he has
passed in the midst of books. It would be impossible for me to
describe to you the assiduity, avidity, and perseverance, with
which I have seen him apply to his studies; but I can safely
say that the fruit which he has derived from them has even
exceeded the labour, as he unites with unwearied diligence a
ready wit and a peculiar aptitude for this branch of learning.
The principal object of his attention has been the sacred
Hebrew text; but he has also applied himself to Chaldee, and in
the end to the Rabbinical Hebrew—in all cases with most rapid
progress. Had his time not been so limited, he had intended
to devote himself also to Arabic—a language which has of late
become so necessary an appliance of the polemics of sacred
Scripture. But I have every confidence that he will do this
also, when he shall return another year to Bologna; and I shall
be more than willing to accompany him in this study also.
I am much indebted to you for having given me an opportunity
of forming the acquaintance of so worthy an ecclesiastic. I
have to thank you also for your learned publications, which
you were kind enough to send me, and which, in the midst of
all my varied occupations, are a source of real pleasure to
me. Forgive my irregularity and tardiness as a correspondent;
or rather do you return good for evil, by writing to me the
more frequently. You will thus do what is most grateful to your
devoted friend.”
Fabiani had hardly reached Modena when he was seized with fever—the
terrible _perniciosa_ of the Italian summer and autumn—and was carried
off after an illness of a few days, at the early age of twenty-four. As
soon as the melancholy news reached Bologna, Mezzofanti wrote once more
to his friend Cavedoni.
_Bologna, November 12, 1829._
“Death has snatched Don Ubaldo from us! Alas, how much have we
lost in him!—how miserably have we seen all the hopes which we
placed in him, cut off in a single moment! What might we not
have expected from a young ecclesiastic, so entirely devoted to
piety and to letters!
As for himself, his only aspirations were for heaven. His
studies had no other end or aim, save God: and God has been
pleased to take him to Himself, crowning with an early reward a
virtue which, even in the first flower of years, had attained
to its full maturity. Ah, let us hope that our dear Don Ubaldo,
now close to the Divine Fountain, is there admitted to the
hidden source of the divine oracles, to the study of which he
addressed himself here with such indefatigable application. Now
he will recall to memory, the affectionate care bestowed upon
him here by his parents, by his dear Don Celestino, and even by
his last master—last in merit as well as in time—and will feel
the force of the words which I often repeated to him, never
with more tenderness than at our last parting—‘Ah, Don Ubaldo,
give thyself entirely to the Lord!’ He feels now, I confidently
trust, what a thing it is to ‘belong entirely to the Lord.’
Ah, my dear Don Celestino, I should not be acting worthily, if,
on such an event, I gave room for a single moment to earthly
thoughts. Our friend has flown to heaven:—let our hearts also
turn thither, where we hope to meet him in everlasting joy.
Assist me by your prayers to attain this end. When you see
our deceased friend’s parents, comfort them with the true and
blessed consolations which our holy religion bestows; and let
us when, in the Adorable Sacrifice, we offer prayers for those
who are in tribulation, never fail to pray for each other, and
continually strive to disentangle ourselves more and more from
the vanity of the world.”
The premature death of this excellent young clergyman was felt at Modena
as a real calamity. His friend, the abate Cavedoni, published these
simple but touching letters of Mezzofanti in the _Memorie_[430] of
Modena, as the best testimony which could be offered to the rare merit of
the deceased; but, although already known in Italy, they are well worthy
of being preserved, not merely as a tribute to the memory of the youth
whose death they record, but as representing most truthfully the piety,
the sensibility, the fervour, and above all, the amiable and affectionate
disposition, of the writer himself.
Soon after the date of these letters was founded at Bologna a literary
Academy, which has some interest in connexion with the history of
Mezzofanti. Like many of the older learned societies of Italy,[431]
it took to itself a somewhat fanciful designation, although one which
falls far short in oddity of those of many among its predecessors;—as
the _Oziosi_, or the _Inquieti_, of Bologna, the _Insensati_ of Perugia,
the _Assorditi_ of Urbino, or (strangest of all), the _Umidi_[432] of
Florence, who carried the fancy so far as to designate themselves by the
names of fish and water-fowls. Mezzofanti and his fellow Academicians
contented themselves with the less startling, though somewhat affected,
title of _Filopieri_, “Lovers of the Muses.” Their Society received the
formal approval of the Congregation of Studies, in the beginning of 1830,
and commenced to hold its meetings in the same year. But, in connexion
with the life of Mezzofanti, it is chiefly memorable for a curious volume
of verses, addressed to him by the members, on the occasion of his
elevation to the Cardinalate.[433]
CHAPTER IX.
[1831.]
Hitherto the Abate Mezzofanti has appeared chiefly, if not exclusively,
as a linguist; and the estimate of his attainments which has long been
current, assumes him to have cultivated that single accomplishment to
the exclusion of all other branches of study. The report, however, of a
visitor, who saw him about the time at which we have now arrived, will be
found to present him in a new character.
In introducing this notice of him, a brief preliminary explanation
will be necessary—perhaps, indeed, this explanation is indispensable
even in itself; for, although the political history of the period does
not properly fall within the scope of this biography, yet, as the most
important event in the life of Mezzofanti—the transfer of his residence
to Rome—arose directly out of his mission to that capital at the
termination of the Revolution of 1831, it is necessary to revert, at
least in outline, to the most notable occurrences of the preceding years.
The discontent and turbulence which marked the closing years of the
reign of Pius VII. had in great measure subsided under the impartial
but vigorous administration of Leo XII.; nor was the short pontificate
of his successor, Pius VIII. who succeeded on the 31st of March,
1829, interrupted by any overt expression of popular discontent. It
was well known, nevertheless, throughout this whole period, that an
active secret organization was in existence, not alone in the Papal
States, but in Naples, in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, in the minor
principalities of Parma, Piacenza, and Modena, and indeed throughout
the entire of Italy. Everywhere throughout Italy, too, in addition to
these secret associations, still subsisted a remnant of the old French
or Franco-Italian party, who, while they submitted to the existing
state of things, and offered no resistance to the established regime,
concealing their discontent, and cautiously repressing their aspirations
after the cherished vision of a “united and independent Italy,” yet were
notoriously dissatisfied with the domestic governments, and lost no
opportunity of embarrassing their administration. Of this, in the Papal
States, Bologna had long been the centre.
The Abate Mezzofanti had never taken any part in political affairs; but
his principles were well known, and his antecedents had long marked him
out as an ardent and devoted adherent of the Papal rule. Personally
inoffensive and amiable as he was, therefore, he was on these grounds,
distasteful to certain members of the anti-papal party. But by the great
body of his fellow-citizens he was regarded as a man of thoroughly
honourable principles; and we shall see that in a crisis of great
delicacy and importance he was selected as one of their delegates to the
court of Gregory XVI.
It is to these political animosities that allusion is made in the
following extremely interesting account of Mezzofanti. It is from the pen
of the distinguished historian of the mathematical sciences in Italy, M.
Libri; whose name is in itself sufficient to stamp with authority any
statement bearing upon a subject in which he has proved himself a master.
For this most interesting communication I am indebted to the good offices
of Mr. Watts, to whom it was addressed by M. Libri, in reply to an
inquiry kindly made on my behalf by that gentleman. M. Libri’s letter
is in English, and the purity of its language and elegance of its style
are in themselves no slight evidence of his competence to pronounce
upon Mezzofanti’s accomplishments as a linguist, no less than as a
mathematician.
M. Libri’s meeting with Mezzofanti occurred at Bologna early in 1830, in
the course of a literary tour in which M. Libri was then engaged.
“Among all these eminent men, the one that interested me
most was unquestionably the Abbé, (afterwards Cardinal)
Mezzofanti, who was then librarian at Bologna, and respecting
whose astonishing power in languages I had heard the most
extraordinary anecdotes. During a short excursion which I had
previously made to Bologna, I had already got a glimpse of
that celebrated man; but it was not until 1830 that I could
be said to have seen him. I was presented to him by one of
my friends, Count Bianchetti, and I was received by him with
great kindness. He made me promise to go and see him again,
and offered to show me the library. I accepted his offer
eagerly; but it was principally in the hope of having a long
conversation with him that I repaired to the library next day.
Before going farther, I ought to say that I approached him
with mixed feelings. Personally, I have always been disposed
to respect and admire every man who possesses an incontestible
superiority in any branch of human knowledge; and in this point
of view, M. Mezzofanti, whom every body acknowledges to be the
man who knew and could speak more languages than any other
living man, had certainly a right to boundless admiration on my
part. It was popularly reported at Bologna, that M. Mezzofanti,
then fifty years old, knew as many languages as he counted
years; and I had heard related in respect to him, by men in
whose veracity I have full confidence, so many extraordinary
histories, that he became in my eyes a sort of hero of legend
or romance; but a hero of flesh and blood, who realized or
even surpassed all the wonders attributed to Mithridates as a
linguist. On the other hand, the liberal party, who certainly
had no sympathies with the Abbé Mezzofanti, spread reports
against him, by no means flattering; among which the one
that had most frequently reached my ears, consisted in its
being ceaselessly repeated, that the celebrated librarian at
Bologna was a sort of parrot, endowed with the faculty of
articulating sounds which he had heard, that he was only a
miracle of memory, understanding having nothing to do with
it; and that, independently of this trick of getting words by
heart, this extraordinary man possessed no solid information,
and little philological erudition. Without blindly adopting
this bare assertion, I must acknowledge that the judgment
passed on Mezzofanti by persons of some consideration, had
made an impression upon my mind, far from being favourable to
him: but that impression was soon dissipated in the course of
the interview I had with him. Before leaving Florence, I had
just read and carefully studied the treatise on Indefinite
Algebra, composed several ages before by Brahmegupta, and
which, translated and enriched with an admirable introduction
by Colebroke, had been published in London, in 1817.[434]
Being still filled with admiration for the labours of the
ancient Hindoos on indeterminate analysis, I mentioned the book
casually to Mezzofanti, and merely to show him that even a man
almost exclusively devoted to the study of mathematics, might
take a lively interest in the labours of the Orientalists. I
had no intention of introducing a scientific conversation on
this subject with the celebrated librarian; and I must even
add, that I thought him quite incapable of engaging in one. How
great then was my surprise, when I saw him immediately seize
the opportunity, and speak to me during half an hour on the
astronomy and mathematics of the Indian races, in a way which
would have done honour to a man whose chief occupation had been
tracing the history of the sciences. Deeply astonished at so
specific a knowledge, which had taken me quite unexpectedly, I
eagerly sought explanation from him on points which had seemed
to me the most difficult in the history of India; such, for
instance, as the probable epoch when certain Indian astronomers
had lived, before the Mahometan conquest, and how far those
astronomers might have been able, directly or indirectly, to
borrow from the Greeks. On all those points Mezzofanti answered
on the spot, with great modesty, and as a man who knows how
to doubt; but proving to me at the same time, that those were
questions on which his mind had already paused, and which he
had approached with all the necessary accomplishment of the
accessory sciences. I cannot express how much that conversation
interested me; and I did not delay to testify to Mezzofanti
all the admiration which knowledge at once so varied and so
profound, had excited in me. No more was said of visiting
the library, or of seeing books. I had before me a most
extraordinary living book, and one well calculated to confound
the imagination. Encouraged by his courtesy and modesty, I
could not resist my desire of putting questions to him on the
mode which he had employed in making himself master of so many
languages. He positively assured me, but without entering
into any detail, that it was a thing less difficult than was
generally thought; that there is in all languages a limited
number of points to which it is necessary to pay particular
attention; and that, when one is once master of those points,
the remainder follows with great facility. He added, that,
when one has learned ten or a dozen languages essentially
different from one another, one may, with a little study and
attention, learn any number of them. I strenuously urged him
to publish his experience on the subject and on the result of
his labours; but I observed in him a great aversion to the
publication of his researches. He affirmed that the more we
study, the more do we understand how difficult it is to avoid
falling into errors; and, in speaking to me of several writings
which he had composed, he told me that they were only essays
which by no means deserved to see the light. In the midst of
the conversation, as I was still urging him, he rose and went
to look in a box for a manuscript with coloured designs, which
he showed me, and which had for its object the explanation of
the Mexican hieroglyphics. Having begged him to publish at
least that work, he told me that it was only an essay, still
imperfect, and that his intention was to recast it completely.
This excursion to America suggested to me the idea of putting a
new question to him. I had collected at Florence, particularly
with relation to bibliography, several translations of the
whole Bible, or certain portions of the sacred books, in
different foreign languages. Some of these translations were
into languages spoken by North American savages; and in
looking through them I had been struck with the measureless
length[435] of most of the words of these tongues. Since the
opportunity presented itself naturally, I asked M. Mezzofanti
what he thought of those words, and whether the men who spoke
languages apparently so calculated to put one out of breath,
did not seem to be endowed with peculiar organs. Immediately
taking down a book written in one of those languages, the
celebrated linguist showed me practically how, in his opinion,
the savages managed to pronounce these interminable words,
without too much trouble. For fear of making mistakes, I cannot
venture, after twenty-five years, to reproduce this explanation
from memory. According to my usual practice, I had written
out, on my return home, the conversation which I had just had
with the celebrated linguist, and if I still possessed that
part of my journal you would find there almost the exact words
of the Abbé Mezzofanti; but those papers having been taken
away from me by people who, under a pretext as ridiculous as
odious, despoiled me, after the revolution of 1848, of all that
I possessed at Paris, I must confine myself to mentioning the
fact of the explanation which was given to me, without being
able to tell you in what that explanation consisted.
After what I have just recounted to you, I could add nothing
to express to you the opinion which that long conversation
with M. Mezzofanti (which during the few days that I passed at
Bologna was followed by some other interviews much shorter, and
as it were fugitive,) left in my mind on the subject of the
erudition, as profound as it was various, of that universal
linguist. As, however, I express here an opinion which
certainly was not that of everybody, permit me to corroborate
that opinion by the testimony of Giordani, a man not only
celebrated in Italy for the admirable purity of his style, but
who also enjoyed deserved reputation as a profound Grecian, and
a consummate Latin scholar. The testimony of Giordani on the
subject of the Abbé Mezzofanti is the more remarkable, because,
besides Giordani’s having (as is generally known) a marked
antipathy for the ultra-catholic party to which Mezzofanti
was thought to belong, he and the Abbé had had some little
personal quarrels the remembrance of which was not effaced.
Notwithstanding this, I read in the letters of Giordani lately
published at Milan, that, in his opinion, Mezzofanti was quite
a superior man.”
M. Libri[436] proceeds to cite several passages from Giordani’s letters,
which, as I have already quoted them in their proper place, it is
needless to repeat here. Indeed no additional testimony could add weight
to his own authority on any of the subjects to which he refers in this
most interesting letter.
Soon after this interview, the quiet of Mezzofanti’s life was interrupted
for a time. The Revolution of Paris in July, 1830, and the events in
Belgium and Poland by which it was rapidly followed, were not slow to
provoke a response in Italy. The long repressed hopes of the republican
party were thus suddenly realised, and the organization of the secret
societies became at once more active and more extended. For a time the
prudent and moderate policy adopted by Pius VIII. in reference to the
events in France, had the effect of defeating the measures of the Italian
revolutionists; but his death on the thirtieth of November in that year,
appeared to afford a favourable opportunity for their attempt. During the
conclave for the election of his successor, all the preparations were
made. The stroke was sudden and rapid. The very day after the election
of Gregory XVI., but before the news had been transmitted from Rome, an
outbreak took place at Modena. It was followed, on the next day, by a
similar proceeding at Bologna,—by the calling out of a national guard,
and the proclamation of a provisional government. The Papal delegate was
expelled from Bologna. The Duke of Modena fled to Mantua. Maria Louisa,
Duchess of Parma, took refuge in France. And on the 26th of the same
month, deputies from all the revolted states, by a joint instrument,
proclaimed the United Republic of Italy!
This success, however, was as short-lived as it had been rapid. The duke
of Modena was reinstated by the arms of Austria on the 9th of March.
Order was restored about the same date at Parma: and, before the end of
the month of March, all traces of the revolutionary movement had for the
time disappeared throughout the States of the Church.[437]
It has been customary for the cities and _communi_ of the Papal States on
the accession of each new Pontiff, to send a deputation of their most
notable citizens to offer their homage and present their congratulations
at the foot of the throne. Many of the chief cities had already complied
with the established usage.[438] Bologna, restored to a calmer mind,
now hastened to follow the example. Three delegates were deputed for
the purpose—the Marchese Zambeccari, Count Lewis Isolani, and the abate
Mezzofanti. They arrived in Rome in the beginning of May,[439] and on
the 9th of the same month, were admitted to an audience of the Pope,
who received them with great kindness, and inquired anxiously into the
condition of Bologna, and the grievances which had given occasion to the
recent discontents.
To Mezzofanti in particular the Pope showed marked attention. It had
been one of his requests to Cardinal Opizzoni, the archbishop, when
returning to Bologna on the suppression of the Revolution, that he
should send Professor Mezzofanti to visit him. He still remembered
the disinterestedness which the professor had shewn in their first
correspondence; and the time had now come when it was in his power to
make some acknowledgment. A few days after Mezzofanti’s arrival he was
named domestic prelate and proto-notary apostolic, and at his final
audience before returning to Bologna, the pope renewed in person the
invitation to settle permanently in Rome, which had formerly been made
to him by Cardinal Consalvi on the part of Pius VII. Mezzofanti was
still as happy in his humble position as he had been in 1815. He still
retained his early love for his native city and for the friends among
whom he had now begun to grow old. But to persist farther would be
ungracious. He could no longer be insensible to a wish so flattering and
so earnestly enforced. It was not, however, until, as the Pope himself
declared, “after a long siege,” (_veramente un assedio_) that he finally
acquiesced;—overpowered, as it would seem, by that genuine and unaffected
cordiality which was the great characteristic of the good Pope Gregory
XVI.
“Holy Father,” was his singularly graceful acknowledgment of the kind
interest which the Pope had manifested in his regard, “people say that I
can speak a great many languages. In no one of them, nor in them all, can
I find words to express how deeply I feel this mark of your Holiness’s
regard.”
It is hardly necessary to say that one of the very first visits which he
paid in Rome, was to the Propaganda. On the morning after his arrival,
the feast, as it would seem, of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, he
went to the sacristy with the intention of saying mass; and having,
with his habitual retiringness, knelt down to say the usual preparatory
prayers without making himself known, he remained for a considerable
time unobserved and therefore neglected. He was at length recognised by
Dr. Cullen, the present archbishop of Dublin, (at that time professor of
Scripture in the Propaganda,) who at once procured for the distinguished
stranger the attention which he justly deserved in such an institution.
It is a pleasing illustration, at once of the retentiveness of his memory
and of the simple kindliness of his disposition, that in an interview
with Dr. Cullen not very long before his death, he reminded him of this
circumstance, and renewed his thanks even for so trifling a service.
After mass, he made his way, unattended, to one of the _camerate_, or
corridors. The first room which he chanced to meet was that of a Turkish
student, named Hassun, now archbishop of the United Greek Church at
Constantinople. He at once entered into conversation with Hassun in
Turkish. This he speedily changed to Romaic with a youth named Musabini,
who is now the Catholic Greek bishop at Smyrna. From Greek he turned to
English, on the approach of Dr. O’Connor, an Irish student, now bishop
of Pittsburgh in the United States. As the unwonted sounds began to
attract attention, the students poured in, one by one, each in succession
to find himself greeted in his native tongue; till at length, the bell
being rung, the entire community assembled, and gave full scope to the
wonderful quickness and variety of his accomplishment. Dr. O’Connor
describes it as the most extraordinary scene he has ever witnessed; and
he adds a further very remarkable circumstance that, during the many
new visits which Mezzofanti paid to the Propaganda afterwards, he never
once forgot the language of any student with whom he had spoken on this
occasion, nor once failed to address him in his native tongue.
The deputation returned to Bologna in the end of June. Mezzofanti
accompanied it, but only for the purpose of making arrangements for his
permanent change of residence.
He had accepted the commission with exceeding reluctance, and it is
painful to have to record that on this, the only occasion on which he
consented to leave his habitual retirement, he was not suffered to escape
his share of the rude shocks and buffets which seem to be inseparable
from public life.
All who were most familiar with Mezzofanti, to whatever party in
Italian politics they belonged, have borne testimony to the sincerity
of his convictions and the entire disinterestedness of his views—a
disinterestedness which had marked the entire tenor of his life, and had
been attested by long and painful sacrifices. Nevertheless, on the return
of the Bolognese deputation from Rome, he had the mortification to find
his conduct misrepresented and his motives maligned. The marked attention
which he had experienced at the hands of the Pope, was made a crime.
His simple and long-tried loyalty—the spontaneous homage which a mind
such as his renders almost by instinct—was denounced as the interested
subserviency of a courtier; and the favours which had been bestowed on
him in Rome, were represented as the price of his treason to Bologna.
Mezzofanti felt deeply these ungenerous and unfounded criticisms. His
health was seriously affected by the chagrin which they occasioned; and
these memories of his last days in Bologna often clouded in after years
the happier reminiscences of his native city on which his mind delighted
to dwell.
Owing to the unsettled condition of Italy during this year, but few
Englishmen visited Bologna. Among these were Dr. Christopher Wordsworth,
Canon of Westminster (who also saw Mezzofanti in the following year in
Rome,) and Mr. Milnes, of Frystone Hall, Yorkshire, father of the poet,
Mr. Richard Monckton Milnes. The latter was much amused by Mezzofanti’s
proposing, when he heard he was a Yorkshire man, to speak Welsh with him,
“_as Yorkshire lay so near Wales!_”
It would hardly be worth while to note this amusing blunder in English
topography, (a blunder more remarkable in Mezzofanti, as in all
geographical details he was ordinarily extremely accurate,) were it not
that it is another testimony on the disputed question of his acquaintance
with the Welsh language.
He left Bologna finally for Rome in October, 1831. The Pope afterwards
used jokingly to say, that “the acquisition of Mezzofanti for Rome was
the only good that came of the Revolution of Bologna in 1831.” By the
kind care of the Pope, he was provided with apartments in the Quirinal
Palace, nearly opposite the Church of Saint Andrew—the same apartments at
the window of which the lamented Monsignor Palma was shot during the late
Revolution.
CHAPTER X.
[1831-33.]
It is one of Rochefoucauld’s maxims, that “in order to establish a great
reputation, it is not enough for one to possess great qualities, he must
also economize them.” If Mezzofanti had desired to act upon this prudent
principle, he could not possibly have chosen a worse position than Rome.
From the very moment of his arrival there, his gift of language was
daily, and almost hourly, exposed to an ordeal at once more varied and
more severe than it would have encountered in any other city in the
world. Without taking into account the many eminent linguists, native
and foreign, for whom Rome has ever been celebrated; without reckoning
the varying periodical influx of sight-seers, from every country in
Europe, who are attracted to that city by the unrivalled splendour
of her sacred ceremonial, and the more constant, though less noisy,
stream of pilgrims from the remotest lands, who are drawn by duty, by
devotion, or by ecclesiastical affairs, to the great centre of Catholic
unity;—the permanent population of the Eternal City will be found to
comprise a variety of races and tongues, such as would be sought in
vain in any other region of the earth. From a very early period, the
pious liberality, sometimes of the popes, sometimes of the natives
of the various countries themselves, began to found colleges for the
education, under the very shadow of the chair of Peter, of at least a
select few among the clergy of each people; and, notwithstanding the
confiscations of later times, there are few among the more prominent
nationalities which do not even still possess in Rome, either a special
national establishment, or, at least, a special foundation for national
purposes in some of the many general establishments of the city. In
like manner, most of the great religious orders, both of the East and
of the West, possess separate houses for each of the countries in which
they are established; and few, even of the most superficial visitors of
Rome, can have failed to observe, among the animated groups which throng
the Pincian Hill or the Strada Pia, at the approach of the Ave Maria,
the striking variety of picturesque costumes by which these national
orders are distinguished. Each, again, of the several rites in communion
with the Holy See—the Greek, the Syrian, the Coptic, the Armenian—has,
for the most part, an archbishop or bishop resident at Rome, to afford
information or counsel on affairs connected with its national usages, and
to take a part in all the solemn ceremonials, as a living witness of the
universality of the Church.
But before all, and more than all, is the great Urban College—the college
of the Propaganda—which unites in itself all the nationalities already
described, together with many others of which no type is found elsewhere
in Europe. Every variety of language and dialect throughout the wide
range of western Christendom;—every eastern form of speech
From silken Samarcand to cedared Lebanon;
many of the half explored languages of the northern and southern
continents of America; and more than one of the rude jargons of north
and north-eastern Africa, may be found habitually domiciled within its
walls. In the year 1837, when Dr. Wap, a Dutch traveller, who has written
well and learnedly on Rome, visited the establishment, the hundred and
fourteen students who appeared upon its register, comprised no less than
forty-one distinct nationalities.[440]
Amid the vast variety of speech with which he was thus brought habitually
into contact, Mezzofanti, even if he had desired to “economize” his
reputed gifts, could not possibly have done so without provoking a
suspicion of their questionableness, or at least of their superficial
character. Nor, on the other hand, would he have ventured to expose
the undeniable reputation which he had already established, although
upon a provincial theatre, to the ordeal which awaited him in the great
centre of languages, living or dead, had he not been supported by the
consciousness of the reality of his attainments, as well as attracted by
the very prospect of increased facilities for pursuing and extending the
researches which had been the business and the enjoyment of his life. At
all events, we shall see that from the first moment of his establishment
in Rome, so far from having “economized” his extraordinary faculty of
language, he was most assiduous, and in truth prodigal, in its exercise.
Immediately on his arrival he was appointed canon of the church of Santa
Maria Maggiore. This, however, was but an earnest of the intentions of
the Pope, who, from the first, destined him for the highest honours of
the Roman Church. It is clear, nevertheless, from his correspondence,
that his affections still clung to his beloved Bologna. On occasion of
his first new year in his new residence, he received many letters from
his old friends, conveying to him the ordinary new year’s greetings. From
his reply to one of these letters which was addressed to him by a friend,
Signor Michele Ferrucci, professor of Eloquence in the university, we may
gather how warm and cordial were the attachments which he had left behind.
_Rome, January 4, 1852._
“The new-year greetings which, for so many years, I used to
receive from you in person, were always most grateful to me,
because I knew them to be the genuine expression of your
affection for me. In like manner the kind wishes conveyed in
your letter are no less acceptable, since they show me that
separation has not diminished your regard. I shall always
retain a lively sense of it; and wherever I may be, it shall
be my endeavour to give proofs by my conduct that I am not
insensible to it. Let one of these be the assurance of my most
zealous exertions to secure for you the change of position
which you are seeking, from the chair of eloquence to that
of assistant professor of archæology. I think it advisable
that means should be taken to make known here the wishes
of the professor himself, the Canonico Schiassi; and it is
indispensable that the measure should not only originate with
his eminence the arch-chancellor, but should have his most
earnest support. So far as I am concerned, I shall leave
nothing undone that may tend to further your wishes.
I was deeply affected in reading your wife’s sonnets on the
death of her sister and her father. May God grant that, this
great affliction past, a heart so full of tenderness as hers,
may meet nothing in life but joy and consolation in the
continued prosperity of her dear family! Present my respects
to her, and make my compliments to my old associates in the
library. I never for a single day forget that happy spot, and I
seldom cease to speak of it.
If there be any matter in which I can be of use to you, I beg
of you not to spare me.”
One of Mezzofanti’s first impulses on his being established in Rome,
was to turn to account, as a means of extending his store of languages,
the manifold advantages of his new position. On a careful survey of
the rich and varied resources supplied by the foreign ecclesiastical
establishments of Rome, and especially by the great treasure-house of the
Propaganda, he found that there was one language, and that a language to
which he had long and anxiously looked forward—the Chinese—which was, as
yet, entirely unrepresented; the native students destined for the mission
of China, being at that time exclusively educated in the Chinese College
at Naples. It happened most opportunely that at this time Monsignor de
Bossi, (afterwards administrator Apostolic of Nankin), was about to visit
that institution, and proposed to Mezzofanti to accompany him;—a proposal
which, as filling up agreeably the interval of rest which he enjoyed
before entering upon the routine of the duties which awaited him, he
gladly accepted.
The Chinese College of Naples was founded in 1725, by the celebrated
Father Matthew Ripa,[441] with the permission of the reigning Pope
Benedict XIII, and was formally approved by a bull of Clement XIII,
April 5, 1732.[442] In the earlier and more favoured days of the Chinese
mission, although it was chiefly supplied by European clergy, yet the
missionaries freely opened, not alone elementary schools, but seminaries
for the training of native catechists who assisted in the work of the
mission, even within the precincts of the Imperial City. But the unhappy
divisions among the missionaries upon the well-known question, as to
the lawfulness of the so-called “Chinese ceremonies;” and the severe
enactments which followed the final and decisive condemnation of these
ceremonies by Clement XI., not only cut off all hope of this domestic
supply of catechists, but effectually excluded all European missionaries
from the Chinese Empire. The only hope, therefore, of sustaining the
mission was to provide a supply of native clergy, who might pass
unnoticed among the population, or who would at least possess one chance
of security against detection, which the very appearance of a foreigner
would preclude. With this view, Father Ripa brought together at Pekin a
small number of youths, whom he hoped to train up under a native master,
engaged by him for the purpose. A short experience of this plan, however,
convinced him, not merely of its danger, but even of its absolute
impracticability; and he saw that the only hope of success for such an
institution would be, not only to place the establishment beyond the
reach of persecution from the Chinese authorities, but, (as the great
Pope Innocent III. had contemplated a college at Paris for native Greek
youths),[443] even to withdraw the candidates altogether for a time
from the contagion of domestic influences and domestic associations.
Himself a Neapolitan, (having been born at Eboli, in the kingdom of
Naples,) Ripa’s thoughts naturally turned to his own country for the
means of accomplishing his design; and, after numberless difficulties,
he succeeding in transferring to his native city, under the name of “the
Holy Family of Jesus Christ,” the institution which he had projected at
Pekin. It consists of two branches, the college, and the congregation.
The latter is an association of priests and lay brothers, (not bound,
however, by religious vows), very similar in its constitution to the
Oratory of St. Philip Neri. The object of their association is the care
and direction of the College.
The College, on the other hand, is designed for the purpose of
educating and preparing for the priesthood, or at least for the office
of catechist, natives of China, Cochin China, Pegu, Tonquin, and
the Indian Peninsula. They are maintained free of all cost, and are
conducted to Europe and back to their native country at the charge of the
congregation; merely binding themselves to devote their lives, either
as priests or as catechists, to the duties of their native mission,
under the direction and jurisdiction of the sacred congregation of the
Propaganda. Since the time of the withdrawal of the European missionaries
from China, the mission has relied mainly upon this admirable
institution; and even still its members continue to deserve well of the
Church. The priest, Francis Tien, whose cruel sufferings for the faith
are detailed by Mgr. Rizzolati in a letter published in the Annals of
the Propagation of the Faith, July 1846, was a pupil of this college. So
likewise is the excellent and zealous priest, Thomas Pian, who recently
volunteered his services to the Propaganda as a missionary to the Chinese
immigrants in California.
At the time of Mezzofanti’s visit, March 23, 1832, the superior of the
college of the Congregation was Father John Borgia, the last direct
representative of the noble family of that name. He received the great
linguist with the utmost cordiality; and during the entire time of
his sojourn, the students and superiors vied with each other in their
attentions to their distinguished guest. From the moment of his arrival
he had thrown himself with all his characteristic energy into the study
of the language; and notwithstanding its proverbial difficulty, and
its even to him entirely novel character, he succeeded in an incredibly
short time in mastering all the essential principles of its rudimental
structure. Most unfortunately, however, before he had time to pursue
his advantage, his strength gave way under this excessive application,
and he was seized with a violent fever,[444] by which his life was for
some time seriously endangered. The fever was attended by delirium,
the effect of which, according to several writers[445] who relate the
circumstance, was to confuse his recollection of the several languages
which he had acquired, and to convert his speech into a laughable jumble
of them all. This, however, although an amusing traveller’s story, is but
a traveller’s story after all. Mezzofanti himself told Cardinal Wiseman
that the effect of his illness was not merely to confuse, but to _suspend
his memory altogether_. He completely forgot all his languages. His mind
appeared to return to its first uneducated condition of thought, and
whatever he chanced to express in the course of his delirium was spoken
in simple Italian, as though he had never passed outside of its limits.
He was so debilitated by this illness, that immediately upon his
convalescence it became necessary for him to return to Rome without
attempting to resume his Chinese studies. Most opportunely, however,
for his wishes, the authorities of the Propaganda some years afterwards
transferred to Rome, as we shall see, a certain number of these Chinese
students, with the view of enabling them to complete with greater
advantage in the great missionary college the studies which they had
commenced in what might almost be called a domestic institution.
With their friendly assistance Mezzofanti completed what had been so
inauspiciously interrupted by his illness.[446]
The fatigues of the homeward journey brought on a renewal of the fever;
and for some weeks after his return to Rome, (from which he had been
absent about two months,) he suffered considerably from its effects.
Happily, however, it left no permanent trace in his constitution, and
the autumn of 1832 found him engaged once more with all his usual energy
in his favourite pursuit. The intention of the Pope in inviting him
to Rome, had been to place him at the head of the Vatican Library, as
successor of the celebrated Monsignor Angelo Mai, then First Keeper of
that collection, who was about to be transferred to the Secretaryship
of the Propaganda. The arrangements connected with this change of
offices, however, were not yet completed, and Mezzofanti availed
himself industriously of this interval of comparative leisure which the
delay placed at his disposal. His position at Rome brought him into
contact with several languages of which he had never before met any
living representative; and many of those which he had hitherto had but
rare and casual opportunities of speaking or hearing spoken were now
placed within his reach as languages of daily and habitual use. In the
Maronite convent of Sant’ Antonio he had ancient and modern Syriac, with
its various modifications, at his command. For Armenian, Persian, and
Turkish, the two learned Mechitarist communities of San Giuseppe and
Sant’ Antonio supplied abundant and willing masters. One of these, the
eminent linguist Padre Aucher, whose English-Armenian Grammar Lord Byron
more than once commemorates as their joint production,[447] was himself
master of no less than twelve languages. To the Ruthenian priests of S.
Maria in Navicella, he could refer for more than one of the Sclavonic
languages. The Greek college of St. Athanasius, owing to the late
troubles in Greece, was then untenanted, but there were several Greek
students in the Propaganda, awaiting its re-opening, which took place
in 1837. The celebrated Persian scholar, Sebastiani, had just recently
returned to Rome. Signor Drach, a learned Hebrew convert, was Librarian
of the Propaganda; and a venerable Egyptian priest, Don Georgio Alabada,
supplied an opportunity of practice in the ancient Coptic, as well as in
the Arabic dialect of modern Egypt.
In the German College were to be found not only all the principal tongues
of the Austrian Empire, German, Magyar, Czechish and Polish, but many
of its more obscure languages—Romanic, Wallachian, Servian, and many
minor varieties of German, Rhetian, (the dialect of the Graubünden, or
Grisons) Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian. In reference to some of these
languages, I have been able to avail myself of the recollections of more
than one student of this noble institution, as witness of Mezzofanti’s
extraordinary proficiency.
He was on terms of the closest intimacy with the Abbé Lacroix, of the
French church of St. Lewis, since known as the editor of the _Systema
Theologicum_ of Leibnitz. The Rector of the English College, Dr. (now
Cardinal) Wiseman, even then a distinguished orientalist, and professor
of oriental languages in the Roman university, and the Rector of the
Irish College, the present Archbishop of Dublin, were his especial
friends. In both these establishments, he was a welcome and not
unfrequent visitant.
The several embassies, also, afforded another, though of course less
familiar school. He often met M. Bunsen, the Minister Resident of
Prussia; he was frequently the guest of the Marquis de Lavradio, the
Portuguese ambassador, and Don Manuel de Barras, whose letter attesting
the purity and perfection of Mezzofanti’s Castilian, is now before me,
was an attaché of the Spanish Embassy.
The Propaganda, however, itself a perfect microcosm of language, was
his principal, as well as his favourite school. For his simple and
lively disposition, the society of the young had always possessed a
special charm; and to his very latest hour of health, he continued to
find his favourite relaxation among the youths of this most interesting
institution. In summer, he commonly spent an hour, in winter an hour
and a half, in the Propaganda, partly in the library, partly among the
students, among whom he held the place alternately of master and of
pupil;—and, what is still more curious, he occasionally appeared in both
capacities, first learning a language from the lips of a student, and
then in his turn instructing his teacher in the grammatical forms and
constitution of the very language he had taught him!
Independently, indeed, of study altogether, the Propaganda was for years
his favourite place of resort, and there was no place where his playful
and ingenuous character was more pleasingly displayed. He mixed among the
pupils as one of themselves, with all the ease of an equal, and without
a shade of that laborious condescension which often makes the affability
of superiors an actual penance to those whom they desire to render
happy. While the cheerfulness of his conversation was often tempered
by grave advice or tender exhortation, it was commonly lively and even
playful, and frequently ran into an amusing exhibition which those who
witnessed never could forget. In the free and familiar intercourse
which he encouraged and maintained, there sometimes arose sportive
trials of skill, in which the great amusement of his young friends
consisted in endeavouring to puzzle him by a confusion of languages,
and to provoke him into answering in a language different from that in
which he was addressed. The idea of these trials (which reminded one of
the old-fashioned game of “cross-question,”) appears to have originated
in a good-humoured surprise, which the Pope Gregory XVI. played off on
Mezzofanti soon after his arrival in Rome. The linguist, however, was
equal to the emergency. Like the good knight, Sir Tristram, he proved
“Most master of himself, and least encumbered,
When over-matched, entangled, and outnumbered.”
“One day,” says M. Manavit, “Gregory XVI. provided an agreeable surprise
for the polyglot prelate, and a rare treat for himself, in an improvised
conversation in various tongues—a regular linguistic tournament. Among
the mazy alleys of the Vatican gardens, behind one of the massive walls
of verdure which form its peculiar glory, the Pope placed a certain
number of the Propaganda students in ambuscade. When the time came for
his ordinary walk, he invited Mezzofanti to accompany him; and, as they
were proceeding gravely and solemnly, on a sudden, at a given signal,
these youths grouped themselves for a moment on their knees before his
Holiness, and then, quickly rising, addressed themselves to Mezzofanti,
each in his own tongue, with such an abundance of words and such a
volubility of tone, that, in the jargon of dialects, it was almost
impossible to hear, much less to understand them. But Mezzofanti did
not shrink from the conflict. With the promptness and address which were
peculiar to him, he took them up singly, and replied to each in his own
language, with such spirit and elegance as to amaze them all.”
In addition to these increased opportunities of exercise, he also derived
much assistance, in the more obscure and uncommon department of his
peculiar studies, from the libraries of Rome, and especially from that
of the Propaganda. The early elementary books, grammars, vocabularies,
catechisms, &c., prepared for the use of missionaries in the remote
missions, have for the most part been printed at the Propaganda press:
and the library of that institution contains in manuscript similar
elementary treatises in languages for the study of which no printed
materials existed at that time. To all these, of course, the great
linguist enjoyed the freest access; and it can hardly be doubted
that, during the first year of his residence in Rome, he did more to
enlarge his stock of words, and to perfect his facility and fluency in
conversation, than perhaps in any previous year of his life.
Immediately upon Mgr. Mai’s appointment to the Secretaryship of
the Propaganda, May 15th, 1833, Mezzofanti was installed as _Primo
Custode_, First Keeper of the Vatican Library; and about the same time
he was appointed to a Canonry in St. Peter’s. In the midst of the warm
congratulations which he received from all sides, it was not without
considerable distrust of his own powers, that he entered upon the office
of Librarian, as the successor of a scholar so eminent as Angelo Mai.
“It is no ordinary distinction,” he wrote to his friend Cav.
Pezzana, “to be called to succeed Mgr. Mai in the care of the
Vatican Library,—a post which has derived new brilliancy from
the brilliant qualities of its latest occupant: nor can I
overcome my apprehension lest the honour which I may gain by my
first few hours of office may decline, when it comes to be seen
how great is the difference between this distinguished man and
his successor. This fear, I confess, is a drawback upon my joy
at this happy event; but at the same time, I trust it will also
stimulate me to make every effort that the lustre of a position
in itself so honourable, may not be tarnished in my person. I
have only to wish that your congratulation, coming as it does
from a kindly feeling, may be an earnest of the successful
exercise of the diligence I am determined to use in my new
career, which is all the more grateful and honourable to me, as
it furnishes more frequent occasions of corresponding with you.”
There is another of his letters of the same period, which to many perhaps
will appear trivial, but which points in a still more amiable light, not
alone his unaffected piety and humility, but the homely simplicity of his
disposition, and the affection with which he cherished all the domestic
relations. It is addressed to his cousin, Antonia, who has already been
mentioned in a former part of this Memoir, but who, for some years before
Mezzofanti’s leaving Bologna, had been afflicted with blindness. On the
occasion of his appointment, this lady employed the pen of a common
friend, Signora Galli, of Bologna, to convey her congratulations to
Mezzofanti. It would seem, moreover, that she had intended on the same
occasion to make him a present, which Mezzofanti, out of consideration
for her limited means, had thought it expedient to decline.
“_Bologna, December 14, 1833._
My most esteemed cousin,
Accept, in return for all your kind congratulations and good
wishes, my most sincere prayer that God may bestow upon you
all the choicest blessings of the approaching festival. There
is _one_ present which it is in your power to make me, and one
which is especially suitable to a person so entirely devoted
to God as you are: it is to offer up the holy communion for me
on one of the coming festivals. I, upon my part, will offer
the Holy Sacrifice for you on the feast of St. John; and
on the same day I will make a special memento of your good
parish priest, the abate Landrino, who once, upon the same
day, showed me a kindness which I shall never forget. Pray
remember me to him, and also to dear Signora Galli, in whom, as
your secretary, you have found an admirable exponent of your
affectionate sentiments, for which I am deeply grateful to
you both. My nephews unite in best wishes for your health and
happiness. Make the best report from me at home, and believe me
always, your most affectionate cousin,
JOSEPH MEZZOFANTI.”
CHAPTER XI.
[1834.]
It may perhaps be convenient to interrupt the narrative at this point,
for the purpose of bringing together a number of miscellaneous reports
regarding certain languages of minor note ascribed to Mezzofanti, which,
through the kindness of many friends, have come into my hands. I shall
select those languages especially, respecting his acquaintance with
which some controversy has arisen. As my principal object in collecting
these reports has simply been to obtain a body of trustworthy materials,
whereupon to found an estimate of the real extent of the great linguist’s
attainments, I shall not consider it necessary here to follow any exact
philological arrangement; but shall present the notices of the several
languages, as nearly as possible in the order of the years to which they
belong, reserving for a later time the general summary of the results.
I shall commence with a language to which some allusions have been made
already—the Welsh.
Mr. Watts, in his admirable paper so often cited, has recorded it, as the
opinion of Mr. Thomas Ellis of the British Museum—“a Welsh gentleman,
who saw Mezzofanti more than once in his later years—that he was
unable to keep up, or even understand, a conversation in the language
of the Cymry.”[448] It is difficult to reconcile this statement with
the positive assertion of Mr. Harford, which we have seen in a former
page;—that, even as early as 1817, he himself “heard Mezzofanti speak
Welsh.” It might perhaps be suggested, as a solution of the difficulty,
that in the long interval between Mr. Harford’s visit, and that of Mr.
Ellis, Mezzofanti’s memory, tenacious as it was, had failed in this one
particular; but, about the period to which we have now arrived, there are
other witnesses who are quite as explicit as Mr. Harford.
Early in the year 1834, Dr. Forster, an English gentleman who has resided
much abroad, and who (although, from the circumstance of his books being
privately printed, little known to the English public) is the author of
several curious and interesting works, visited Mezzofanti in the Vatican
Library.
“To-day,” (May 14, 1834) he writes in a work entitled _Annales
d’un Physicien Voyageur_, “I visited Signor Mezzofanti,
celebrated for his knowledge of more than forty ancient and
modern languages. He is secretary of the Vatican—a small man
with an air of great intelligence, and with the organs of
language highly developed in his face. We talked a great deal
about philology, and he told me many interesting anecdotes of
his manner of learning different languages. As I was myself
acquainted with ten languages, I wished to test the ability of
this eminent linguist; and therefore proposed that we should
leave Italian for the moment, and amuse ourselves by speaking
different other languages. Having spoken in French, English,
Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch, I said at last:—
‘My friend, I have almost run out my stock of modern languages,
except some which you probably do not know.’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘the dead languages, Latin and Greek, are
matters which every one learns, and which every educated man is
familiar with. We shall not mind them. But pray tell me what
others you speak.’
‘I speak a little Welsh,’ I replied.
‘Good,’ said he, ‘I also know Welsh.’ And he began to talk
to me at once, like a Welsh peasant. He knew also the other
varieties of Celtic, Gælic, Irish, and Bas-Breton.”[449]
Some time after the visit of Mr. Harford, too, but before Mezzofanti
had left Bologna, when Dr. Baines, then Vicar Apostolic of the Western
District of England, (in which Wales was included,) was passing through
that city, the abate, concluding (erroneously, as Dr. Baines had the
mortification to confess,) that the bishop of Wales must necessarily be
an authority upon its language, came to him with a Welsh Bible, to ask
his assistance on some points connected with the pronunciation, being
already acquainted with the language itself.[450]
Another of his visitors, while at Bologna, has put on record a testimony
to the same effect, which, although it does not expressly allude
to Mezzofanti’s speaking the language, yet evidently supposes his
acquaintance with it, and which moreover is interesting for its own sake.
I allude to Dr. W. F. Edwards, of Paris, author of an able and curious
essay addressed to the historian, Amedée Thierry, “On the Physiological
Characters of the Races of Man, in their Relation to History.” In this
essay, while combating the popular notion, that in England the ancient
British race has been completely displaced by the various northern
conquerors who have overrun the country, Dr. Edwards alleges in support
of his own work, which he heard expressed by Mezzofanti, and which,
although founded on purely philological principles,[451] he regards as a
singular confirmation of his own physiological deductions.
“I owe,” he says, “to the celebrated Mezzofanti, whom I had
the pleasure of meeting at Bologna, an example of what I have
been urging; and I am glad to repeat it here for more reasons
than one. You will see in it a further confirmation of the
conclusion regarding the Britons of England, which I have
deduced from sources of a very different kind. If there is
any characteristic which distinguishes English from the other
modern languages of Europe, it is the extreme irregularity
of its pronunciation. In other languages, when you have once
mastered the fundamental sounds, you are enabled, by the aid of
certain general rules, to pronounce the words with a tolerable
approach to accuracy, even without understanding the meaning.
In English you can never pronounce until you have actually
learned the language. Mezzofanti, in speaking to me of Welsh,
traced to that language the origin of this peculiarity of the
English. I had no necessity to ask him through what channel. I
knew, as well as he, that the English could not have borrowed
from the Welsh; and that, before the Saxon invasion, the
Britons had spoken the same language which afterwards became
peculiar to Wales. Thus of his own accord and without my
seeking for it, he gave me a new proof, entirely independent of
the reasons which had already led me to the conviction that,
despite the Saxon conquest, the Britons had never ceased to
exist in England. They had for centuries been deemed extinct;
and yet he recognises their descendants, so to speak, by the
sound of their voice, as I have recognised them by their
features! What more is needed to establish the identity?”
In the marked conflict between these testimonies and the strong adverse
opinion expressed by Mr. Ellis, “that the Cardinal was unable to keep
up or even understand a conversation in the language of the Cymry,” nay
that “he could not even read an ordinary book with facility,” I have
had inquiries made through several Welsh friends, the result of which,
coupled with the authorities already cited, satisfies me that Mr. Ellis
was certainly mistaken in his judgment. The belief that Mezzofanti
knew and spoke Welsh appears to be universal. Mr. Rhys Powel, a Welsh
gentleman who was personally acquainted with him, often heard that he
understood Welsh, and I have received a similar assurance from a Welsh
clergyman of my acquaintance. Mr. Rhys Powel, mentions the name of the
late Mr. Williams of Aberpergwin, as having “actually conversed with
the Cardinal in Welsh,” during a visit to Rome some time before his
eminence’s death; and a short composition of his in that language, which
I submitted to two eminent Welsh scholars, is pronounced by them not only
correct, but idiomatic in its structure and phraseology.
With such a number of witnesses, entirely independent of each other,
and spread over so long a period, attesting Mezzofanti’s knowledge of
Welsh, I can hardly hesitate to conclude that Mr. Ellis’s impression to
the contrary must have arisen from some accidental misunderstanding,
or perhaps from one of those casual failures from which even the most
perfect are not altogether exempt. The concluding paragraph of Dr.
Edward’s notice is interesting, although upon a different ground.
“It is to be regretted,” he adds, “that a man who surpasses all
others by his prodigious knowledge of languages, should content
himself with what is but an evidence of his own learning, and
should conceal from the world the science upon which that
learning is founded. It is not to his prodigious memory and
the, so to say, inborn aptitude of his mind for retaining words
and their combinations, that he owes the facility with which he
masters all languages, but to his eminently analytical mind,
which rapidly penetrates their genius and makes it its own. I
collect from himself that he studies languages, rather through
their spirit than through their letter. What do we know of the
spirit of languages? Almost nothing. But if Mezzofanti would
communicate to the world the fruit of his observations, we
should see a new science arise amongst us.”[452]
It will be recollected that Flemish was one of the minor languages
which he acquired during his residence at Bologna. From the time of
his settling at Rome, his opportunities of practice in this and the
kindred dialect of Holland, were almost of daily occurrence. One of the
earliest appears to have been afforded by his intercourse with a young
student of the Germanic College, the abbé Malou, since one of the most
distinguished of the Catholic literatî of Belgium,[453] for several years
Professor of Scripture in the University of Louvain, and now Bishop of
Bruges. Monseigneur Malou has been good enough to note down for me his
recollections of his intercourse with Mezzofanti, in so far as they
relate to his native language.
“During my stay in Rome (1831-35), I conversed several times
in Flemish with Cardinal Mezzofanti, and I was thus enabled
to ascertain that he understood our language thoroughly. He
spoke to me of the works of Cats and Vondel, two distinguished
Flemish poets, which he had read. Nevertheless, I fancied that
I perceived his vocabulary to be rather limited. He often
repeated the same words and phrases. He spoke with a Brabant
accent, for he had learned Flemish from some young men of
Brussels, who studied at the University of Bologna, in which
his Eminence was at that time Librarian. Monsignor Mezzofanti,
after I had spoken, remarked of himself, that I, being a
Fleming, did not speak as they do in Brabant; and hence he
had a difficulty in catching some of my expressions, which he
requested me to repeat. It is, therefore, not quite correct to
say, that he knew our different dialects; but, if he had had
occasion to learn them, he could, without doubt, have done so
with great ease.
Some days before my departure from Rome, in May, 1835, I met
this learned dignitary in the sacristy of S. Peter’s. He at
once accosted me in Flemish; and, when I had replied, he
upbraided me with having forgotten my mother tongue, for I
mixed up with it, he said, some German words. The reproach
was well founded: for I had passed about three years in the
German College, where I had learned a little German, and had
had meanwhile no occasion to speak Flemish. Such a reproof from
an Italian, who thus gave lessons in Flemish to a Fleming,
struck me as exceeding droll, and amused me not a little. This
anecdote shows what minute attention the learned Cardinal paid
to the boundary lines of kindred tongues.
I have heard Mezzofanti, in the course of one evening, speaking
Italian, English, German, Flemish, Russian, French, and the
Sicilian and Neapolitan dialects of Italian.”[454]
This poverty of his Flemish vocabulary, however, disappeared with
practice. Another learned Belgian ecclesiastic, Monsignor Aerts, who
subsequently to the sojourn of M. Malou in Rome, resided there for
many years, as Rector of the Belgian College, reports as follows of
Mezzofanti’s Flemish, such as he found it in 1837 and the following year.
“I was intimately acquainted with Cardinal Mezzofanti, during
my sojourn in Rome; that is to say, from 1837 to the moment of
his death. I saw him frequently. After the establishment in
Rome of the Belgian Ecclesiastical College, of which I was the
first President, and he the Patron, I had still more frequent
relations with his eminence. I spoke to him several times in
each month. Part of our conversation always took place in
Flemish. I can assure you that he never had to look for a word,
and that he spoke our language most freely, and with a purity
of expression and pronunciation not always to be met with among
our own countrymen. One day that I was admitted along with the
Cardinal, to an audience of the Pope Gregory XVI., during his
hour of recreation, His Holiness expressed a desire to hear
him speaking Flemish with me. We then began a little discussion
about the relative difficulty of German and Flemish. His
Eminence thought Flemish the harder of the two. The Pope called
him ‘a living Pentecost.’ He also wrote Flemish poetry: and
one day he gave me several verses of his own composition, to
send in token of remembrance to a young gentleman from Bruges
whom he had confirmed at Rome. Mezzofanti not only knew the
language itself thoroughly, but he was moreover acquainted with
its history and with the principal Flemish and Dutch authors.
I heard him speak of the works of Vondel, Cats, David, &c. He
spoke and pronounced Dutch equally well. He said, however,
that, the modern Hollanders had changed the language by
approximating to the German. He knew, also, some of the local
dialects of Flemish, especially that of Brussels. He could
even distinguish the inhabitants of Brussels by their accent,
of which I have more than once been witness. When he saw a
Fleming, he always saluted him in his own tongue; as he indeed
did with all foreigners.
In 1838, Cardinal Sterckx, Archbishop of Malines, paid a
visit to Rome, and I had the honour of being present during
several conversations which he held in Flemish with Cardinal
Mezzofanti. The latter once took a fancy to have a little
Flemish conversation with his colleague, in a consistory which
the Pope held at this time: and he himself playfully remarked
that probably that was the first time, since the origin of
the Church, that two cardinals had talked Flemish in a papal
consistory. Cardinal Sterckx told me this anecdote the same
day.”
The complete success with which he overcame the deficiency that M. Malou
had observed in 1831, and the curious mastery of the various dialects
which his singularly exquisite perception of the minutest peculiarities
of language enabled him to acquire, are attested by another witness of
the same period, Father Van Calven of the same city.
“On the 6th February, 1841,” he writes, “the Cardinal, who was
no less kind and affable than learned, administered the first
communion to my cousin, Leo van Oockerout, who was then with
his friends in Rome. Being a Belgian, a friend, and a relative,
I was invited to be present at the ceremony, which took place
in the Church of S. Peter, over the tomb of SS. Peter and
Paul. Cardinal Mezzofanti celebrated the Holy Sacrifice; and
after the Gospel, or perhaps immediately before the child’s
communion, he made a little discourse in French, in reference
to the beautiful occasion which had drawn us together. This
little discourse, which was very simple, was in excellent
French. After the ceremony was over, he called us all into
the sacristy, and there we had a conversation in Flemish. His
eminence distinguished the different dialects of our Belgian
provinces perfectly. Thus I remember distinctly that he said to
us: ‘I learned Flemish from a native of Brabant, and this is
the way I pronounce the word; but, you from Flanders, pronounce
it thus.’—I forget what was the word about which there was
question; but at any rate, the Cardinal was quite correct in
his observation.”
The same curiously delicate power of “discriminating the various dialects
of the language, and of distinguishing by their accents, the inhabitants
of the various provinces of Belgium,” are attested by another member
of the same society, Father Legrelle. On the eve of this gentleman’s
return to Belgium, he asked the Cardinal to be so good as to write his
name in his _Album de Voyage_. On the very instant, and in F. Legrelle’s
presence, his Eminence penned these Flemish verses, which he gave to M.
Legrelle as a souvenir:—
God wept, en wyst den weg tot de volkomenheid;
Hoort zyne stem, myn Vriend, de stemme der waerheid.[455]
One of M. Legrelle’s companions, M. Leon Wilde, a native of Holland, and
now a member of the Jesuit Society at Katwick, bears the same testimony
to the facility and elegance with which the Cardinal spoke Dutch. M.
Wilde also mentions his having written some verses in that language.
But a “Tour to Rome”[456] by a Dutch professor, Dr. Wap, published at
Breda, in 1839, contains so full and so interesting a notice of the great
linguist, in reference to this department of his accomplishment, that,
without referring further to M. Wilde’s letter, I shall content myself
with translating the most important passages of Dr. Wap’s account of his
visit. The author, then a professor in the military college of Breda, is
now resident at Utrecht.
“Joseph Mezzofanti,” he writes, “is at present[457] in his
sixty-fifth year. He is of a slight figure, pale complexion,
black hair which is beginning to turn gray, a piercing eye,
quick utterance, and an air full of good humour, but not very
intellectual, so that one would hardly expect to discover
faculties so extraordinary under such an exterior. The first
time I saw him was in the Vatican library, in the large hall
which is furnished with tables, for the accommodation of those
who wish to read or to take notes. He was busy distributing
books, and at the same time was talking to an English lady
accompanied by some English gentlemen. I afterwards spent an
hour or two with this family, and learned that Mezzofanti had
written in the lady’s album four very graceful English lines,
regarding America, whence she had come, and Vienna, where
she was going to reside. As soon as the librarian noticed
any foreigner, he at once began a conversation with him, and
carried it on, no matter what might be the stranger’s idiom.
Prince Michael of Russia was amazed at the ease and volubility
with which Mezzofanti spoke the Polish language. He accosted
me in English, which has in some measure become indigenous to
Rome: but, finding I was from Holland, he at once continued
the conversation in the _Brussels_ dialect (as he called it,)
and told me how scanty the means were of which he had been
able to avail himself in the study of Flemish. These were: a
Flemish grammar; two authors, (Bolhuis and Ten Kate,) with
whom he was acquainted; and finally, Vondel and Cats, whom
he had carefully read. He had never seen any of Bilderdyk’s
works, and he inquired whether this scholar had not introduced
a dialect into the Dutch language. When I had given him the
necessary information, and told him that Bilderdyk, besides
a hundred other works, had written a book on the characters
of the Alphabet, another on the Gender of Substantives, and
three volumes on their roots, his delight was extreme, and he
expressed a great desire to possess these works. I undertook
to send them to him, and I took care to redeem my promise,
as soon as I returned home.[458] After this interview, I did
not presume to manifest my earnest desire for any further
interviews with him: but Mezzofanti anticipated my wishes, and
invited me to come and see him at the Propaganda, as often as
I liked. There it is that he spends some hours, every evening,
among the students, talking with each in his own tongue. I took
advantage of his kind proposal, and had thus an opportunity of
getting a nearer view of this college of the Propaganda....
Nowhere will one find so many resources for amassing treasures
of knowledge united together, as in the vast college of the
Propaganda....
Here are assembled a hundred and fourteen students from
forty-one different countries. At my request, the Rector caused
the Pater Noster to be written by sixteen foreign students in
their respective languages. Here, in the evening, in the midst
of these various nations, I met Mezzofanti, who seemed to
belong to each of them. He spoke Chinese with Leang of Canton,
as easily as he spoke Dutch with Mr. Steenhof[459] of Utrecht.
I will never forget the instructive hours which I spent there.
The natural frankness of Mezzofanti, his free and communicative
conversation, his easy tone, his gay disposition, all rendered
my farewell visit, which I twice repeated, very painful to me.
Amidst so many grave employments, Mezzofanti goes twice each
week to the house of the orphans, to teach them the catechism,
and to the barracks of the Swiss soldiers to instruct them in
the principles of religion. The library requires his care twice
in the week, for several hours in the morning; in the afternoon
he gives lessons to the pupils of the Propaganda, whose studies
he superintends; to his care are confided the public discourses
delivered on the Epiphany: almost all foreigners come to visit
him; in fine, he pays his visits in his humble equipage, and
attends at the Pope’s court when pressing affairs requires his
presence; and, notwithstanding many duties and occupations, he
still finds time to assist at the divine offices. Who will not
feel profound respect and sincere admiration for such a man?
I will here subjoin some lines which I wrote _extempore_ in
Mezzofanti’s album, together with his immediate reply.
‘Wie ooit de Pinkstergaaf in twijfel durfde trekken.
Sta hier beschaamd, verplet voor Mezzofanti’s geest,
Hij eere in hem den man, die de aard ten tolk kan strekken.
Wiens brien in ’t taalgeheim van alle volken leest.
Aanvaard, ô Telg van’t Zuid, den eerbiedgroet van’t Noorden,
Maar denk, terwijl nu oog mijn nietig schrift beziet,
Al mist der Batten spraak Italjes zang akkoorden,
Hun tongval of hun ziel leent zich tot vleijen niet.’
My veritable impromptu instantly called forth this beautiful
answer from Mezzofanti:—
‘Mynheer! als uw fraaj schrift kwam heden voor mijne oogen,
Door Uw’ goedaardigheid was ikheel opgetogen,
En zooveel in mijn geest zooveel in’t hart opklom,
Dat mijne tong verbleef med vijftig taalen stom.
Nu, opdat ik niet schijn U een ondankbaar wezen,
Bid ik U in mijn hart alleen te willen lezen.[460]
Joseph Mezzofanti.
_Rome, den 17 April, 1837._’
After writing these lines, he asked me if there were any
mistakes in them, and, if so, if I would be good enough to
point them out to him. I then noticed the word _fraaj_ in the
first line, knowing he would reply that the letter _i_ at
the end of a word should be replaced by a _j_. The _aa_ in
_taalen_, in the fourth line, he justified by a reference to
the Flemish grammar which he used at the time. As for the _d_
in the preposition _med_, which occurs in the same line, he
contended that this was the proper orthography of the word, as
it was an abbreviation of _mede_. I would have been greatly
surprised at all this, if I had not previously had occasion
to admire the delicate ear which this giant of linguistic
learning possessed for the subtleties of pronunciation, and the
wonderful perspicacity of his orthographical system: especially
as he had expressed to me his just disapprobation of the
foreign words which some of our countrymen are letting slip
into their conversation. He had already given proof to another
traveller from Holland that he was perfectly acquainted with
the difference between the words _nimmer_ and _nooit_, so that
he hardly ever used one for the other.”
Side by side with the Dutch traveller’s sketch, may be placed a still
more lively account of Mezzofanti by another visitor of the Vatican,
the poet Frankl, a Bohemian by birth, but chiefly known by his German
writings. This sketch, besides the allusion to Mezzofanti’s skill
in the poet’s native language, Bohemian, contains a slight, but not
uninteresting specimen of Mezzofanti’s German vocabulary, and, moreover,
illustrates very curiously the attention which he seems always to have
given to the general principles of harmony, and his acquaintance with
the metrical capabilities of more than one ancient and modern language.
The Signor Luzatto, to whose introductory letter Frankl refers, was a
friend of Mezzofanti—a distinguished Italian Jew—himself an accomplished
linguist, and well known to oriental scholars by his contributions to the
_Archives Israelites_, and by a work on the Babylonian Inscriptions.
“Having furnished myself,” writes Herr Frankl, “with a letter
of introduction from Luzatto of Padua, I went to the Vatican
Library, of which Mezzofanti was the head. His arrival was
looked for every moment; and I occupied the interval by
examining the long, well lighted gallery of antiquities which
is outside, and which also leads into the halls that contain
the masterpieces of ancient art in marble. I was in the act of
reading the inscription upon one of the many marble slabs which
are inserted in the wall, when a stranger who, except myself,
was the sole occupant of the gallery, said to me; ‘Here comes
Monsignor Mezzofanti!’
An undersized man, somewhat disposed towards corpulency, in a
violet cassock falling to the ancle, and a white surplice which
reached to the knee, came briskly, almost hurriedly, towards
us. He carried his four-cornered violet cap in his hand, and
thus I was better able to note his lively, though not striking
features, and his grey hair still mingled with black. About his
lips played a smile, which I afterwards observed to be their
habitual expression. He appeared to be not far from sixty. When
he came sufficiently near, I advanced to meet him with a silent
bow, and he at once received me with the greeting in German,
‘_Seyn Sie mir willkommen!_’ (‘You are welcome.’)
‘I am surprised, Monsignor,’ I replied, ‘that you address me
in German, although I have not spoken a word as yet.’ ‘Oh,’
said he, ‘a great many foreigners of all countries come to
visit me, and I have acquired a certain routine—pardon me, I
should have said a certain ‘knack,’ (die Routine—verzeihen
sie, ‘die gewandtheit’ sollte ich sagen,—) of discovering
their nationality from their physiognomy, or rather from their
features.’
‘I am sorry, Monsignor,’ I replied, ‘that it is my ill fortune
to belie this knack of yours. I am a native of Bohemia,
although not of Bohemian race, and Bohemian is my mother
tongue.’
‘To what nationality, then, do you belong?’ asked Mezzofanti in
Bohemian, without a moment’s hesitation.”
He afterwards changed the language to Hebrew.
Frankl adds, that on a second visit to the reading room of the Vatican,
he found the gay animated Monsignor in the ordinary black dress of a
priest; and took this opportunity to present him a copy of his “Colombo,”
in which he had written the inscription, “_Dem Sprachen-chamæleon
Mezzofanti._” (“To Mezzofanti, the Chameleon of language”.)
“‘Ha,’ said Mezzofanti, with a smile, ‘I have had numberless
compliments paid me; but this is a spick and span new one,’
(funkelnagel-neu.)
Upon this word he laid a special emphasis, as if to call my
attention to his well known familiarity with unusual words.
‘I see,’ he continued, ‘you have adopted the Italian form of
cantos and stanzas.’
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘the Germans nowadays, for the most part, do
homage to the Italian forms.’
‘At last!’ said he, with a smile not unmixed with triumph.
‘Schlegel, Bürger, and Platen,’ I said, ‘have written sonnets
quite as harmonious as Petrarch’s, and Tasso’s stanza has found
its rival among the Germans.’
‘Well, at all events,’ replied Mezzofanti, ‘the Germans have
not succeeded in hexameters. Klopstock’s are incorrect and
inharmonious. What harmony is there in the line:—
‘Sing, unsterbliche Seele, des sündigen Menschen Erlösung!’
Where is the cæsura—speaking to you, I should say,
_abschnitt_—in this line? Voss, it is true, wrote correctly;
and yet an Italian will hang down his chin whenever Voss’s
hexameters are read. As for Goethe, what sort of poetry is his?
You know his elegies—for example, the hexameter which ends
——‘blaustrumpf und violet strumpf!’[461]
Surely he must have taken the Germans for a hard-hearted
nation!’
I quoted for him the burlesque couplet which was composed in
ridicule of Schiller’s and Goethe’s distichs.
‘In Weimar und Jenam acht man Hexameter wie den,
Und die Pentameter sind noch erbärmlicher.’
He repeated it at once after me, and seemed to wish to impress
it on his mind.
‘Do you know,’ he pursued, ‘what language I place before all
others, next to Greek and Italian, for constructive capability
and rhythmical harmoniousness?—The Hungarian. I know some
pieces of the later poets of Hungary, the melody of which
took me completely by surprise. Mark its future history, and
you will see in it a sudden outburst of poetic genius, which
will fully confirm my prediction. The Hungarians themselves
do not seem to be aware what a treasure they have in their
language.’[462]
‘It would be in the highest degree interesting,’ said I,
‘if you would draw up a comparative sketch of the metrical
capabilities of all the various languages that you speak. Who
is there that could speak on the subject with more authority?’
He received my suggestion with a smile, but made no reply.
He seems, indeed, to content himself with the glory of being
handed down to posterity as the Crœsus of languages, without
leaving to them the slightest permanent fruit of his immense
treasures of science.”[463]
Among these less commonly cultivated languages, I may also class Maltese.
In this Mezzofanti was equally at home. As Maltese can scarcely be said
to possess anything like a literature,[464] it may be presumed that he
acquired it chiefly by oral instruction, partly from occasional visitors
to Rome, partly from some Maltese servants who were in the Propaganda
at the time of his arrival. This much at least is certain, that, in the
year 1840, he spoke the language freely and familiarly. Father Andrew
Schembri, of La Valetta, during a residence in Rome in that year, having
conducted the preparatory spiritual exercises for a number of youths to
whom the Cardinal administered the first communion in the church of
San Vito, met his Eminence at breakfast in the convent attached to this
church. No sooner was Father Schembri presented to him as a Maltese, than
he entered into conversation with him in his own language.[465] Another
Maltese ecclesiastic, Canon Falzou of the cathedral, met the Cardinal in
Rome at a later date, in 1845-6. In the course of his sojourn he “had
frequent opportunities, for a period of eleven months, of conversing with
him in Maltese, which he spoke very well.”[466]
I need scarcely observe that, although in the capital and the principal
towns of Malta, the prevailing language is Italian, the dialect spoken
by the rural population contains a large admixture of foreign elements,
chiefly Arabic and Greek. To what a degree the former language enters
into the composition of Maltese, may be inferred from the well-known
literary imposture of Vella, who attempted to pass off a forgery of his
own as an Arabic history of Sicily under the Arabs.[467]
Before closing this chapter, I shall add a short note of the Count de
Lavradio, Portuguese ambassador in London, and brother of the Marquis de
Lavradio, who for many years held the same office in Rome. It regards
Mezzofanti’s acquaintance with Portuguese, another language which very
few foreigners take the trouble to acquire.
“I have always heard,” writes his excellency, “both from my
brother and from other learned Portuguese who knew Cardinal
Mezzofanti, that he was perfectly conversant with the
Portuguese language, and that he spoke it with facility and
with elegance. I myself have read letters written by him in
excellent Portuguese; particularly one very remarkable one,
addressed by him to the learned M. de Souza, for the purpose of
conveying his thanks for the offer which M. de Souza had made
to him, of a copy of the magnificent edition of Camoens, which
he had published in 1817.”
The Marquis de Lavradio here referred to, while ambassador at Rome,
expressed the same opinion to Cardinal Wiseman. The Marquis, in
Mezzofanti’s Portuguese, was particularly struck by the precision of
his language and the completeness of his mastery over even the delicate
forms of conversational phraseology. He instanced in particular one of
his letters. It was perfect, he said, not only in vocabulary but in form,
even down to the minutest phrases of conventional compliment and formal
courtesy.
CHAPTER XII.
[1834-1836.]
I resume the narrative.
The Librarian of the Vatican, or as he is more properly called the
“Librarian of the Roman Church,” (_Bibliotecario della Chiesa Romana_,)
is always a Cardinal, commonly the Cardinal Secretary of State. His
duties as such, however, are in great measure nominal; and the details
of the management practically rest with the _Primo Custode_, or chief
keeper of the Library, who is assisted by a second keeper, and seven
_scrittori_, or secretaries, among whom are distributed the seven
departments,—Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Italian, and modern
foreign languages—into which the books are classified.
The Cardinal Librarian at the time of Mezzofanti’s appointment was
Cardinal Della Somaglia, who had been Secretary of State under the Popes
Leo XII. and Pius VIII.; and who, although, owing to his great age, he
had retired from the more active office of Secretary, still retained that
of Librarian of the Vatican. Mezzofanti’s colleague as _Secondo Custode_,
was Monsignor Andrea Molza, an orientalist of high reputation, and
Professor of Hebrew in the Roman University.
Attached to the Basilica of St. Peter’s, and subject to the chapter of
that church, is a college for the education of ecclesiastics, (popularly
called _Pietrini_,) whose striking and picturesque costume seldom fails
to attract the notice of strangers. The Rector of this college is always
a member of the chapter, and is elected by the canons themselves from
among their number. Immediately upon his nomination by the Pope as member
of the chapter, Mezzofanti was appointed by his brother canons to the
office of Rector of this college, which he continued to hold till his
elevation to the Cardinalate. The office is in great part honorary;
and Mezzofanti, in addition to his gratuitous services, devoted a
considerable part of his income from other sources to the improvement
of the establishment, and especially to the support of many meritorious
students, whose limited means would have excluded them from its
advantages but for his disinterested generosity.
He was also named Consulter of the Sacred Congregation for the correction
of oriental books, and a censor of the academy.
It need hardly be said that, from the moment of his arrival in Rome,
he had been received with warm and ready welcome in every scientific
and literary circle. With Monsignor Mai, both during his residence at
the Vatican and after his removal to the Propaganda, he was on terms of
most friendly intercourse, and the confidant of many of his literary
undertakings. The most distinguished professors of the several schools
of Rome, Graziosi, Fornari, Modena, De Vico, Perrone, Palma, Manera, De
Luca, vied with each other in doing him honour. He was elected into all
the leading literary societies and academies of the city; and soon after
his appointment as Vatican Librarian, he read in the “Academy of the
Catholic Religion,” a paper which attracted much notice at the time: “On
the Services of the Church in promoting the Diffusion of True Knowledge,
and the Development of the Human Mind.”
The Pope, Gregory XVI., himself, a great lover of oriental studies,
received him into his most cordial intimacy. In the one brief hour of
recreation which this great and zealous pontiff, who retained even in the
Vatican the spirit and the observances of the cloister, allowed himself
after dinner, Mezzofanti was his frequent companion. The privilege of
entrée was open to him at all times; but it was specially understood that
at this more private and informal hour, when the Pope loved to see his
most cherished friends around him, Mezzofanti should present himself at
least once every week.
In like manner his early friend, Giustiniani, also an accomplished
oriental scholar, lost no time, on Mezzofanti’s coming to Rome, in
resuming with him the intimate friendship which they had contracted
during his Eminence’s residence at Bologna, as Cardinal Legate.
Mezzofanti used to spend every Wednesday evening with Cardinal
Giustiniani; and on one occasion, when Dr. Wiseman called at the
Cardinal’s, he found them reading Arabic together. He met with equal
kindness from the Cardinal Secretary, Bernetti, and from Cardinal
Albani, who had both known him at Bologna. The venerable old Cardinal
Pacca, too, took especial delight in his company. He was a constant
guest at the literary assemblies in the palace of Cardinal Zurla,
known to general readers as the historian of Marco Polo and the early
Venetian travellers.[468] On Pentecost Sunday, 1834, the anniversary
of the Feast of Tongues, the Cardinal gave a dinner in honour of the
great Polyglot, at which many foreigners (one of whom was the present
Cardinal Wiseman) speaking a great variety of languages, and all the most
distinguished linguists of Rome, were present. Each of the guests carried
away a feeling of wonder, almost as though his own language had been
the only subject of Mezzofanti’s extraordinary display. Signor Drach,
the learned Jew, named in a former page,[469] declared that he had not
thought it possible for any but a born Hebrew to speak both Scriptural
and Rabbinical Hebrew with the fluency and correctness which Mezzofanti
was able to command. A Polish priest named Ozarowski,[470] who sat next
to Mezzofanti, assured the late Dr. Cox, of Southampton, that, had he
not known Mezzofanti personally, he would, from his conversation, have
believed him to be a highly educated Pole; and he added that, “foreigner
as this great linguist was, his familiarity with Polish literature
and history completely threw his own into the shade.” Nor was this
extraordinary faculty confined to the literature and language alone. A
Polish lady was so astonished, not only at his knowledge of the language,
but at his “acquaintance with the country, and even with individuals,
(for many of whom he inquired by name, describing where they lived, what
was their occupation, &c.,”) that, as she assured Cardinal Wiseman, she
“could not believe that he had not resided, or at least travelled, in
Poland.”
* * * * *
The exact number of languages to which this extraordinary facility
extended, had long been a matter of speculation. Mezzofanti
himself—averse to everything that bore the appearance of display—although
repeatedly questioned on the subject, generally evaded the inquiry, or
passed it off with a jesting answer. It is probable too, that he was
deterred from any enumeration by the difficulty of distinguishing between
languages properly so-called, and dialects. The first distinct statement
of his own, bearing directly upon the point, which I have been able to
trace on good authority to himself, was made soon after his appointment
as Vatican Librarian, in an interview with a gentleman of Italian family,
long resident in England, who was introduced to him by Dr. Cox, at that
time vice-rector of the English College. The particulars of the interview
were communicated to me by Dr. Cox himself, in a letter which I received
from him a very short time before his death. The gentleman referred
to was Count Mazzinghi, the well known composer, who, if not born in
England, had resided in London for so long a time, that in language,
habits, and associations, he was a thorough Englishman.
“On one occasion,” says Dr. Cox, “when going to the Vatican
Library to visit Mezzofanti, I took with me an English family,
who were most desirous of being introduced to him. Mezzofanti
remonstrated good-humouredly with me for bringing people to see
him, as if he were worthy of being visited, but he received our
party with his habitual politeness.
The gentleman whom I introduced, begged as a favour that he
would tell him how many languages he could speak. ‘I have
heard many different accounts,’ he said, ‘but will you tell me
yourself?’
After some hesitation, Mezzofanti answered, ‘Well! if you must
know, I speak forty-five languages.’
‘Forty-five!’ replied my friend. ‘How, sir, have you possibly
contrived to acquire so many?’
‘I cannot explain it,’ said Mezzofanti. ‘Of course God has
given me this peculiar power: but if you wish to know how I
preserve these languages, I can only say, that, when once I
hear the meaning of a word in any language, I never forget it.’
He then begged us to excuse him, and called one of the
librarians to show us the principal curiosities of the library.
On our return, we found him seated with a young German artist,
who, he told us, was going to Constantinople. ‘I am teaching
him Turkish before he goes,’ he continued, ‘and as he speaks
modern Greek very well, I use that language as the means of my
instruction. I had the honour,’ he subjoined, ‘of giving some
lessons on modern Greek to your poet, Lord Byron, when he was
in Bologna.’
“I should add,” said Dr. Cox “that I frequently heard him
speak of Byron, and that his criticisms upon his works, and
his reflections on the peculiar characteristics of his poetry,
would have been worthy of a place in a Review.”
While he thus professed, however, to speak forty-five languages, he took
care, as in his similar conversation with Dr. Tholuck, to convey that his
knowledge of some of them was much less perfect than of others.
Nor did it remain stationary at this limit. Its progress, even while
he resided at Bologna, had been steady, and tolerably uniform. But the
increased facilities for the study which he enjoyed in Rome, enabled him
to add more rapidly to his store. Cardinal Wiseman assures me, that,
before he left Rome, Mezzofanti’s reply to the inquiry as to the number
of his languages, was that which has since become a sort of proverb,
“Fifty, and Bolognese.” Even as early as 1837, Mezzofanti himself, in his
extempore reply to Dr. Wap’s Dutch verses, as we have seen, used words to
the same effect:—
Mijne tong verbleef med _vijftig taalen_ stom,
I have been anxious to obtain, on this interesting point, an authentic
report from persons who enjoyed almost daily opportunities of intercourse
with Mezzofanti at this period, for the purpose of testing more
satisfactorily, the accuracy of a contemporary sketch of him, which
appeared in a work of considerable pretensions, published in Germany,
in 1837—Fleck’s “Scientific Tour,”—which describes him, from popular
report, as speaking “some thirty languages and dialects, but of course,
not all with equal readiness.” As M. Fleck is in many things, an echo
of the supercilious criticisms of those who, while they admitted in
general terms the marvellous character of Mezzofanti’s talent, contrived,
nevertheless, to depreciate it in detail, it may be well to afford the
reader an opportunity of judging it for himself.[471]
“Of middle size and somewhat stooping in his gait,” writes M.
Fleck, “Mezzofanti’s appearance is nevertheless agreeable and
benevolent. Since he has been Prefect of the Vatican in Mai’s
stead, I have had occasion to see him daily. His talent is
that of a linguist, not that of a philologist. One forenoon in
the Vatican, he spoke modern Greek to a young man who came in,
Hebrew with a rabbi or ‘scrittore’ of the library, Russian with
a magnate who passed through to the manuscript rooms, Latin and
German with me, Danish with a young Danish archæologist who was
present, English with the English,—Italian with many. German he
speaks well, but almost too softly, like a Hamburgher; Latin
he does not speak particularly well, and his English is just
as middling. There is something about him that reminds me of a
parrot—he does not seem to abound in ideas; but his talent is
the more deserving of admiration, that the Italians have great
difficulties to cope with in learning a foreign language. He
will always remain a wonderful phenomenon, if not a miracle in
the dogmatic sense. It is said to have been observed, that he
often repeats the same ideas in conversation. He was entirely
dependant on Mai in his position in the Vatican, especially at
the commencement of his tenure of office, and manifested some
weakness in this respect. He told me he had learned Russian at
Bologna from a Pole, and so had been in danger of introducing
Polonicisms into his Russian. In the French wars, his visits
to the hospitals gave him an excellent opportunity of seeing
and conversing with men of different nations, and the march
of the Austrians made him acquainted with the dialect of the
gipsies. Thrice, he told me, he has been dangerously ill,
and in a kind of ‘confusion of languages.’ He is altogether
a man of a sensitive nervous system, and much more decidedly
and more pusillanimously attached to Catholicism than Mai.
He has never travelled, except to Rome and Naples; and to
Naples he went to study Chinese at the institute for the
education of natives of China as missionaries, and there he
fell dangerously ill. He seeks the society of foreigners
very eagerly, in order to converse with every one in his own
language. As a special favourite of the Pope, he enlivens
his holiness’s after-dinner hours (Verdaungs-stunden), and
is often invited to him in the afternoon: by his manifold
acquirements and the winning urbanity of his manners, he seems
as if born for the society of a court. He has made himself
popular among the learned foreigners who visit the Vatican,
by permitting them to continue their labours in the library
during certain days after the beginning of the holidays, on
which the library had ordinarily been closed with a view to
the adjustment and supervision of the MSS. His predilection
for acquiring foreign idioms is so strong that he observes and
imitates the provincial dialects and accents. He has carried
this so far, that, for example, he can distinguish the Hamburgh
and Hanoverian German very well. Even of Wendish he is not
ignorant. This is, indeed, a gift of no very high order; but
it is a gift nevertheless, and, when exercised in its more
dazzling points of practice, sets one in amazement. Mezzofanti
understands this well. The Italians admire this distinguished
and unassuming man, as the eighth wonder of the world, and
believe his reputation to be not only European, but Asiatic
and African also. He is said to speak some thirty languages
and dialects; but of course not all with equal readiness. The
Persian missionary, Sebastiani, who, in Napoleon’s time, played
an important political part in Persia, was eagerly sought after
by Mezzofanti when in Rome, that he might learn modern Persian
from him; Sebastiani, however, showed himself disinclined to
his society, which pained Mezzofanti much. Mezzofanti has been
called the modern Mithridates, and thought very highly of
altogether. In an intellectual point of view, many learned men,
even Italians, are certainly above him: his reading appears
at times shallow, owing to its having been so scattered, and
it has occurred that he has often repeated the same thing to
strangers; but his great and peculiar linguistic talent, which
seems as it were to spring from some innate sense, cannot be
denied; his good nature and politeness to the students who
frequent the Vatican are very great; and I am therefore unable
to comprehend how Blume (Iter Italicum, 1. 153,) can speak
of the opposite experience of learned travellers during his
residence at Bologna.
Mezzofanti is fond of perpetuating his memory in the albums of
his friends. He wrote in mine:—
Ἔρχεται ἀνθρώποις λαθραίως ἔσχατον ἦμαρ,
Oἱ δὲ περὶ ζωῆς πολλὰ μονοῦσι μάτην.
Χριστέ, σὺ μὲν πάντων ἀρχὴ, σù δὲ καί τέλος ἐσσί;
Ἔν τε σὸι ἐιρήνη ἐστὶ καὶ ἡσυχίη.”[472]
I shall leave the greater part of these strictures, from their very
generality, to be judged by the facts and statements actually recorded
in these pages; merely observing that on all questions which involve the
depth and accuracy of Mezzofanti’s knowledge of particular subjects,
those only are entitled to speak with authority, who, like Bucheron,
Libri, and others elsewhere referred to, took the trouble to test it by
actual inquiry. It will be enough to say that, whenever M. Fleck has
ventured into details, his criticisms are palpably unjust.
For instance, even at Rome, with all its proverbial fastidiousness, the
singular beauty of Mezzofanti’s Latin conversation which Fleck describes
as “not particularly good,” was freely and universally admitted; and
Bucheron, the Piedmontese professor who came to Bologna prepossessed with
the idea that Mezzofanti’s Latin scholarship was meagre and superficial,
was obliged to confess, after a long and searching conversation, that his
acquaintance with the Latin language and literature was as exact as it
was comprehensive.
In like manner M. Fleck takes upon him to pronounce that Mezzofanti’s
English was “just as middling” as his Latin. Now I need hardly recall
the testimonies of Mr. Harford, Stewart Rose, Byron, Lady Morgan, Lady
Blessington, and every other English traveller who conversed with him,
as completely refuting this depreciatory estimate. The truth is, that
most of the English and Irish visitors with whom I have spoken, have
agreed with me in considering that, in his manner of speaking English,
the absence of all foreign peculiarities was so complete as to render it
difficult, in a short conversation, to detect that he was a foreigner.
“One day,” Cardinal Wiseman relates, “Mezzofanti then a prelate, visited
me, and shortly after an Irish gentleman called who had arrived that
moment in Rome. I was called out, and left them together for some time.
On my returning, Mezzofanti took leave. I asked the other who he thought
that gentleman was. He replied, looking surprised at the question, ‘_An
English Priest_, I suppose.’”
On another occasion, about the same period, the late Dr. Baines, Vicar
Apostolic of the Western district, having been present at one of the
polyglot exhibitions in the Propaganda, and having there witnessed the
extraordinary versatility of Mezzofanti’s powers, returned with him after
the exhibition. “We dined together,” said Dr. Baines, “and I entreated
him, having been in the tower of Babel all the morning, to let us stick
to English for the rest of the day. Accordingly, we did stick to English,
which he spoke as fluently as we do, and with the same accuracy, not
only of grammar but of idiom. His only trip was in saying, ‘That was
before the time when I remember,’ instead of ‘before my time.’ Once,
too, I thought him mistaken in the pronunciation of a word. But when
I returned to England, I found that my way was either provincial or
old-fashioned, and that I was wrong and he was right.”[473]
Nor was this fluency in speaking English confined to the ordinary topics
of conversation, or to the more common-place words of the language. His
vocabulary was as extensive and as various as it was select. A curious
example of this, not only as regards English but also in reference to
German, was told to me by Cardinal Wiseman.
One broiling day he and Mr. Monckton Milnes were walking in company with
Mezzofanti across the scorching pavement of the Piazza SS. Apostoli. They
were speaking German at the time.
“Well!” said Mr. Milnes, utterly overcome by the heat and glare, “this
is what you may call a—what is the German,” he added, turning to Dr.
Wiseman, “for ‘_sweltering_?’”
“‘_Schwülig_,’ of course,” suggested Mezzofanti, without a moment’s pause!
I have heard several similar anecdotes illustrating the minuteness of
his acquaintance with other languages; and when it is remembered, that
his stock of words was in great measure drawn from books, and those
generally the classics of their respective languages, it need hardly
be considered matter of surprise, that, as, in English, Lady Morgan
found “his turn of phrase and peculiar selection of words to be those
of the “Spectator,” so other foreigners have been struck by finding an
Italian model his conversational style upon the highest and most refined
standards in their respective literatures. One instance may suffice as
a specimen. Professor Carlson of the university of Upsala, who was for
a considerable time engaged in the Vatican Library, in examining the
papers of Queen Christina, and was thus thrown for weeks into constant
communication with Mezzofanti, assured my friend Mr. Wackerbarth of the
same university, that Mezzofanti spoke the language perfectly—“quite
like a native;” and that not only as regards the words, but also as
regards the accent and rhythm of the language, which is very difficult.
The Swedish and Danish languages are very much alike, though differing
widely in accent and musical character. The Professor declared, that
Mezzofanti was perfectly at home in both, as well as regards their
affinities as their differences. He added, that if there were any fault
to find with Mezzofanti’s speaking of Swedish, it was _perhaps a trifle
too grammatically accurate_: if that can be considered as a fault. This
may perhaps be better understood when explained, that in Swedish the
difference between the spoken and written language, is perhaps more
than in most languages, many words being inflected in the written,
but not in the spoken language. Thus the verb “kan,” (can,) is in the
plural, “kunna;” but in conversation the plural is “kan,” the same
as the singular. Now, from the anecdote already told regarding young
Uttini,[474] it appears that Mezzofanti was almost entirely self-taught
in Swedish; and I infer from the catalogue of his library that his course
of Swedish reading lay exclusively among the purest classics of that
language. I am informed by Mr. Wackerbarth, that Count Oxenstjerna, son
of the classical Swedish translator of Milton and Dante, who conversed
with him at Rome, found him thoroughly familiar with his father’s
works,[475] and in general critically acquainted with all the masters of
Swedish style.
Indeed there is hardly any circumstance connected with this extraordinary
gift more calculated to excite wonder than the extent and accuracy of his
acquaintance with the various literatures of the languages to which he
had applied himself. The fact is attested by so many witnesses that it is
impossible to doubt it. Numerous instances have been already cited; but
I cannot pass from this period of his life without adding a few others,
chiefly regarding oriental languages, taken almost at random from many
independent testimonies which have been communicated to me by persons who
enjoyed his intimacy during the early years of his residence at Rome.
In a commission for the revision of the liturgical books of the Armenian
rite appointed by Pope Gregory XVI., he was associated with a native
Armenian scholar, Father Arsenius Angiarakian, Abbot of the Monastery of
St. Gregory the Illuminator. This learned ecclesiastic, in a letter dated
August 15, 1855, assures me that during the frequent opportunities of
observation which a literary inquiry of such exceeding delicacy afforded,
he was astonished (_ho dovuto stupire_) at the profound knowledge of
the ancient language of Armenia, exhibited by his associate. He adds
that Mezzofanti “spoke the vulgar Armenian with perfect freedom, and in
all its dialects.” Mgr. Hurmuz, the Armenian Archbishop of Sirace, in a
letter of May 24th, in the same year, attests that Mezzofanti’s Armenian
scholarship “was not confined to the knowledge of the language, ancient
and modern; he also knew the history of the Armenian nation, and of
science and art among them, together with their periods of progress and
decay.”
Father Arsenius frequently introduced oriental visitors, especially Turks
and Persians, to Mezzofanti. Ahmed Fethi Pasha, with his Secretary,
Sami Effendi, was presented to him on his way to London in 1836. After
a long interview he declared to Father Arsenius, that “Mezzofanti was
not only perfectly at home in the vocabulary, the structure, and the
pronunciation, both of Turkish and of Persian, but thoroughly and
profoundly versed (_possedeva per eccellenza_) in both literatures—being
master of the great classic prose writers and poets of both, and their
literary history.” He received the same assurances as to both languages,
at various times, from Redschid Pasha, Ali Pasha, Fuad Effendi, and
Shekib Effendi.
A native Syrian whom M. Antoine d’Abbadie met in Rome in 1839, assured
him that “Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Arabic and fluency in speaking it
were both equally admirable.”[476]
Speaking of the literature of Greece, Monsignor Missir, the learned Greek
Archbishop of Irenopolis who has for many years resided at Rome, declares
(in a letter of May 21st, 1855,) his belief that “Mezzofanti was as fully
master of the ancient Greek, as he was of Latin or Italian, and that
there was scarce a Greek author, ancient or modern, sacred or profane,
whom he had not read.” The abate Pietro Matranga,[477] a Greek of Sicily,
and professor of Greek in the Greek College of St. Athanasius, confirms
this impression to a great extent. He states (August 17th, 1855) that “in
examining the students of the Greek College, (as was his custom for many
years) in the classical authors, both the orators and the tragedians,
Mezzofanti never had occasion to take a book into his hands; being able
on the passage being indicated by the professor, to repeat it from
memory.”
A Polish priest named Ozarowski, stated as much for Polish literature to
Dr. Cox.
Nay, even in such an out-of-the-way literature as that of Sicily,
the same abate Matranga assures me that he was equally versed. “He
delighted,” says the abate, “in repeating from memory the poetry of the
Sicilian poet, Giovanni Meli,”[478] a writer who although of the highest
fame among his countrymen, is hardly known even by name outside of his
native island.
I cannot close, however, without saying that I have not found any
evidence of his having being equally familiar with another exceedingly
important literature of the East—the ancient Syriac. Vague statements
I have heard in abundance; but no one to whom I have had access could
speak with certainty; and Signor Matteo Schiahuan, professor of that
language in the Propaganda, considered him but moderately versed therein,
(_una mediocre cognizione_.) This will appear the more difficult of
explanation, as the Syriac department of his catalogue is tolerably
extensive, and is abundantly supplied with at least the elementary books
of that language.
CHAPTER XIII.
[1836-1838.]
One evening about this time, Dr. Wiseman, meeting Mezzofanti in the
Piazza di Spagna, inquired where he was going.
“To the Propaganda,” he replied; “I have to give a lesson there.”
“In what language?” asked Dr. Wiseman.
“In Californian,” said Mezzofanti. “I am teaching it to the Californian
youths whom we have there.”
“Californian!” exclaimed his friend, “From whom can you possibly have
learned that out-of-the-way tongue?”
“_From themselves_,” replied Mezzofanti: “and now I am teaching it to
them grammatically.”
This interesting anecdote illustrates another curious phase of
Mezzofanti’s marvellous faculty—the manner in which he dealt with
a language, not only new to himself, but entirely unwritten,
unsystematized, and, in a word, destitute of all the ordinary aids and
appliances of study.
Two native Californians, children of one of the many Indian tribes of
that peninsula, were sent to Rome to be educated at the Propaganda. One
of these died not very long after his arrival; the other, whose native
name was Tac, and who exhibited much more talent than his companion,
lived in the Propaganda for about three years, but eventually sunk under
the effects of the Roman climate, and perhaps, of the confinement and
unwonted habits of collegiate life. To these youths, from the day of
their arrival, Mezzofanti attached himself with all the interest which a
new language always possessed for him.[479]
The Indians of the Californian peninsula are broken up into several
independent tribes, the principal of which are three in number, the
Picos, the Waicuros, and the Laymones. Their languages are as various
as their subdivisions of race. In the days of the Spanish missionaries,
there could hardly be found any two or three missions in which the same
dialect was spoken;[480] insomuch that the fathers of these missions have
never succeeded in doing for the native language, what they have done for
most of the other languages of Northern and Central America—reducing it
to an intelligible grammatical system.[481] Upon Mezzofanti, therefore,
in his intercourse with these youths, devolved all the trouble of
discovering the grammatical structure of the Californian language, and
of reducing it to rules. It was a most curious process. He began by
making his pupils recite the Lord’s Prayer, until he picked up first the
general meaning, and afterwards the particular sounds, and what may be
called the rhythm of the language. The next step was to ascertain and to
classify the particles, both affixes and suffixes; to distinguish verbs
from nouns, and substantives from adjectives; to discover the principal
inflexions of both. Having once mastered the preliminaries, his power
of generalising seemed rather to be an instinct than an exercise of the
reasoning faculty. With him the knowledge of words led, almost without an
effort, to the power of speaking.
I have been assured by the Rev. James Doyle, who was a student of
the Propaganda at the time, and who had frequent opportunities of
witnessing Mezzofanti’s conversation with these youths, that his
success was complete, at least so far as could be judged from external
appearance—from his fluency, his facility of speech, and all the other
outward indications of familiarity.[482] Some time before the arrival of
these Californians, and soon after Mezzofanti’s coming to Rome, Bishop
Fenwick, of Cincinnati, had sent for education to the Propaganda two
North American Indians, youths of the Ottawa tribe, then residing near
Mackinaw, at the upper end of Lake Michegan. The elder of these, named
Augustine Hamelin, was a half-breed, being the son of a French father;
the younger, whose Indian name was _Maccodobenesi_, (“the Blackbird,”)
was of pure Ottawa blood.[483] Unhappily, as almost invariably happens
in similar circumstances, the Indian, although a youth of much promise
and very remarkable piety, pined away in the College, and eventually
died from the bursting of a blood-vessel. Augustin Hamelin, the elder,
spent a considerable time in the Propaganda, where he studied with
great success, but in the end, being seized with blood-spitting, the
authorities of the College, apprehensive of a recurrence of the same
disease which had befallen Maccodobenesi, judged it more prudent to
send him back to America. In consequence, he rejoined his tribe in the
year 1835, or 1836. Mrs. Jameson, who in her “Rambles among the Red
Men,” speaks of the Roman Catholic Ottawa converts in general, as “in
appearance, dress, intelligence, industry, and general civilization,
superior to the converts of all other communions,” refers in particular
to “a well-looking young man, dressed in European fashion and in black,
of mixed blood, French and Indian, who had been sent, when young, to be
educated at the Propaganda, and was lately come to settle as a teacher
and interpreter among his people.”[484] This youth, there can be no
doubt, was Hamelin. Having come soon afterwards to Washington, as one
of a deputation from his tribe to negociate a treaty with the United
States Government, he produced a great sensation by his high education,
his great general knowledge, and especially his skill in languages; and
on a subsequent occasion, in 1840, Bishop O’Connor, of Pittsburgh, who
had known him in the Propaganda, and to whom I am indebted for these
particulars regarding him, encountered him in Philadelphia, engaged in a
similar mission to the American Government.
The well-known Indian philologer, M. du Ponceau, met him about the same
time, and speaks with much praise of his intelligence and ability. It
was from Hamelin that M. du Ponceau obtained the information regarding
the Ottawa language which he has used in the comparative vocabulary of
Indian languages, appended to his _Memoire sur le Systeme Grammaticale
des Langues Indiennes_.[485]
Whether Mezzofanti learned the Ottawa dialect from these youths I have
not positively ascertained. Indeed it is difficult to say at what precise
time he first directed his attention to the Indian languages of North
America. He certainly knew something of them before he left Bologna.
He read for M. Libri, in 1830, a book in one of the Indian languages.
Prince Lewis Lucian Bonaparte too, in a communication with which he
has honoured me, mentions a conversation with him at Bologna, in which
he spoke of these Indian languages, and alluded to one in particular in
which the letter _B_ is wanting; “not,” as he explained to the Prince,
“on account of any peculiarity in the genius of the language which
excludes this sound, but because the Indians of this tribe wear a heavy
ornament suspended by a ring from the under lip, which by dragging the
under lip downwards, and thus preventing its contact with the upper,
renders it impossible for them to produce the sound of _B_ or any other
labial.” It is probable therefore, that even before he first met Hamelin
and his companion, Mezzofanti had already learnt something of these
Indian languages; and as, in his conversation with Dr. Kip, some years
later, the only languages which he mentioned as known to him are the
Chippewa, the Delaware, and the Algonquin, it is most likely that it
was the first of these—a variety of which is spoken by the Ottawas—that
formed his medium of conversation with these youths. On this point, Dr.
O’Connor is unable to speak from his own knowledge.
The Indian language which he knew best, however, was the Algonquin, the
parent of a large progeny of dialects; and this he learnt not from the
natives, but from Father Thavenet, of the congregation of St. Sulpice,
for many years a missionary among that tribe, and perhaps more profoundly
skilled in their language[486] than any European scholar before his time.
Of the Algonquin Mezzofanti became completely master—a success which can
only be appreciated by those who understand the peculiar,[487] and to a
European entirely novel structure of these languages.
* * * * *
But whatever uncertainty may exist as to the manner in which he acquired
these particular languages, there are many others with regard to which it
cannot be doubted that he turned most industriously to account, during
these years, the many resources supplied by the Propaganda, and that to
this noble institution he was indebted for many of his later acquisitions.
It may perhaps be remembered, that, when Dr. Tholuck saw him in 1830,
and changed quite suddenly to Arabic in the midst of a conversation in
German, although he replied in that language “without hesitation and
quite correctly,” yet he “spoke very slowly, and, as it were, composing
the words one with another.” Now Dr. O’Connor informs me, that, from the
day of his first coming to the Propaganda, he “fastened upon” an Egyptian
student named Sciahuan, with whom he conversed continually in Arabic; and
that he also undertook (thus enjoying an opportunity of practice in two
languages at once,) to instruct in it a young Maltese, likewise a student
of the college. With what success this twofold practice was attended may
be inferred from the fact, already recorded, that, a few years later,
when M. d’Abbadie was in Rome (in 1839,) he was told by a native Syrian
that Mezzofanti’s fluency, as well as his knowledge of Arabic, were both
admirable.[488]
Another language which Mezzofanti, in 1839, told Dr. Tholuck he had
studied, but in which Dr. Tholuck had no means of trying him, was the
Albanese. The late M. Matranga mentioned that he also spoke this language
with some Albanian students who were in the Propaganda, soon after his
arrival in Rome: but that, as they were from upper Albania, and spoke a
corrupt half Turkish dialect of Albanese, he conversed but rarely with
them. I may add, however, that Signor Agostino Ricci who came to the
Propaganda in 1846, assured me, in a note written two years since,[489]
that, between 1846, and the Cardinal’s death in 1849, he had “repeatedly
conversed with him in Albanese, and that he spoke it very well.” (_assai
bene_.)
For Armenian, Turkish, and Greek, the Propaganda also supplied abundant
resources. The students, Hassun and Musabini—the first, it will be
recollected, whom Mezzofanti chanced to meet at his earliest visit—ever
afterwards continued his especial favourites and friends. With the former
he always spoke in Turkish, with the latter in Greek. A youth named
Tigrani, supplied him with practice in Armenian; but to this language,
which he enjoyed other opportunities of cultivating, he seldom devoted
much of the time which he spent in the Propaganda. It was the same for
most of the European languages which he constantly met outside. In the
college, for the most part, he confined himself to those which he had no
means of cultivating elsewhere.
Without wearying the reader, however, with further details, I shall
transcribe (although it regards a later period,) an interesting letter
received from the Rev. Charles Fernando, the missionary apostolic at the
Point of Galle in Ceylon, which enters briefly, but yet very fully and
distinctly, into the particulars of the languages which Mezzofanti used
to speak in the Propaganda, during the writer’s residence there as a
student. M. Fernando is a native of Colombo in the Island of Ceylon. He
came to Rome early in the year 1843, and remained until after the death
of Cardinal Mezzofanti.
“When I left Ceylon for Rome,” he writes, August 29, 1855,
“I knew but very little of the Cingalese language; a very
small vocabulary of domestic words, and a facility in reading
in Cingalese characters, without understanding the written
language, was the full stock of my knowledge when I reached
the college of the Propaganda. From such a master you might be
disposed to augur badly of the scholar. Still it was not so.
A few days after my arrival in college, I was introduced to his
Eminence in his polyglot library and study room in the college
itself. Cardinal Mezzofanti knew nothing of the Cingalese
before I went to the Propaganda, yet in a few days he was able
to assist me to put together a short plain discourse for our
academical exhibition of the Epiphany.
My own knowledge of the language, nevertheless, was not at that
time such as to warrant my saying that he knew the Cingalese,
or that he spoke it well. This, however, I can assert
confidently, that, after a few conversations with me, (I don’t
recollect having been with him above a dozen times for the
purpose,) he thoroughly entered into the nature and system of
the Cingalese language.
Among the other languages of Hindostan, I can only speak as to
one. In my time there were no students who spoke the Mahratta,
Canarese, or Malayalim; but I heard him speak Hindostani with a
student who is now missionary apostolic in Agra, where he was
brought up, the Rev. William Keegan.
The most remarkable characteristic of the Cardinal as a
linguist was his power of passing from one language to another
without the least effort. I recollect having often seen him
speak to a whole _Camerata_ of the Propaganda students,
addressing each in his own language or dialect in rapid
succession, and with such ease, fluency, and spirit, and so
much of the character and tone of each language that it used
to draw a burst of merry laughter from the company; every one
delighted to have heard his own language spoken by the amiable
Cardinal with its characteristic precision. I may mention the
names of many with whom the Cardinal thus conversed; with Moses
Ngau (who died in Pegu not long ago) in the Peguan language;
with Zaccaria Cohen in Abyssinian; with Gabriel, another
Abyssinian, in the Amariña dialect; with Sciata, an Egyptian,
in the Coptic; with Hollas in Armenian; with Churi[490] in
Arabic; with Barsciu in Syriac; with Abdo in Arabico-maltese,
(the Maltese speak a mixture of Arabic and Italian); in Tamulic
with Pedro Royapen, (of this, however, I am not so sure);
with Leang and Mong in Chinese; with Jakopski and Arabagiski
in Bulgarian; with Beriscia and Baddovani in Albanian. With
regard to Malay, Tibetan, and Mantchu, I cannot bear witness,
as there were no students who spoke those dialects in my time.
As for the European languages, I can assure you that I heard
the Cardinal speak a great variety, Polish, Hungarian,[491]
Rhetian, Swedish, Danish, German, Russian, &c.”
The caution with which M. Fernando speaks on the subject of Cingalese,
as well as of the rest of the Indian languages, makes his testimony in
other respects more valuable, inasmuch as I had frequently heard it said
in Rome that the Cardinal spoke “Hindostani and all the dialects of
India.” It needed, however, but a moment’s recollection of the number
and variety of these dialects, (several of which till very recently were
almost unknown even by name to Europeans,) to assure me that this was a
great exaggeration. I am inclined to think that his knowledge of Indian
languages lay entirely among those which are derived from the Sanscrit.
The notion of Colebrook and the philologers of his time, that all the
languages of India are of Sanscrit origin, is now commonly abandoned.
It is found that the languages of the Deccan have but little of the
Sanscrit element; and Mr. Caldwell, in his recent comparative grammar
of the South-Indian Languages,[492] has enumerated under the general
designation of Dravidian, nine un-Sanscritic languages of this region
of India, among which the best known are the Tamil, Telugu, Canarese,
and Malayalim. There seems no reason to believe that Mezzofanti was
familiarly acquainted with any one of these four, or indeed with any
member of Dravidian family, unless the Guzarattee can be included therein.
M. Fernando’s hesitation regarding his knowledge of Tamil, induced me to
inquire of Rev. Dr. MacAuliffe, lately a Missionary at Madras, who, after
spending several years in that Presidency, had entered the Propaganda,
and who knew the Cardinal at the same time with M. Fernando. Dr.
MacAuliffe informs me, that his eminence did not know Tamil. The Indian
languages which he knew, according to Dr. MacAuliffe, were Hindostani and
Mahratta; that he was acquainted with at least the first of these there
seems no possible doubt, both from M. Fernando’s testimony, and from that
of Count Lackersteen of Calcutta, a native East Indian gentleman, who
assures me[493] that he conversed with him in Hindostani, in 1843-4. As
to the Mahratta dialect, I have not (beyond Dr. MacAuliffe’s assurance)
been able to obtain any direct information; but Mr. Eyoob, an Armenian
merchant of Calcutta, testifies to the Cardinal’s acquaintance with
another Indian language—the Guzarattee. Mr. Eyoob saw the Cardinal in
the same year with Count Lackersteen, and writes[494] that, when he
was introduced to his eminence as a native of Bombay, the Cardinal at
once addressed him in _Guzarattee_. Mr. Eyoob adds, that the Cardinal
also spoke with him in Armenian and in Portuguese, in both of which
languages his accent, vocabulary, and grammatical accuracy, were beyond
all exception. Count Lackersteen’s letter fully confirms so much of this
statement as regards Portuguese. The Count also spoke with Mezzofanti in
Persian: but, as he does not profess to be a profound Persian scholar,
his testimony on this head is not of so much value.
By far the most remarkable, however, of Mezzofanti’s successes in the
Propaganda was his acquisition of Chinese. The difficulty of that
language for Europeans has long been proverbial,[495] and it argued no
ordinary courage in a scholar now on the verge of his sixtieth year to
enter regularly upon such a study. His first progress at Naples, before
he was interrupted by the severe illness which there seized him, has
been already described. It was not for a considerable time after his
return, that he was enabled to resume the attempt systematically. A
wish was expressed by the authorities of the Propaganda that a select
number of the students of the Naples college should be sent to Rome for
the completion of their theological studies. Three young Chinese had
already visited the Propaganda while Mezzofanti was still in Bologna,
one of whom, named Pacifico Yu, offered himself to the Cardinal Prefect,
as a missionary to the Corea, at a period when the attempt was almost
a certain road to martyrdom: but it was not until the year 1835-6 that
the design of adopting a few of the Neapolitan students into the college
of the Propaganda was actually carried out. Don Raffaelle Umpierres,
for many years Procurator of the mission at Macao, was soon afterwards
appointed their prefect and professor; and under his auspices and with
the assistance of the young Chinese, Mezzofanti resumed the study with
new energy. His success is admitted on all hands to have been almost
unexampled. Certainly it has never been surpassed by any European
not resident in China. In the year 1843, I was myself present while
he conversed with two youths, named Leang and Mong, and although my
evidence cannot extend beyond these external signs, I can at least bear
witness to the fluency with which he spoke, and the ease and spirit with
which he seemed to sustain the conversation. But his complete success
is placed beyond all doubt by an attestation forwarded to me, by the
abate Umpierres, the Chinese Professor,[496] already named, who declares
that he “frequently conversed with the Cardinal in Chinese, from the
year 1837, up to the date of his death, and that he not only spoke the
mandarin Chinese,[497] but understood other dialects of the language.”
Mezzofanti himself freely confessed the exceeding difficulty which he
had found in mastering this language. It cost him, as he assured Father
Arsenius Angiarakian, four months of uninterrupted study. Speaking
once with Cardinal Wiseman of his method of linguistic study, he said
that the “ear and not the eye was for him the ordinary medium through
which language was conveyed;” and he added, that the true origin of the
difficulty which he had felt in learning Chinese, was not so much the
novelty of its words and forms, as the fact that, departing from the
analogy of other languages, it disconcerted the pre-arranged system on
which he had theretofore proceeded; it _has an eye-language distinct from
the ear-language_, which he was obliged to make an especial study.
It is worth while to mention that the Cardinal successfully accomplished
in a short time what cost the missionaries in China, with all their
advantages of position, many years of labour, having actually preached
to the Chinese students in the Propaganda, on occasion of one of the
spiritual retreats which are periodically observed in ecclesiastical
seminaries.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Propaganda was his only school
of languages. Not unfrequently, also, missionaries from various parts of
the world, who repaired to the Propaganda on the affairs of their several
missions, supplied a sort of supplement to the ordinary resources of
the institution. In this way a German missionary, Father Brunner, (now,
I believe, superior of a religious congregation in the United States,)
initiated him in the languages of Western Africa. Father Brunner had been
for a time a missionary in Congo. On his arrival in Rome, Mezzofanti
placed himself in communication with him; and Cardinal Reisach, (who was
at that time Rector of the Propaganda,) states that he soon progressed
so far as to be able to keep up a conversation in the language. The
general language of Congo comprises many distinct branches, the Loango,
the Kakongo, the Mandongo, the Angolese, and the Camba.[498] Of these
Mezzofanti applied himself especially to the Angolese, in which he more
than once composed pieces for recitation at the academical exhibition of
the Epiphany. Two of these, which will be found in the appendix, have
been submitted to the criticism of Mr. Consul Brande, long a resident
at Loango, who pronounces them “to exhibit a correct knowledge of the
Angolese or Bunda language.”[499]
I may add to the number of those with whom he was accustomed to speak
oriental languages, two others mentioned to me by Cardinal Wiseman. The
first was a learned Chaldean, Paul Alkushi, who had once been a student
of the Propaganda, but relinquished the intention of embracing the
ecclesiastical profession. The other was a converted Jew, a native of
Bagdad, and who, although otherwise illiterate, spoke fluently Hebrew,
Arabic, and Persian. He was familiarly known in Rome by the sobriquet of
“_Shalom_,” from the habitual salutation with which he used to address
his friends at meeting and parting.
* * * * *
The only letters of this period which I have been able to procure are
two, addressed to his Bolognese friends, Michael Ferrucci and Liborio
Veggetti. The former (dated June 6th, 1836,) is in acknowledgment of some
copies of Latin Epigrams, partly from his own pen, partly from that of
the Canonico Schiassi, which Ferrucci had sent to Mezzofanti: but it is
chiefly noticeable for the warm interest which it evinces in the welfare
of his old friend, who had written to ask advice and assistance in his
candidature for a professorship in one of the Tuscan Universities, Signor
Ferrucci, some time afterwards, went to Geneva, as professor of rhetoric,
but he eventually obtained an appointment in the University of Pisa,
where he is now Librarian.
The letter to Veggetti, (February 17, 1838,) regards his appointment as
Librarian of the University of Bologna, in which Mezzofanti had been
much interested.
“I am delighted that my wishes have not been in vain or
without effect, and that the Library, for so many years the
object of my care, is confided to the direction of an old and
distinguished pupil of my own. I need not give you any advice,
knowing, as I do, what exactness and assiduity you have always
shown in the discharge of your duties. Knowing, also, the good
understanding you maintain with my nephew, Monsignor Minarelli,
in whom I repose the fullest confidence, I need only say that
if you consult with him in any doubt which may arise regarding
your duties, it will be the same as if you were speaking with
the old librarian himself.
I must confess I am more gratified at your having obtained this
appointment, than if you had been appointed to the chair of
History, a difficult post, and more difficult the farther one
advances. And while I congratulate you, I must also felicitate
myself on leaving in such excellent hands the precious deposit
hitherto entrusted to my own care. I will not fail to profit by
your work which you have so kindly presented to me.”
Dr. Veggetti still holds the office of Librarian at Bologna. He continued
to correspond occasionally with Mezzofanti, up to the period of his
death.
CHAPTER XIV.
[1838-1841.]
Among the offices connected with the Roman Court, there is a certain
class, known as _Poste Cardinalizie_, the tenure of which is, in the
ordinary course of affairs, a step to the Cardinalate. The chief
keepership of the Vatican Library is not necessarily one of these;
but it had long been known that Monsignor Mezzofanti was destined for
the purple; and, in a consistory held on the 12th of February, 1838,
he was “preconized” as Cardinal Priest, in company with three other
prelates—Angelo Mai, (who had been “reserved _in petto_” from the former
year,) Orioli, and Mellini.
The order of Cardinal Priests, as is well known, are the representatives,
in the more modern constitution of the Roman church, of the ancient
_Presbyteri Cardinales_—the priests of the principal churches in which
Baptism was administered, (_tituli Cardinales_) of the ancient city.
Their number, which at the end of the fifth century was twenty-five, has
been gradually increased to fifty: but the memory of their primitive
institution is preserved in the titles under which they are named, and
which are taken from the churches over which the ancient Presbyters
presided. The title of Cardinal Mezzofanti was derived from the ancient
church of Saint Onuphrius, (Sant’ Onofrio,) on the Janiculum, which is
probably best known to visitors of Rome as the last resting-place of the
poet Tasso.
To many persons, no doubt, the office of Cardinal has but little
significance, except as a part of the stately ceremonial of the Roman
court—a brilliant and enviable sinecure, sometimes the reward of
distinguished merit, sometimes the prize of political influence or
hereditary family claims. But to well informed readers it is scarcely
necessary to explain that the College of Cardinals forms, or rather
supplies, the entire deliberative and executive administration of the
Pope in the general management of the affairs of the Church; holding
permanently and systematically the place of the council of which we so
often read in the early centuries. By the ancient constitution of the
Sacred College, all matters of importance were considered and discussed
in the general meeting of the body, called the Consistory; but, in
the multiplication of business, it became necessary to distribute the
labour; and, since the latter part of the sixteenth century,[500] under
the great administrative Pontiffs, Paul IV., Pius IV., Pius V., and
above all Sixtus V., a system of “_congregations_” has arisen, by
which, as by a series of committees, the details of all the various
departments are administered; yet under the general superintendence of
the Pope himself, and subject, in all things, to his final revision.
Some of these congregations, (which amount to nearly twenty in all,)
consist exclusively of Cardinals; some are composed both of Cardinals
and prelates; and a few of prelates only: but, in almost every case,
the Prefect, at least, of the congregation is a Cardinal. Some
congregations meet every week, others only once a month; but in all
the leading ones, as for instance in the Propaganda, there is a weekly
meeting (_congresso_) of the Prefect and secretary with the clerks or
_minutanti_, for the despatch of pressing business or of affairs of
routine; all the business of these meetings being submitted to the Pope
for his approval.
To each Cardinal, either as Prefect, or at least as member, four of
these congregations, as an ordinary rule, are assigned at his first
appointment; in many cases, the number is afterwards increased; and,
when it is remembered that in many of these the business is weighty
and complicated, often involving much documentary matter, extensive
theological or canonical research, and careful investigation of
precedents, &c.; and that these congregations, after all, form but a part
of the duties of a Cardinal; it will be understood that his position is
very far from the sinecure which the unreflecting may suppose it to be.
In the congregations assigned to Cardinal Mezzofanti at his nomination,
regard was of course paid to his peculiar qualifications. He was named
Prefect of the “Congregation for the correction of the Liturgical Books
of the Oriental Church,” and also of the “Congregation of Studies.”
He was also, on the same grounds, appointed a member, not only of the
general “Congregation of the Propaganda,” but also of the special one “On
the affairs of the Chinese Mission,” and of those of “the Index,” “of
Rites,” and of “the Examination of Bishops.”
With a similar consideration for his well known habits and tastes, and
with a due appreciation of the charity for the sick which had always
characterized him, he was named President of the great Hospital of San
Salvatore, and visitor of the House of Catechumens, in which, as being
chiefly destined for converted Jews and Mahomedans, his acquaintance with
the Hebrew and Arabic languages and literatures rendered his services
peculiarly valuable.
The official revenue assigned from the Civil List for a cardinal resident
in Rome, is four thousand Roman crowns (between eight and nine hundred
pounds sterling); by far the greater part of which is absorbed in the
necessary expenses of his household, the payment of his chaplain,
secretary, and servants, the maintenance of his state equipage, &c.;
so that for those cardinals who, like Mezzofanti, possess no private
fortune, the remnant available for purely personal expenditure is very
trifling indeed. With Mezzofanti’s frugal and simple habits, however, it
not only proved amply sufficient to supply all his own modest wants,
but also enabled him to enlarge and extend the unostentatious charities
which, throughout his entire life, he had never failed to bestow, even
while he was himself struggling against the disadvantages of a narrow
and precarious income. So well known, indeed, were his almost prodigal
charities, while in charge of the Vatican, and his consequent poverty at
the time of his nomination to the Cardinalate, that the Pope, Gregory
XVI., himself presented him, from the Pontifical establishment, the two
state carriages[501] which form the necessary equipage of a Cardinal in
all processions and other occasions of public ceremonial.
He selected for his residence the Palazzo Valentiniani, in the Piazza
SS. Apostoli; where his nephew, Gaetano Minarelli, and Anna, one of
his unmarried nieces, came to live with him on his nomination to the
Cardinalate, and continued to reside until his death.
The news of his elevation was received with great pleasure at Bologna,
and was the occasion of many public and private demonstrations. The
most remarkable of these was from the Academy of the _Filopieri_, of
which he had been the President at the time of his removal from Bologna.
The Italians are singularly conservative of established forms; the
members of the Academy, in accordance with a usage which may almost be
called classical, met in full assembly (with all the accompaniments of
decorations, inscriptions, and music, in which Italian taste is displayed
on such occasions), to congratulate their fellow-academician. The
congratulatory addresses, however, which in England would have been a set
of speeches and resolutions, here, as became the “Lovers of the Muses,”
took a poetical form; and a series of odes, sonnets,[502] elegies,
_canzoni_, _terzine_, and epigrams, in Greek, Latin, and Italian, were
recited by the members. Some of them are exceedingly spirited and
graceful. They were all collected into a little volume, which, with great
delicacy and good taste, is dedicated not to the Cardinal himself, but to
his nephew, Monsignor Joseph Minarelli, of whom I have already spoken,
and who was at this time Rector of the university of Bologna.[503]
A still more characteristic tribute on his elevation was a polyglot
visit of congratulation from his young friends in the Propaganda. A
party of fifty-three, comprising all the languages and nationalities at
that time represented in the institution, waited upon him to offer their
greetings in their various tongues. The new Cardinal was at once amused
by the novel exhibition, and gratified by the compliment thus delicately
implied. True, however, to his old character for readiness and dexterity,
he was found fully equal to the occasion, and answered each in his own
language with great spirit and precision.[504]
Cardinal Mezzofanti’s elevation, of course, brought him into closer,
and, if possible, more affectionate relations with the Pope. Among
his brethren of the Sacred College, too, there were many whom, even
as prelate, he could call his friends. I have already spoken of his
relations with the learned Cardinal Giustiniani, and the venerable
Cardinal Pacca. With Cardinal Lambruschini, the Secretary of State, and
Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the Propaganda, he had long been on a
footing of most confidential intimacy. His especial friends, however,
were Cardinals Mai, Polidori, Bernetti, and the amiable and learned
English Cardinal Acton, who, although not proclaimed till 1842, was named
_in petto_ in the year after the elevation of Cardinal Mezzofanti.[505]
But, with the exception of the public and ceremonial observances which
his new dignity exacted, it brought no change in his simple, and almost
ascetic manner of life. The externals of his household, of course,
underwent considerable alteration, but his personal habits remained the
same. He continued to rise at the same hour: his morning devotions,
his daily mass, his visits to the hospitals, and other private acts
of charity, remained unaltered. His table, though displaying somewhat
more ceremonial, continued almost as frugal, and entirely as simple, as
before his elevation. He persevered, unless when prevented by his various
official duties, in paying his daily visit to the Propaganda, and in
assisting and directing the studies of its young inmates, with all his
accustomed friendliness and familiarity. His affability to visitors,
even of the humblest class, was, if possible, increased. Above all, as
regarded his favourite studies, and the exercise of his wonderful talent,
his elevation to the Cardinalate brought no abatement of enthusiasm, and
no relaxation of energy. It is not merely that the visitors who saw him
as Cardinal, concur in attesting the unaltered activity of his mind, and
the undiminished interest with which he availed himself of every new
opportunity of perfecting or exercising his favourite accomplishment.
For years after his elevation, he continued to add zealously and
successfully to the stores which he had already laid up. There is
distinct evidence that after this period, (although he had now entered
upon his sixty-fourth year,) he acquired several languages, with which he
had previously had little, and perhaps no acquaintance.
A very interesting instance has been communicated to me by M. Antoine
d’Abbadie,[506] who visited the Cardinal in 1839, at Rome. M. d’Abbadie
had been a traveller from early manhood. Setting out in the year 1837,
in company with his brother Arnauld, to explore the sources of the
White Nile, he traversed the greater part of north eastern Africa.
Their wanderings, however, proved a mission of religion and charity, no
less than of science. During their long and varied intercourse with the
several tribes of Abyssinia, they observed with painful interest that
strange admixture of primitive Catholic truth with gross and revolting
superstition by which all travellers have been struck; and their first
care was to study carefully the condition of the country and the
character of the people, with a view to the organization of a judicious
and effective missionary expedition by which their many capabilities
for good might be developed. Hence, it is that, while their letters,
reports, and essays, communicated to the various scientific journals and
societies of France and England,[507] have added largely to our knowledge
of the languages,[508] the geography, and the natural history of these
imperfectly explored provinces, their services to the Church by the
introduction of missionaries, by the advice and information which they
have uniformly afforded them, and even by their own personal co-operation
in the great work, have entitled them to the gratitude of all to whom the
interests of truth and civilization are dear.
M. Antoine d’Abbadie, after two years spent in such labours, returned
to Europe in 1839, for the purpose of preparing himself for a further
and more systematic exploration. On arriving in Rome, he took an early
opportunity of waiting upon the Cardinal, accompanied by two Abyssinians,
who spoke only the Amarinna language, and by a Galla servant, whose
native (and only) language was the Ilmorma, a tongue almost entirely
unknown, even to the learned in this branch of philology.[509] M.
d’Abbadie himself spoke Basque, a language which was still new to
Mezzofanti; and he was thus witness of what was certainly a very unwonted
scene—the great Polyglottist completely at fault.
“I saw Cardinal Mezzofanti,” writes M. d’Abbadie, “in 1839.
He asked me in Arabic what language I wished to speak, and I,
in order to test him, proposed conversing in Basque. I am far
from knowing this idiom well; but, as I transact my farmer’s
business in Basque, I can easily puzzle a foreigner in it. The
Cardinal waived my proposal, and asked me what African language
I would speak. I now spoke Amarinna, i.e., the language named
_Ancharica_ by Ludolf, who probably added the final _c_ in
order to suit the word to Latin articulation. Not being able
to answer in Amarinna, Mezzofanti said: _Ti amirnu timhirta
lisana Gi-iz_ (‘Have you the knowledge of the Gi-iz language?’)
This was well said, and beautifully pronounced, but shewed
that the Cardinal got his knowledge of Gi-iz from persons who
read, but did not speak it in general. I afterwards ascertained
in Abyssinia that no professor, i.e., no person accustomed to
colloquial Gi-iz, had been yet in Rome, during this century at
least. I may here mention that Gi-iz, generally called Ethiopic
in Europe, is the liturgical language in Abyssinia, where it
is looked on by the learned as a dead language, although it
is still spoken by at least one of the shepherd tribes near
the Red Sea. In my visit to Cardinal Mezzofanti, I had with me
two Amara Abyssines, with whom he could not speak, as neither
of them knew Gi-iz enough, and I had not yet learned that
language. My third companion was a Galla, who had taught me his
language, viz., Ilmorma, in a most tedious way, for he knew no
other tongue, and I was forced to elicit every meaning by a
slowly convergent series of questions, which I put every time
he used a word new to me. Some of these had until then remained
a mystery to me; as the word _self_, and some others of the
same abstract class. I had likewise laboured in vain to get
the Ilmorma word for ‘soul’; and having mentioned all this to
Mezzofanti, I added, that as a philologist and a father of the
church, he could render me no better service than giving me the
means of teaching my Galla barbarian that he had a soul to be
saved. ‘Could not your eminence,’ said I, ‘find the means of
learning from this African what is the word for soul? I have
written twelve hundred words of his language, which you will
certainly turn to better account than I can.’ The Cardinal
made no direct answer. I saw him several times afterwards,
and he always addressed me in Arabic; but, being a tyro in
that language, I could not pretend to judge his knowledge or
fluency. However, a native Syrian then in Rome, told me that
both were admirable: this referred, I suppose now, to the
Syrian dialect.”
A failure so unusual for Mezzofanti, and in so many languages, could
not but prove a stimulus to the industry of this indefatigable student.
He was at the moment busily engaged in the revision of the Maronite and
Armenian liturgies;—a circumstance, by the way, which perhaps may account
for his passing over without notice, M. d’Abbadie’s proposal about the
Galla language;—but, a few months later, he addressed himself to the
Amarinna with all the energy of his most youthful days. How it ended, we
shall see.
In the close of July, 1841, when I first had the honour of seeing him,
he was surrounded by a group of Abyssinians, who had just come to Rome
under the escort of Monsignor de Jacobis, the apostolic Prefect of the
Abyssinian mission. These Abyssinians were all reputed to be persons
of distinction among their countrymen, and several of the number were
understood to be professors and men of letters. The Cardinal was speaking
to them freely and without embarrassment; and his whole manner, as well
as theirs, appeared to me (so far as one entirely unacquainted with
the language could judge) to indicate that he spoke with ease, and was
understood by them without an effort. Thinking it probable, however, that
M. d’Abbadie during his second sojourn in Abyssinia, must have known
something of this mission, I thought it well to write to him on the
subject. He informed me, in reply, that the Abyssinians whom I had thus
seen were a deputation of the schismatical Christians of that country,
who had been sent by the native chieftains to Alexandria, to obtain
from the Patriarch (to whom they so far recognise their subjection) the
consecration of the Abun, or Primate, of their national church. Father
de Jacobis, who was their fellow-traveller as far as Alexandria, induced
them to accompany him to Rome, where they were so much struck with all
that they saw and heard, that “two out of the three professors of Gondar,
who were the leaders of the deputation, have, since their return, freely
and knowingly entered the one true Church—Amari, Kanfu, and the one-eyed
professor, Gab’ra Mikaël.” One of these told M. d’Abbadie that “Cardinal
Mezzofanti conversed very well with him in Amarinna, and that he also
knew the Gi-iz language.” He had thus learned the Amarinna between 1839
and 1841.
* * * * *
I am indebted to M. d’Abbadie for an account of another still later
acquisition of the Cardinal’s declining years. Before the summer of 1841,
he had acquired the Amarinna language. Now at that time he was actually
engaged, with all the energy of his early years, in the study of the
proverbially “impossible”[510] Basque, in which, as we have seen, M.
d’Abbadie found him a novice in 1839.
One of my companions in Rome in 1841, the lamented Guido Görres, of
Munich, son of the venerable author of that name, and himself one of the
most accomplished writers of Catholic Germany, having chanced to say to
the Cardinal that he was then engaged in the study of Basque, the latter
proposed that they should pursue it in company. Their readings had only
just commenced when I last saw Herr Görres; but M. d’Abbadie’s testimony
at a later date places the Cardinal’s success in this study likewise
entirely beyond question. He had not only learned before the year 1844,
the general body of the language, but even mastered its various dialects
so as to be able to converse both in the Labourdain and the Souletin;
which, it should be observed, are not simply dialects of Basque, but
minor sub-divisions of one out of the four leading dialects which prevail
in the different districts of Biscay and Navarre.
“My friend M. Dassance,” says M. d’Abbadie, “who has published
several works, and who, after declining a bishopric, is still
a canon in the Bayonne Cathedral, told me the other day, that,
on visiting the Cardinal in 1844, he was surprised to hear him
speak French with that peculiar Parisian accent which pertains
to the ancient nobility of the Faubourg St. Germain. This is a
nice distinction of which several Frenchmen are not aware. On
hearing that Dassance was a Basque, the Cardinal immediately
said: _Mingo zitugu?_ (_verbatim_—‘Of whence have we you’?)
thus shewing that he had mastered the tremendous difficulty of
our vernacular verb. The ensuing conversation took place in the
pure Labourdain dialect, which is spoken here (at Urrugne,)
but one of the professors of the Bayonne Seminary, Father
Chilo, from Soule, avers that the Cardinal spoke to him in the
Souletin dialect.”[511]
I afterwards shewed to M. d’Abbadie a short sentence in Basque which the
Cardinal wrote with his own hand, and which is printed among the fac
similes prefixed to this volume.
Tauna! zu servitzea da erreguiñatea;
Zu maitatzea da zoriona,
“Lord! to serve Thee is to reign;
To love Thee, is happiness.”
M. d’Abbadie, as also his Highness Prince Lewis L. Bonaparte, to whom M.
d’Abbadie submitted it, had some doubt as to the propriety of the form,
‘_zu_ servitzea,’ ‘_zu_ maitatzea’; both of them preferring to write
_zure_. But, as the dialect in which the sentence is written is that
of Guipuscoa, both his Highness and M. d’Abbadie have kindly taken the
trouble to refer the question to native Guipuscoan scholars; and I have
had the gratification to learn by a letter of M. d’Abbadie, (January
18th, 1858,) that “the construction ‘_zu_ servitzea,’ is perfectly
correct in Guipuscoan.”
M. d’Abbadie subjoins, that, in addition to the authority of his friend,
M. Dassance, for the Cardinal’s knowledge of Basque, he has since been
assured by a Spanish lady, a native of San Sebastian, the capital of
Guipuscoa, that the Cardinal had also conversed with her in her native
Guipuscoan dialect. Moreover, when M. Manavit saw him in Rome in 1846,
he translated freely in his presence a newly published Basque catechism,
which M. Manavit presented to him on the part of the Bishop of Astros:
and several distinguished Biscayan ecclesiastics assured M. Manavit that
the Cardinal spoke both the dialects of Basque with equal fluency.[512]
In a word, it appears impossible to doubt the complete success of this,
one of his latest essays in the acquisition of a new language.
As the object of this biography, however, is not merely to bring together
such marvels as these, but to collect all the materials for a just
portraiture of the linguist himself, I must place in contrast with these
truly wonderful narratives, the judgments of other travellers, in order
that the reader may be enabled to modify each by comparison with its
pendant, and to form his own estimate from a just combination of both.
It must be confessed, as a set off against the wonders which have been
just recounted, that there were others of Mezzofanti’s visitors who were
unable to see in him any of these excellencies. I think, however, that
these depreciatory judgments will be found for the most part to proceed
from ignorant and superficial tourists, and from those who are least
qualified to form an accurate estimate of the attainments of a linguist.
One of the heaviest penalties of eminence is the exposure which it
involves to impertinent or malevolent criticism, nor is it wonderful that
one who received so great a variety of visitors as did Mezzofanti, should
have had his share of this infliction.
Mrs. Paget, a Transylvanian lady, married to an English gentleman, who
saw Mezzofanti a little before M. d’Abbadie, is cited by Mr. Watts.[513]
Her characteristic is rather recklessness and ill-breeding than positive
malevolence. But as her strictures, ill-bred as they are, contain some
facts which tend to illustrate the main subject of inquiry, I shall
insert them without abridgment.
“Mezzofanti entered, in conversation with two young Moors,
and, turning to us, asked us to be seated. On me his first
appearance produced an unfavourable impression. His age might
be about seventy; he was small in stature, dry, and of a pale
unhealthy look. His whole person was in monkey-like restless
motion. We conversed together for some time. He speaks
Hungarian well enough, and his pronunciation is not bad. I
asked him from whom he had learned it; he said from the common
soldiers at Milan. He had read the works of Kisfaludi and
Csokonai, Pethe’s Natural History, and some other Hungarian
books, but it seemed to me that he rather studies the words
than the subject of what he reads. Some English being present,
he spoke English with them very fluently and well; with me
he afterwards spoke French and German, and he even addressed
me in Wallachian; but to my shame I was unable to answer. He
asked if I knew Slowakian. In showing us some books, he read
out from them in Ancient and Modern Greek, Latin and Hebrew. To
a priest who was with us, and who had travelled in Palestine,
he spoke in Turkish. I asked him how many languages he knew:
‘Not many,’ he replied, ‘for I only speak forty or fifty.’
Amazing incomprehensible faculty! but not one that I should
in the least be tempted to envy; for the empty unreflecting
word-knowledge, and the innocently exhibited small vanity
with which he was filled, reminded me rather of a monkey or
a parrot, a talking machine, or a sort of organ wound up for
the performance of certain tunes, than of a being endowed with
reason. He can, in fact, only be looked upon as one of the
curiosities of the Vatican.
“At parting, I took an opportunity of asking if he would allow
me to present an Hungarian book to the Vatican library. My
first care at my hotel was to send a copy of M. W.’s book,
‘Balitéletekröl’ (‘On Prejudices’)[514] to the binder, and
a few days afterwards I took it, handsomely bound in white
leather, to Mezzofanti, whom I found in a hurry to go and
baptize some Jews and Moors. As soon as he saw the book,
without once looking into it, even to ascertain the name of the
author, he called out, ‘Ah! igen szép, igen szép, munka. Szepen
van bekötve. Aranyos, szép, szép, igen szép, igen koszönöm.’
(Ah! very fine, very fine, very finely bound. Beautiful, very
fine, very fine, thank you very much;)—and put it away in a
book-case. Unhappy Magyar volumes, never looked at out of their
own country, but by some curious student of philology like
Mezzofanti, and in their own country read by how few!”
Now, in the first place, in the midst of this lady’s supercilious and
depreciatory strictures, it may safely be inferred, that Mezzofanti’s
Hungarian at least must have been unexceptionable, in order to draw
from one so evidently prejudiced, the admission that he “spoke it well
enough,” and that “his pronunciation was not bad.” Lest, however, any
doubt should be created by these grudging acknowledgments, I shall quote
the testimony of a Hungarian nobleman, Baron Glucky de Stenitzer, who
met the Cardinal in Rome some years later, in 1845. The Baron not only
testifies to the excellence of his Magyar, but affirms “that, in the
course of the interview, his Eminence spoke no less than four different
dialects of that tongue—the pure Magyar of Debreczeny, that of the
environs of Eperies, that of Pesth, and that of Transylvania!”
In like manner, though Madame Paget takes upon her to say, that “the
Cardinal studies the words rather than the subject of what he reads,”
Baron Glucky found him “profoundly versed in the laws and constitution
of Hungary”; and when, in speaking of the extraordinary power enjoyed by
the Primate of Hungary, the Baron chanced to allude to his privilege of
coining money, his Eminence promptly reminded him that “this privilege
had been withdrawn by the Emperor Ferdinand, and even quoted the year of
the edict by which it was annulled!”[515]
As regards the dashing style in which this lady sets aside the Cardinal’s
Magyar reading, which _only_ embraced “the works of Kisfaludi and
Czokonai, Pethe’s Natural History, and some other Hungarian books,” it
may be enough for the reader to know that, without reckoning the “other
Hungarian books,” the three works which she names thus slightingly,
comprise no less than _seven volumes_ of poetry and miscellaneous
literature.
For what remains of her strictures upon the character of
Mezzofanti—strictures be it observed, which she has the hardihood to
offer, although her entire knowledge was derived from two interviews
of a few minutes, among a crowd of other visitors—her charge of love
of display, “empty word-knowledge,” “monkey-like” exhibition, and the
other pettinesses of “small vanity,” the best commentary that can be
offered is an account of the Cardinal published at this very period, by
one who knew him intimately during a residence of many months in Rome,
who was actually for a time his pupil or fellow student, and who, from
his position, was thoroughly conversant, not only with the sentiments
of the Cardinal’s friends and admirers, but with all the variety of
criticisms to which, according to the diversity of tastes and opinions,
his character and his gifts were subjected in the general society of the
literary circles of Rome—I mean the amiable and learned Guido Görres.
I may add that I myself was Herr Görres’s companion in one of his
interviews with the Cardinal.
“If any one should imagine,” he writes, (in the
Historisch-Politische Blätter,[516] of which, conjointly with
Dr. Phillips, he was editor,) “that all the honours which
he has received have produced the slightest effect upon his
character or disposition, he is grievously mistaken. Under all
the insignia of the cardinalate, Mezzofanti is still the same
plain, simple, almost bashful, good-natured, conscientious,
indefatigable, active priest that he was, while a poor
professor, struggling by the exercise of his talents, in the
humblest form, to gain a livelihood for the relatives who were
dependant on his exertions. Although his head is stored with so
many languages, it has never, as so frequently occurs to the
learned, shown the least indication of lightness. As Prefect of
the House of Catechumens he is merely of course, charged with
the supervision of their instruction; but he still discharges
the duty in person, with all the exactness of a conscientious
schoolmaster. He visits the establishment almost every day, and
devotes a considerable part of his income to the support of its
inmates.
In like manner he still, as Cardinal, maintains with the
Propaganda precisely the same relations which he held as
a simple prelate. Although he is not bound thereto by any
possible obligation, he devotes every day to the students of
that institution, in summer an hour, in winter an hour and
a half. He practises them and also himself in their several
languages, and zealously avails himself of the opportunity thus
afforded him, to exhort them to piety and to strengthen them in
the spirit of their calling.
It is scarcely necessary to say that these youths regard their
disinterested friend and benefactor with the most devoted
affection....
When I spoke to him, one day, about his relations with the
pupils, he said to me, ‘It is not as a Cardinal I go there; it
is as a student—as a youth—(giovanetto.)’...
He is familiar with all the European languages. And by this we
understand not merely the old classical tongues and the first
class modern ones; that is to say, the Greek and Latin, the
Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and English; his
knowledge embraces also the languages of the second class, viz.
the Dutch, the Polish, Bohemian or Czechish, and Servian, the
Hungarian, and Turkish; and even those of the third and fourth
class—the Irish, Welsh, Albanian, Wallachian, Bulgarian, and
Illyrian—are equally at his command. On my happening to mention
that I had once dabbled a little in Basque, he at once proposed
that we should set about it together. Even the Romani of the
Alps, and the Lettish, are not unfamiliar to him; nay, he has
made himself acquainted with Lappish, the language of the
wretched nomadic tribes of Lapland; although he told me he did
not know whether it should be called Lappish or Laplandish.
He is master of all the languages which are classed under the
Indo-German family—the Sanscrit and Persian, the Koordish, the
Armenian, and the Georgian; he is familiar with all the members
of the Semitic family, the Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Samaritan,
Chaldee, Sabaic, and even the Chinese, which he not only reads
but speaks. As regards Africa, he knows the Coptic, Ethiopic,
Abyssinian, Amharic, and Angolese.”
Görres adds what I have already mentioned, as a characteristic mark of
their affectionate gratitude, that forty-three of his Propaganda scholars
waited upon him on occasion of his promotion to the Cardinalate, and
addressed to him a series of congratulations, each in his native dialect.
He fully bears out too, the assurance which has been repeated over and
over again by every one who had really enjoyed the intimacy of the
Cardinal, that, frequently as he came before the public in circumstances
which seemed to savour of display, and freely as he contributed to the
amusement of his visitors by exhibiting in conversation with them his
extraordinary acquirements, he was entirely free from that vanity to
which Madame Paget thinks proper to ascribe it all.
“With all his high qualifications,” says the Rev. Ingraham Kip,[517] a
clergyman of the American episcopal church, “there is a modesty about
Cardinal Mezzofanti which shrinks from anything like praise.” “It would
be a cruel misconception of his character,” says Guido Görres, “to
imagine that, with all the admiration and all the wonder of which he
habitually saw himself the object, he yet prided himself in the least
upon this extraordinary gift. ‘Alas!’ he once said to a friend of mine,
a good simple priest, who, sharing in the universal curiosity to see
this wonderful celebrity, apologized to the Cardinal for his visit by
some compliment upon his European reputation:—‘alas! what will all these
languages avail me for the kingdom of heaven, since it is by works, not
words, that we must win our way thither!’”
In truth Cardinal Mezzofanti possessed in an eminent degree the great
safeguard of christian humility—a habitual consciousness of what he
_was not_, rather than a self-complacent recollection of what he was.
He used to speak freely of his acquirement as one of little value, and
one especially for which he himself had little merit—a mere physical
endowment—a thing of instinct, and almost of routine. God, he said, had
gifted him with a good memory and a quick ear. There lay the secret of
his success—“What am I,” he would pleasantly say, “but an ill-bound
dictionary!” “He used to disparage his gifts to me,” says Cardinal
Wiseman; “and he once quoted a saying ascribed to Catherine de Medici,
who when told that Scaliger knew twenty languages, observed, ‘that is
twenty words for one idea! For my part I would rather have twenty ideas
for one word!’” On one occasion, after the publication of Cardinal
Wiseman’s _Horæ Syriacæ_, Mezzofanti said to him: “You have put your
knowledge of languages to some purpose. When I go, I shall not leave
a trace of what I know behind me!” And when his friend suggested that
it was not yet too late, he “shook his head and said it was”—which he
also repeated to Guido Görres, earnestly expressing his “regret that his
youth had fallen upon a time when languages were not studied from that
scientific point of view from which they are now regarded.” In a word,
the habitual tendency of his mind in reference to himself, and to his own
acquirements, was to depreciate them, and to dwell rather upon his own
deficiency and short-comings, than upon his success.
Accordingly, while he was always ready to gratify the learned interest,
or even to amuse the lighter curiosity, with which his extraordinary
talent was regarded, there was as little thought of himself in the
performance, and as little idea of display, as though he were engaged in
an ordinary animated conversation. It was to him an exciting agreeable
exercise and nothing more. He engaged in it for its own sake. To him
it was as natural to talk in a foreign language as it would be to
another to sing, to relate a lively anecdote, or to take part in an
interesting discussion. To his humble and guileless mind the notion of
exhibition never presented itself. He retained to his latest hour and
through all the successive steps of his advancement, the simplicity and
lightheartedness of boyhood. It was impossible to spend half an hour in
his company without feeling the literal truth of what he himself said to
Görres regarding his relations to the pupils of the Propaganda;—that he
went among them not as a Cardinal, but as a school-boy, (_giovanetto_.)
What Madame Paget puts down to the account of “small vanity,” was in
reality the result of these almost boyish spirits, and of this simple
and unaffected good nature. He delighted in amusing and giving pleasure;
he was always ready to display his extraordinary gifts, partly for the
gratification of others, partly because it was to himself an innocent and
amusing relaxation: but, among the various impulses to which he yielded,
unquestionably the idea of display was the last that occurred to him as
a motive of action. I can say, from my own observation, that never in
the most distinguished circle, did he give himself to those linguistic
exercises with half the spirit which he evinced among his humble friends,
the obscure and almost nameless students of the Propaganda.
CHAPTER XV.
[1841-1843.]
Although my own recollections of Cardinal Mezzofanti, in comparison with
those which have already been laid before the reader, are so few and
unimportant that I hesitated at one time as to the propriety of alluding
to them, I feel that I should be very forgetful of the kindness which I
experienced at all times at his hands, were I to withhold the impressions
of his character as well as of his gifts, which I received from my
intercourse with him.
I saw Cardinal Mezzofanti for the first time, in July, 1841. He was then
in his sixty-seventh year: but, although his look and colour betrayed
the delicacy of his constitution, his carriage, as yet, exhibited little
indication of the feebleness of approaching age. He was below the middle
stature, and altogether of a diminutive, though light, and in youth most
active frame. His shoulders, it is true, were slightly rounded, and
his chest had an appearance of contraction; but his movements were yet
free, tolerably vigorous, and, although perhaps too hurried for dignity,
not ungraceful. His hair was plentifully dashed with gray; but, except
on the crown, where the baldness was but partially concealed by the
red _zucchetto_, (skull cap,) it was still thick and almost luxuriant.
More than one portrait of him has been published, and several of those
who saw him at different times have recorded their impressions of his
appearance: but I cannot say that any of these portraitures, whether of
pencil or of pen, conveys a full idea of the man. His countenance was
one of those which Madame Dudevant strangely, but yet significantly,
describes as “not a face, but a physiognomy.” Its character lay far less
in the features than in the expression. The former, taken separately,
were unattractive, and even insignificant. The proportions of the face
were far from regular. The complexion was dead and colourless, and these
defects were made still more remarkable by a small mole upon one cheek.
There was an occasional nervous winking of the eyelids, too, which
produced an air of weakness, and at times even of constraint; but there
was, nevertheless, a pervading expression of gentleness, simplicity, and
open-hearted candour, which carried off all these individual defects,
and which no portrait could adequately embody. Mr. Monckton Milnes
told me that the best likeness of the Cardinal he ever saw, was the
kneeling figure in Raffaelle’s noble picture, the Madonna di Foligno:
and undoubtedly, without any close affinity of lineament, it has a
strong general similitude of air and expression:—the same “open brow of
undisturbed humanity,” on which no passion had written a single line, and
which care had touched only to soften and spiritualize; the same quiet
smile, playful, yet subdued, humility blended with self-respect, modesty
unmarred by shyness or timidity;—above all the same
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard—
radiant with a sweetness which I have seldom seen equalled; singularly
soft and winning, and possessing that undefined power which is the
true beauty of an honest eye—a full and earnest, but not scrutinizing
look—deep, but tranquil, and placing you entirely at ease with yourself
by assuring you of its own perfect calmness and self-possession. But
the great charm of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s countenance was the look of
purity and innocence which it always wore. I have seldom seen a face
which retained in old age so much of the simple expression of youth,
I had almost said of childhood; although, with all this gaiety and
light-heartedness, there was a gentle gravity in his bearing which kept
it in perfect harmony with his years and character. He had acquired,
or he possessed from nature, the rare and difficult characteristic of
cheerful old age, to which Rochefoucault alludes when he says:—_Peu
de gens savent être vieux_. And thus he was equally at home among
his venerable peers of the Consistory, and in the youngest and most
light-hearted _camerata_ of the Propaganda. No old man ever illustrated
more clearly that
The heart—the heart, is the heritage
Which keepeth the old man young!
During a sojourn of some weeks in Rome, in the summer of 1841, I had the
honour of conversing with his eminence several times; at the Propaganda;
at the Roman Seminary; at a meeting of the Accademia della Religione
Cattolica; and more than once in his own apartments. In the course of one
of these interviews I heard him speak in several languages, to different
acquaintances whom he met, and with each of whom he conversed in his own
tongue—English, German, French, Spanish, Romaic, and Hungarian. With
myself his conversation was always in English.
His English, as we have seen, has been variously judged. Herr Fleck
describes it as “only middling:” by others it is pronounced to be
undistinguishable from that of a native. The truth, as in all such cases,
lies between these extremes.
All visitors, with the single exception of Herr Fleck, (certainly a very
questionable authority,) concur in admitting at least the perfect fluency
and strict grammatical accuracy of the Cardinal’s English conversation:
but some have hesitated as to its idiomatical propriety. M. Crawford,
ex-secretary of the Ionian Islands, told M. d’Abbadie[518] last year,
that Mezzofanti appeared to him to use some un-English constructions. To
Dean Milman, who was introduced to him several years ago by Mr. Francis
Hare, his English appeared “as if learned from books, grammatical,
rather than idiomatical.”[519] And Lady Morgan even determines the period
of English literature on which his English appeared to be modelled.[520]
I cannot fully concur, nevertheless, in this opinion. My own impressions
of the Cardinal’s English, derived from many conversations on different
occasions, agree with those already quoted from Mr. Stewart Rose, Lady
Blessington, Mr. Harford, Bishop Baines, Cardinal Wiseman, and others,
who attest his perfect accuracy both of grammar and of idiom. Mr.
Badeley, the eminent lawyer, who saw him but one year before his death,
told me that “he spoke English in a perfectly easy and natural manner;”
and Mr. Kip, whose visit was about the same time, declares that, “in
the course of a long conversation which he held with the Cardinal, his
eminence did not use a single expression or word in any way that was not
strictly and idiomatically correct.” It is true that I should hardly
have been deceived as to his being a foreigner; but the slight, though
to my ear decisive, foreign characteristics of his English, were rather
of accent than of language; or, if they regarded language at all, it was
not that his expressions were unidiomatical, or that his vocabulary was
wanting in propriety, but merely that his sentences were occasionally
more formal—more like the periods of a regular oratorical composition
than is common in the freedom of every-day conversation. Nor did the
peculiarity of accent to which I refer amount to anything like absolute
impropriety. His pronunciation was most exact; his accentuation almost
unerring; and, although it certainly could be distinguished from that of
a born Englishman, the difference lay chiefly in its being more marked,
and in its precision being more evidently the result of effort and of
rule, than the unstudied and instinctive enunciation of a native speaking
his own language. If I were disposed to criticize it very strictly,
I might say (paradoxical as this may seem,) that, _compared with the
enunciation of a native_, it was almost _too correct to appear completely
natural_; and that its very correctness gave to it some slight tendency
to that extreme which the Italians themselves, in reference to their own
language in the mouth of a stranger, describe as _caricato_. But I have
no hesitation in saying, that I never met any foreigner, not resident in
England, whose English conversation could be preferred to Mezzofanti’s.
The foreign peculiarity was, in my judgment, so slight as to be barely
perceptible, and I have myself known more than one instance similar to
that already related from Cardinal Wiseman, in which Irish visitors
meeting the Cardinal for the first time, without knowing who he was,
took him _for an English dignitary_,[521] mistaking the slight trace of
foreign peculiarity which I have described for what is called in Ireland,
“the English accent.”
Indeed with what care he had attended to the niceties of English
pronunciation—the great stumbling block of all foreign students of
the language—may be inferred from his familiarity with the peculiar
characteristics, even of the provincial dialects. It will be recollected
how he had amused Mr. Harford in 1817, by his specimens of the Yorkshire
and the _Zummer_setshire dialects, and how successfully he imitated
for Mr. Walsh the slang of a London cabman. And a still more amusing
example of the minuteness of his knowledge of these dialects has been
communicated to me by Rev. Mr. Grant of Lytham, brother of my friend the
Bishop of Southwark, to whose unfailing kindness I am indebted for this
and for many other most interesting particulars regarding the Cardinal.
Mr. Grant was presented to his eminence in the Spring of 1841, by the
Rev. Father Kelleher, an Irish Carmelite, of which order the Cardinal
was Protector. After some preliminaries the conversation turned upon the
English language.
“‘You have many patois in the English language,’ said the
Cardinal. ‘For instance, the Lancashire dialect is very
different from that spoken by the Cockneys; [he used this
word;—] so much so, that some Londoners would find considerable
difficulty in understanding what a Lancashire man said. The
Cockneys always use _v_ instead of _w_, and _w_ instead of
_v_: so that they say ‘vine’ instead of ‘wine;’ [he gave
this example.] And then the Irish _brogue_, as it is called,
is another variety. I remember very distinctly having a
conversation with an Irish gentleman whom I met soon after
the peace, and he always mis-pronounced that word, calling it
‘_pace_.’’
Here, F. Kelleher broke out into a horse-laugh, and, slapping
his hand upon his thigh, cried out, ‘Oh! excèllent! your
Eminence, excèllent!’ ‘Now, there you are wrong,’ said
Mezzofanti: ‘you ought not to say excèllent, but èxcellent.’
Then he went off into a disquisition on the word ‘great,’
contending that, according to all analogy, it should be
pronounced like ‘gr_ee_t’—for that the diphthong _ea_ is so
pronounced in almost all, if not in _every_ word, in which it
occurs; and he instanced these words:—‘_eagle_, _meat_, _beat_,
_fear_,’ and some others. And he said Lord Chesterfield thought
the same, and considered it a vulgarism to pronounce it like
‘grate.’ He next spoke about the Welsh language—but I really
quite forget what he said: I only remember that the impression
left on me was that he knew Welsh also.”
As to the extent of his acquaintance with English literature, my own
personal knowledge is very limited. His only allusion to the subject
which I recollect, was a question which he put to me about the completion
of Moore’s History of Ireland. He expressed a strong feeling of regret
that we had not some Irish History, as learned, as impartial, and as
admirable in its style, as Lingard’s History of England.
This is a point, however, on which we have the concurring testimony of
a number of English visitors, extending over a period of nearly thirty
years. The report of Mr. Harford in 1817, has been already quoted; Dr.
Cox of Southampton, spoke with high admiration of the Cardinal’s powers
as an English critic. Cardinal Wiseman assures me that “he often heard
him speaking on English style, and criticizing our writers with great
justness and accuracy. He certainly,” adds the Cardinal, “knew the
language and its literature far better than many an English gentleman.”
With Mr. Henry Grattan, then (in the year 1843,) member of Parliament
for Meath, he held a long conversation on the English language and
literature, especially its poets.
“He spoke in English,” says Mr. Grattan, “and with great
rapidity. He talked of Milton, Pope, Gray, and Chaucer. Milton,
he observed, was our English Homer, but he was formed by the
study of Dante, and of the Prophets. On Gray’s Elegy, and on
Moore’s Melodies, he dwelt with great delight; of the latter he
repeated some passages, and admired them extremely. Chaucer, he
said, was taken from Boccaccio. He added that Milton, besides
his merit as an English poet, also wrote very pretty Italian
poetry. Talking of French literature, he said that, properly
speaking, the French have no poetry: ‘they have too much poetry
in their prose,’ said he, ‘and besides they want the heart that
is necessary for genuine poetry.’”
But the most extraordinary example of Mezzofanti’s minute acquaintance
with English literature that I have heard, has been communicated to me by
Mr. Badeley, who found him quite familiar with an author so little read,
even by Englishmen, as Hudibras!
“The Cardinal,” says Mr. Badeley, “received me most graciously;
his first question was, ‘Well, what language shall we talk?’
I said, ‘Your eminence’s English is doubtless far better than
my Italian, and therefore we had better speak English.’ He
accordingly spoke English to me, in the most easy and natural
manner, and the conversation soon turned upon the English
language, and upon English literature; and his reference to
some of our principal authors, such as Milton, and others of
that class, shewed me that he was well acquainted with them.
We talked of translations, and I mentioned that the most
extraordinary translation I had ever seen was that of Hudibras
in French. He quite started with astonishment. ‘Hudibras in
French! impossible—it cannot be!’ I assured him that it was
so, and that I had the book. ‘But how is it possible,’ said
he, ‘to translate such a book? The rhymes, the wit, the jokes,
are the material points of the work—and it is impossible to
translate these—you cannot give _them_ in French!’ I told
him that, strange as it might seem, they were very admirably
preserved in the translation, the measure and versification
being the same, and the point and spirit of the original
maintained with the utmost fidelity. He seemed quite lost
in wonder, and almost incredulous—repeating several times,
‘Hudibras in French! Hudibras in French! Most extraordinary—I
never heard of such a thing!’ During the rest of our interview,
he broke out occasionally with the same exclamations; and, as
I took leave, he again asked me about the book. I said that
it was rather scarce, as it had been published many years
ago;[522] but, that I had a copy, which I should be happy
to send him, if he would do me the honour of accepting it.
Unfortunately, on my return to England, before I could find
anybody to take charge of it for him, he died.”
The very capacity to appreciate “the rhymes, the wit, the jokes,” of
Hudibras, in itself implies no common mastery of English. How few even
among learned Englishmen, could similarly appreciate Berni, Pulci,
Scarron, or Gresset, not to speak of the minor humourists of France or
Italy!
In all this, however, I have been anticipating. My own conversations
with him, during my first visit to Rome, had but little reference to
languages or to any kindred subject. He questioned me chiefly about our
college, about the general condition of the Church in Ireland, and the
relations of religious parties in Ireland and England. My sojourn in Rome
occurred at a time of great religious excitement in the latter country.
The Tractarian Movement had reached its highest point of interest. The
secessions from the ranks of Anglicanism had already become so numerous
as to attract the attention of foreign churches. The strong assertion
of catholic principles brought out by the Hampden Controversy; the
steady advance in tone which the successive issues of the Tracts for
the Times, and still more of the “British Critic,” had exhibited; above
all, the almost complete identification in doctrine with the decrees of
the Council of Trent, avowed in the celebrated Tract 90; had created
everywhere a confident hope that many and extensive changes were imminent
in England: and there were not a few among the best informed foreign
Catholics, who were enthusiastic in their anticipation of the approaching
reconciliation of that country with the Church. It was almost exclusively
on this topic that Cardinal Mezzofanti spoke during my several interviews
with him, in 1841. He was already well informed as to the general
progress of the movement; but he enquired anxiously about individuals,
and especially about the authors of the Tracts for the Times. I was much
struck by the extent and the accuracy of his information on the subject,
as well as by the justice of his views. He was well acquainted with the
relations of the High and Low Church parties and with their history.
“Rest assured,” he one day said to me, “that it is to individual
conversions you are to look in England. There will be no general
approximation of the Churches. This is not the first time these
principles have been popular for a while in the English Church. It was
the same at the time of Laud, and again in the time of the Catholic King,
James II. But no general movement followed. Many individuals became
Catholics; but the mass of the public still remained Protestant, and were
even more violent afterwards.”
More than once during the many outbursts of fanaticism, which we have
since that time witnessed in England, I have called to mind this wise and
far-seeing prediction.
But, although the Cardinal did not partake in the anticipation, which
some indulged, of a general movement of the English Church towards
Rome, his interest in the conversion of individuals was most anxious
and animated. It was his favourite subject of conversation with English
visitors at this period. Mr. Grattan has kindly permitted me to copy from
his journal an account of one of his interviews with the Cardinal, (a few
months after this date) which describes a half serious, half jocular,
attempt on the part of his Eminence to convert him from Protestantism.
Mrs. Grattan, who is a Catholic, was present during the interview.
Having referred, in the course of a very interesting discussion on
English literature, which the reader has already seen, to Sir Thomas
More, as the earliest model of English prose, the Cardinal observed that
More was a truly great and good man.
“‘He made an enemy of his King,’ said he, ‘but he made a
friend in his God.’ He then inquired of Mrs. Grattan, how it
happened that I had not changed my religion, and become a
Catholic—‘Now-a-days,’ said he, ‘there is no penalty and no
shame attached to the step; on the contrary, a great party in
England esteem you the more for it, and many learned men of
your own day have set you the example. You have, besides, the
venerable Bede; you have St. Patrick, too—both the greatest of
your countrymen in their age; you have King Alfred, and the
Edwards, all inviting you to the Church.’ He then approached
me in the most affectionate manner, took my hand and pressed
it, with a mixture of tenderness, drollery, and good nature.
‘Now you _must_ change,’ he continued. ‘You will not be able to
escape it; your religion is but three hundred years old: the
Catholic dates from the beginning of Christianity. It is the
religion of Christ; its head on earth is the Pope—not, as yours
once was, an old woman, but the Pope!’ Here he became quite
animated, took Mrs. Grattan’s hand, and drew her over, holding
each of us by the hand; his manner became most fervent, his old
eye glistened, he looked up to Heaven, and exclaimed,—‘There
is the place to make a friend!’ Then turning to me, he said,
‘Ireland is the garden of religion, and you must one day become
a flower in it.’”
Mr. Grattan was deeply affected by this remarkable interview; and I may
add that I have known few Protestant visitors of the Cardinal, who did
not carry away the most favourable impressions regarding him. With all
the earnestness and fervour of his own religious convictions, he was
singularly tolerant and forbearing towards the followers of another
creed. “His gentleness and modesty,” writes Chevalier (now Baron)
Bunsen, “have often struck me. Once, some misrepresentations of Lady
Morgan in her book on Italy, being mentioned in his presence with strong
vituperation, he gently interposed. ‘Poor Lady Morgan!’ said he; ‘it is
not yet given to her to see truth.’”
But although in my conversations with the Cardinal in 1841, his Eminence
confined himself entirely to English, yet on one occasion, at the close
of a meeting of the Accademia della Cattolica Religione, I heard him
converse, with every appearance of fluency and ease, in six different
languages with the various members of a group who collected around him;
in Romaic with Monsignor Missir, a Greek Archbishop; in German with
Guido Görres; in Magyar with a Hungarian artist who accompanied him; in
French with the Abbé La Croix, of the French church of St. Lewis; in
Spanish with a young Spanish Dominican; and in English with myself and my
companions. It was only however, during a second and more prolonged visit
to Rome in the first six months of 1843, that I was witness, in its full
reality, of the marvellous gift of which I had read and heard so much.
I was fortunate enough to arrive on Rome in the vigil of the great
annual “Academy” of the Propaganda, which, from immemorial time has
been held during the octave of the Epiphany, the special festival of
that institution. It is hardly necessary, in speaking of an exercise
now so celebrated, to explain that this Academy consists of a series of
brief addresses and recitations, generally speaking in a metrical form,
delivered by the students in all the various languages which happen
at the time to be represented in the college. The subjects of these
compositions are commonly drawn from the festival itself, or from some
kindred theme; and the rapidity with which they succeed each other,
and the earnestness and vigour with which most of them are delivered,
create an impression which hardly any other conceivable exhibition
could produce. To the audience, of course, the greater number of these
recitations are an unknown sound; but the earnest manner of the speakers;
their foreign and unwonted intonations; the curious variety of feature
and expression which they present; and the unique character of the whole
proceeding—gave to the scene an interest entirely independent of the
recitations themselves considered as literary compositions.
I never shall forget the impression which I received at my first entrance
at the _Aula Maxima_[523] on the evening of Sunday, January 8th, 1843.
At the farther end of the hall, on an elevated platform, the benches
of which rose above each other like the seats of a theatre, sat the
assembled pupils, arranged with some view to effect, in the order in
which they were to take part in the exercise. They seemed of all ages,
from the dawn of youth to mature manhood. It would be difficult to find
elsewhere collected together so many specimens of the minor varieties of
the human race. Gazing upon the eager faces crowded within that little
space, one might almost persuade himself that he had the whole world in
miniature before him, with all its motley tribes and races—
Che comprender non può prosa ne vérso:—
Da India, dal Catai, Marrocco, e Spagna.
Some of the varieties, and perhaps those which present the most marked
physiological contrasts with the rest, it is true, were wanting; but
all the more delicate shades of difference were clearly discernable;
the familiar lineaments of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon race; all the
well-known European types of feature and complexion; the endless though
highly contrasted varieties of Asiatic and North African form—the classic
Indian, the stately Armenian, the calm and impassive Chaldee, the solemn
Syrian, the fiery Arab, the crafty Egyptian, the swarthy Abyssinian, the
stunted Birman, the stolid Chinese. And yet in all, far as they seemed
asunder in sentient and intelligent qualities, might be traced the common
interest of the occasion. Each appeared to feel that this—the feast of
the illumination of the Gentiles—was indeed his own peculiar festival.
All were lighted up by the excitement of the approaching exercise; and
it was impossible, looking upon them, and recalling the object which had
brought them all together from their distant homes, not to give glory to
God for this, the most glorious work of his church: in which “Parthians,
and Medes, and Elamites, and the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts
of Lybia about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews also, and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians, speak the wonderful works of God;”—not, as of old,
in one tongue, but each in the tongue of his own people.
Below the platform were arrayed the auditory. The front seats,
distinguished by their red drapery, were reserved for the Cardinals, of
whom several were present,—Franzoni, the Cardinal Prefect, with his pale
and passionless face—the very ideal of self-denying spirituality;—the
English Cardinal Acton, shrinking, as it seemed, from the notice which
his prominent position drew upon him—Castracane, Cardinal Penitentiary,
with the look of earnest and settled purpose which he always wore;—the
lively little Cardinal Massimo,[524] in animated and evidently pleasant
conversation, with two of the Professors, the lamented abate Palma
and abate Graziosi;—the classic head of Mai, every feature instinct
with intellectuality—every look bespeaking the scholar and the priest.
But it need scarcely be said, that on this evening, despite his scant
proportions and unimposing presence, every other claimant for notice was
forgotten in comparison with the true hero of such a scene—the great
polyglot Cardinal Mezzofanti. He was seated on the extreme right of the
front rank, and, as I entered, was conversing eagerly with a stately
looking Greek bishop, Monsignor Missir, whose towering stature and
singularly noble head contrasted strongly with the diminutive and almost
insignificant figure of the great linguist.
Behind the Cardinals sate a number of foreign bishops, prelates, members
of religious orders, and other distinguished strangers, many of them
evidently orientals. The general assembly at the back included most
of the literary foreigners then in Rome, among whom were more than one
English clergyman, at that time the object of many an anxious prayer and
aspiration, of which we have since been permitted to witness the happy
fulfilment in their accession to the fold of the Church.
The exercises of the evening, besides a Latin proem and an epilogue in
Italian, comprised forty-eight recitations on “the Illumination of the
Gentiles;” but, as these included several varieties of Latin and Italian
versification, the total number of languages represented in the Academy
was only forty-two. The Latin proem was delivered by a young Irish
student from the centre of the platform; the other speakers delivering
their parts from the places assigned to them by the programme. Most of
the languages were spoken by natives of the several countries where they
prevail; and, where no native representative could be found, a student
remarkable for his proficiency in the language was selected instead.
It thus happened that the Hebrew psalm was recited by a Dutchman; the
Spanish ode fell to a native of Stockholm; and the soft measures of the
Italian _terzine_ and anacreontics were committed to the tender mercies
of two youths from beyond the Tweed!
With those of the odes which I was in some degree able to follow, the
Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and German, I was much pleased. They
appeared to me remarkably simple, elegant, and in good taste. But for the
rest, it would be idle to attempt to convey an idea of the strange effect
produced by the rapid succession of unknown sounds, uttered with every
diversity of intonation,[525] accompanied by every variety of gesture,
and running through every interval in the musical scale, from “syllables
which breathe of the soft south,” to the
Harsh northern whistling, grunting, guttural,
That we’re obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.
Some of the recitations were singularly soft and harmonious; some
came, even upon an uninstructed ear, with a force and dignity, almost
independent of the sense which they conveyed; some on the contrary,
especially when taken in connexion with the gestures and intonation of
the reciter, were indescribably ludicrous. Among the former was the
Syriac ode, recited by Joseph Churi, a youth since known in English
literature. Among the latter, the most curious were a Chinese Eclogue,
and a Peguan Dialogue. The speakers in both cases were natives, and I
was assured by a gentleman who was present at the exercise, and who
had visited China more than once, that their recitation was a perfect
reproduction of the tone and manner of the native theatre of China.
* * * * *
Throughout the entire proceedings Cardinal Mezzofanti was a most
attentive, and evidently an anxious listener. Every one of the young
aspirants to public favour was personally and familiarly known to
him. Many of the pieces, moreover, upon these occasions, were his own
composition, or at least revised by him; and thus, besides his paternal
anxiety for the success of his young friends, he generally had somewhat
of the interest of an author in the literary part of the performance. It
was plain, too, that, for the young speakers themselves, his Eminence
was, in his turn, the principal object of consideration; and it was
amusing to observe, in the case of one of the oriental recitations,
that the speaker almost appeared to forget the presence of the general
auditory, and to address himself entirely to the spot where Cardinal
Mezzofanti sate.
At the close of the exercises, as soon as the interesting assemblage
of the platform broke up, a motley group was speedily formed around
the good-natured Cardinal, to hear his criticisms, or to receive his
congratulations on the performance; and I then was witness for the first
time of what I saw on more than one subsequent occasion—the almost
inconceivable versatility of his wonderful faculty, and his power of
flying from language to language with the rapidity of thought itself,
as he was addressed in each in succession;—hardly ever hesitating, or
ever confounding a word or interchanging a construction. Most of the
members of the polyglot group which thus crowded around him and plied
him with this linguistic fusilade, were of course unknown to me; but I
particularly noticed among the busiest of the questioners, the Chinese
youths who had taken part in their native eclogue, and a strange,
mercurial, monkey-like, but evidently most intelligent lad, whom I
afterwards recognized as one of the speakers in the Peguan Dialogue.[526]
I was gratified, too, to see a gap which I had observed in the programme
of the exercises—the omission of the Russian language—supplied by his
Eminence in this curious after-performance. A Russian gentleman, who
had sate near me during the evening, now joined the group assembled
around the Cardinal, and good-humouredly complained of the oversight.
His Eminence, without a moment’s thought, replied to him in Russian;—in
which language a lengthened conversation ensued between them, with every
evidence of ease and fluency on the part of the Cardinal. Although I have
never since learned the name of this traveller, I noted the circumstance
with peculiar interest at the time, because he had already established
a claim upon my remembrance, by selecting (without knowing me as an
Irishman,) among all the recitations of the evening, as especially
harmonious and expressive in its sounds, the _Irish Ode_; which had been
delivered with great character and effect by a young student of the
County Mayo.
During my first visit to Rome, I had heard a great deal of this curious
power of maintaining a conversation simultaneously with several
individuals, and in many different languages; but I was far from being
prepared for an exhibition of it so wonderful as that which I have
witnessed. I cannot, at this distance of time, say what was the exact
number of the group which stood around him, nor can I assert that they
all spoke different languages; but making every deduction, the number
of speakers cannot have been less than ten or twelve; and I do not
think that he once hesitated for a sentence or even for a word! Many
very wonderful examples of the power of dividing the attention between
different objects have been recorded. Julius Cæsar, if we believe Pliny,
was able to listen with his ears, read with his eyes, write with his
pen, and dictate with his lips, at the same time. Mordaunt, Earl of
Peterborough, often dictated to six or seven secretaries simultaneously.
Walter Scott, when engaged in his Life of Napoleon, used to dictate
fluently to his amanuensis, while he was, at the same time, taking down
and reading books, consulting papers, and comparing authorities on the
difficult points of the history which were to follow. The wonderful
powers of the same kind possessed by Phillidor, the chess-player, too,
are well known.[527] But I cannot think that there is any example of
the faculty of mental self-multiplication, if it can be thus called,
upon record, so wonderful as that exhibited by Mezzofanti in these, so
to speak, linguistic tournaments, in which he held the lists against all
opponents, not successively, but at once. Guido Görres, describing the
rapidity of his transitions from one language to another, compares it
to “a bird flitting from spray to spray.” The learned Armenian, Father
Arsenius, speaking of the perfect distinctness of his use of each, and
of the entire absence of confusion or intermixture, says his change from
language to language “was like passing from one room into another.”
“Mezzofanti himself told me,” writes Cardinal Wiseman, “that whenever he
began to speak in one tongue, or turned into it from another, he seemed
to forget all other languages except that one. He has illustrated to me
the difficulty he had to encounter in these transitions, by taking a
common word, such as ‘bread,’ and giving it in several cognate languages,
as Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian, &c., the differences being very
slight, and difficult to remember. Yet he never made the least mistake in
any of them.”
When Rev. John Strain, now of St. Andrew’s, Dumfries, who assures me
that, while he was in the Propaganda, he often heard Mezzofanti speak
seven or eight languages in the course of half an hour, asked him how it
was that he never jumbled or confused them. Mezzofanti laughingly asked
in his turn.
“Have you ever _tried on a pair of green spectacles_?”
“Yes,” replied his companion.
“Well,” said Mezzofanti, “while you wore these spectacles everything
was green to your eyes. It is precisely so with me. While I am speaking
any language, for instance, Russian, _I put on my Russian spectacles_,
and for the time, _they colour everything Russian_. I see all my ideas
in that language alone. If I pass to another language, _I have only to
change the spectacles, and it is the same for that language also_!”
This amusing illustration perfectly describes the phenomenon so far
as it fell under observation; but, so far as I am aware, no one has
attempted to analyse the mental operation by which these astounding
external effects were produced. The faculty, whatever it was, may have
been improved and sharpened by exercise; but there is no part of the
extraordinary gift of this great linguist so clearly exceptional, and so
unprecedented in the history of the faculty of language.
A few weeks after the Propaganda academy, I met his Eminence at the
levee of the newly created Cardinal Cadolini, ex-Secretary of the Sacred
Congregation. Recognizing me at once as “the Maynooth Professor,” he
addressed me laughingly in Irish: _Cion̄us tá tú_ “How are you?” It has
repeatedly been stated that he knew Irish; and that language is actually
enumerated in more than one published list of the languages which he
spoke. Had it not been for his own candour on the occasion in question, I
myself should have carried away the same impression from our interview.
But on my declaring my inability to enter into an Irish conversation,
he at once confessed that, had I been able to go farther, I should have
found himself at fault; as, although he knew so much as enabled him to
initiate a conversation, and to make his way through a book, he had not
formally studied the Irish language. Nevertheless that he was acquainted
with its general characteristics, and the leading principles of its
inflections and grammatical structure, its analogies with Gælic, as well
as their leading points of difference, and its general relations with
the common Celtic family, I was enabled to ascertain in a subsequent
interview, in which I was accompanied by an accomplished Irish scholar,
the late Rev. Dr. Murphy of Kinsale. Dr. Murphy was much struck with the
accuracy and soundness of his views.
One of the observations which he made during this interview was
afterwards the occasion of no little amusement to us. During an audience
which Dr. Murphy, accompanied by Dr. Cullen, then Rector of the Irish
College, had had a few days before with the Pope, Gregory XVI., a new
work of Sir William Betham, _Etruria Celtica_—in which an attempt is made
to establish the identity of the Irish and Etrurian languages, and in
which the celebrated Eugubian inscriptions are explained as Irish,—had
been presented to the Pope. His holiness, who was much interested in
Etruscan antiquities, on hearing from Dr. Cullen the nature and object
of the work, had expressed great amusement at this latest discovery in a
matter which had already been explained in at least a dozen different and
conflicting ways. We mentioned this to the Cardinal.
“His Holiness is perfectly right,”he replied. “There is no possible
meaning which could not be taken out of it, if you only grant the licence
which these antiquarians claim. The Eugubian tables, in different
systems,[528] have been explained by some as a calendar of Festivals; by
others as a code of laws; by others as a system of agricultural precepts.
It is no wonder that your Irish author explains them as Irish. But I
will venture to say that, if you only take any common Italian or Latin
sentence, and apply to it the same system of interpretation, you may
explain it as Irish, and find it make excellent sense.”
On leaving his Eminence, we resolved to put his suggestion to the test.
We took the first sentence in the first of F. Segneri’s sermons which
opened in the volume. I have since tried, but in vain, to find the
passage: and I only recollect about it, that it related to the ardent
desire of our Divine Lord, that the light of his gospel should shine
among men. Dr. Murphy, without exceeding in the slightest degree the
license which Sir W. Betham allows himself, in dealing with the Eugubian
inscriptions, converted this Italian sentence into an Irish one, which,
to our infinite amusement, literally rendered, ran as follows: “In
sailing into the harbour, they came to the place of his habitation; and
_they took a vast quantity of large specked trouts, by the great virtue
of white Irish fishing-rods_!”
The Cardinal repeated to Dr. Murphy during this visit what he had before
said, that he did not pretend to speak Irish, but added that, if he had a
little practice, he would easily acquire it. I had already heard the same
from the Archbishop of Tuam, who knew him on his first arrival in Rome. I
have since been told that, in the following winter, he formally addressed
himself to the study, with the assistance of the late Rev. Dr. Lyons of
Erris, who was then in Rome; but I have no means of testing the truth of
the statement, or of ascertaining the extent of his progress.
This discussion regarding the Irish language naturally suggested a
similar inquiry as to the Cardinal’s knowledge of the kindred Gælic.
The Rev. John Strain, who knew him in 1832, when he first came to Rome,
informs me that in that year he had no knowledge whatever of the Gælic
language. He got a friend of Mr. Strain’s to repeat some sentences in it
for him, and expressed a wish to procure some books for the purpose of
learning it. I find from the catalogue of his library that he did procure
a few Gælic books: and Rev. John Gray of Glasgow, who was a student of
the Propaganda till the year 1841, informs me that he at that time knew
the language, but spoke it very imperfectly.[529]
An American gentleman whom I met one day in the Cardinal’s ante-chamber,
showed me an impromptu English couplet which his eminence had just
written for him, on his asking for some memorial of their interview. I
am not able now to recall this distich to memory; but it is only one of
numberless similar tokens which the Cardinal presented to his visitors
and friends. One of his favourite amusements consisted in improvising
little scraps of verse in various languages, for the most part embodying
some pious or moral sentiment, which he flung off with the rapidity of
thought, and without the slightest effort. Few of those which I have
seen, indeed, can be said to exhibit much poetical genius. There is
but little trace of imagination in them, and the sentiments, though
excellent, are generally commonplace enough. But while, considered as a
test of command over the languages in which they are written, even the
most worthless of them cannot be regarded as insignificant, there are
many of them which are very prettily turned, and display no common power
of versification.
It is difficult to recover scraps like these, fragmentary of their own
nature, and scattered over every country of the earth. I have sought in
vain for oriental specimens, although the Cardinal distributed numbers
of them to the students of the Propaganda at their leaving college. In
a sheet of autographs prefixed to this volume will be found verses in
sixteen different languages. A few others are given in the appendix.
I shall jot down here two or three specimens of his classical epigrams
which have fallen in my way.
Most of them arose out of the very circumstance of his being asked for
such a token of remembrance.
For instance, on one occasion when the request was addressed to him _in
Greek_, he wrote:
Ἑλλάδος ἠρώτας ἐμε ῥήμασιν. Ἑλλάδος ἁυδήν
Ἐκχὲω, οὐδ’ ἄλλην χρή ἀπαμειβόμενον.
Οὐ φθόγγος φθόγγοισιν ἀμείβεται, εί μὴ ὁμοῖος,
Ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ συμφώνων γίγνεται ἁρμονίη.
Νῦν δέ τίνα Γνώμην δώσω ἀιτοῦντι; τιν ἄλλην
Ἡ—— ’Θεὸν ἐν πάσῃ, δὲι φιλέειν κραδίῃ.’
So again, when a visitor begged him to write _his name_ in an album, he
gave, instead, this pretty couplet.
Pauca dedi—nomen. Tu sane pauca petisti,
Assiduus sed ego te rogo plura—preces.
In answer to a similar request at another time, he replied—
Accipe quod poscis—nomen. Scribatur ut ipsum
In cœlo, ad Dominum tu bone funde preces.
On being presented on New Year’s day with a pair of spectacles by his
friend, Dr. Peter Trombetti, of Bologna, he wrote:—
Deficit heu acies oculorum! instante senecta;
Deficit;—at comis lumina tu duplicas.
Lumen utrumque mihi argento dum nocte coruscat
Haud mihi qui dederit decidet ex animo.
A similar present at the next New Year elicited the following:—
Cum vix sufficiunt oculi mihi nocte legenti,
Ecce bonus rursum lumina tu geminas.
Prospera ut eveniant multis volventibus annis,
Cuncta tibi, par est me geminare preces.
To another of his Bolognese friends, the Canonico Tartaglia, now rector
of the Pontifical seminary, who begged some memorial, he sent the
following pretty epigram:—
Sæpe ego versiculos heic dicto, stans pede in uno;
Carmina sed fingo nulla linenda cedro.
Qualiacumque cano velox heu dissipat aura!
Unum de innumeris hoc mihi vix superest,
Mittimus hoc unum interea. Exiguum accipe donum
Eternæ veteris pignus amicitiæ.
Any one who has ever tried to turn a verse in any foreign tongue, will
agree with me in regarding the rapidity with which these trifles were
written, as one of the most curious evidences of the writer’s mastery
over the many languages in which he is known to have indulged this fancy.
The really pretty Dutch verses—verses as graceful in sentiment as they
are elegant in language—in reply to Dr. Wap’s address, were penned in Dr.
Wap’s presence and with great rapidity. Father Legrelle’s Flemish verses
were dashed off with equal quickness. The American of whom I spoke told
me that the Cardinal wrote almost without a moment’s thought. It was the
same for the lady mentioned by Dr. Wap, although the subject of these
verses arose during the interview; and even the Persian stanza which he
wrote for Dr. Tholuck, and which “contained several pretty ἐνθυμήσεις,”
cost him only about half an hour! How many of those who consider
themselves most perfect in French, Italian, or German, have ever ventured
even upon a single line of poetry in any of them?
I must not omit another circumstance which I myself observed, and which
struck me forcibly as illustrating the singular nicety of his ear, and
still more the completeness with which he threw himself into all the
details of every language which he cultivated;—I mean his manner and
accent in pronouncing Latin in conversation with natives of different
countries. One day I was speaking to him in company with Guido Görres,
when he had occasion to quote to me Horace’s line.
Si paulum a summo decessit, vergit ad imum:—
which he pronounced quite as I should have pronounced it, and without
any of the peculiarities of Italian pronunciation. He turned at once to
Görres, and added—
“Or, as you would say:
Si _pow_lum a _soomm_o _det_sessit, ver_ghit_ ad imum,”
introducing into it every single characteristic of the German manner
of pronouncing the Latin language. I have heard the same from other
foreigners. It was amusing, too, to observe that he had taken the
trouble to note and to acquire the peculiar expletive or interjectional
sounds, with which, as it is well known, natives of different countries
unconsciously interlard their conversation, and the absence or misuse
of which will sometimes serve to discover the foreign origin of one who
seems to speak a language with every refinement of correctness.[530] The
Englishman’s “ah!” the Frenchman’s “oh!” the whistling interjection of
the Neapolitan, the grunt of the Turk, the Spaniard’s nasal twang—were
all at his command.
My brief and casual intercourse with the Cardinal would not entitle me to
speak of his character and disposition, were it not that my impressions
are but an echo of all that has been said and written before me, of his
cheerful courtesy, his open-hearted frankness, and his unaffected good
nature. To all his visitors of whatever degree, he was the same—gay,
amiable, and unreserved. With him humility was an instinct. It seemed
as though he never thought of himself, or of any claim of his to
consideration. He would hardly permit the simple mark of respect—the
kissing of the ring which ordinarily accompanies the salutation of one of
high ecclesiastical dignity in Italy; and his demeanour was so entirely
devoid of assumption of superiority that the humblest visitor was at once
made to feel at home in his company.
His conversation was uniformly gay and cheerful, and no man entered
more heartily into the spirit of any little pleasantry which might
arise. On one occasion, upon a melting summer day, as he was shewing the
magnificent Giulio Clovio Dante, in the Vatican library, to a well-known
London clergyman, the latter, in his delight at one of the beautiful
miniatures by which it is illustrated—a moonlight scene—was in the act of
pointing out _with his moist finger_ some particular beauty which struck
him, when Mezzofanti, horror-struck at the danger, caught his arm.
“Softly, my dear Doctor,” he playfully interposed: “these things may be
looked at with the eyes, but not with the fingers.”
He delighted, too, in puns, and was equally ready in all languages. He
laughed heartily at Cardinal Rivarola’s Italian pun against himself,
about the _orecchini_;[531] and one day, while he was speaking German
with Guido Görres, the latter having made some allusion to his
Eminence’s increasing gray hairs, and spoken of him as a _weiss-haar_
(white-haired,)
“Ach!” he replied with a gentle smile, not untinged with
melancholy;—“ach! gäbe Gott dass ich, wie _weiss-haar_, so auch _weiser_
geworden wäre.”[532]
It will easily be inferred from this, that, among etymologies, he was
especially attracted by those which involved a play upon words:—if they
admitted a pun so much the better. He was much amused by Herr Fleck’s
suggestion, that the name Mezzofanti, was derived from Ἑν μέσῳ φαίνεται;
and Cardinal Wiseman told me that once, after learnedly canvassing the
various etymologies suggested for Felsina, the ancient name of his
native city, Bologna, he laughingly brought the discussion to a close by
suggesting that probably it was _Fé l’asina_, (the ass made it.)
Probably it was to this taste he was indebted for that familiarity with
Hudibras—a writer, otherwise so unattractive to a foreigner—which took
Mr. Badeley by surprise.
CHAPTER XVI.
[1843-1849.]
In the midst of the honours and occupations of his new dignity, Cardinal
Mezzofanti sustained a severe affliction in the death of his favourite
nephew, Monsignor Minarelli—the _Giuseppino_ (Joe) so often commemorated
in his early correspondence. This amiable and learned ecclesiastic
instead of accompanying his uncle to Rome, where the most brilliant
prospects were open to him, preferred to pursue the quiet and useful
career of university life, in which he had hitherto been associated with
him in Bologna. By successive steps, he had risen to the Rectorate of
the University; and in recognition of his services to that institution,
the honorary dignity of a prelate of the first class in the Roman
Court—popularly styled _del mantelletto_—had been conferred on him by the
Pope. The Cardinal, as is plain from his own letters and those of his
Bologna friends, was warmly attached to him. While he lived in Bologna
Giuseppe was his friend and companion, rather than his pupil; and the
young man’s early death was felt the more deeply by him, from the
congeniality of tastes and studies which had always subsisted between
them.
The Cardinal’s sister, Teresa, (mother of the deceased prelate,) although
she was ten years his senior, was still living in their old home at
Bologna, and he continued to correspond with her up to the time of his
death. His letters to her are all exceedingly simple and unaffected—so
entirely of a domestic character, and without public interest, that, if
I translate one of them here—the latest which has come into my hands—it
is merely as a specimen of the warmth and tenderness, as well as deeply
religious character of the Cardinal’s affection for his sister and for
her children.
“We are on the eve of your Saint’s Day, my dearest sister. I am
to say Mass on that day in the Church of the Servites; but I
shall offer it for you, praying with all the fervor of my heart
that God may long preserve you in health, and console you under
your affliction, and that your holy patroness may protect you,
and obtain for you all the graces of which you stand in need.
I wish to mark the occasion by a little token of my affection,
and I have already written to Gesnalde to transmit it to you.
It is a mere trifle, but I know that you will only look, as
you have always done in past years, to the person it comes
from, and that you will give it value by accepting it, and by
corresponding with me in recommending me, as I do you, to the
special favour of the Almighty. As being my elder sister, you
used always, when we were children, to pray for your little
brother; and I know that you still continue the practice; I am
most grateful for it, and I try to make you every return.
Your sons, and my niece Anna unite with me in their
affectionate wishes, and beg your blessing. May God bestow his
most abundant blessings on you!”
The history of the later years of the Cardinal’s life presents scarcely
any incidents of any special interest. Few of the reports of the
foreigners who met him at this period, differ in any material particulars
from those which we have already seen. I shall content myself, therefore,
with two or three of them, which may be taken as specimens of the entire,
but which are selected also with a view to serve in guiding the reader
in his estimate, not merely of the general attainments of the Cardinal
as a linguist, but of his proficiency in the languages of the writers
themselves, and in other languages, not specially commemorated hitherto.
We have already passingly alluded to the account of Mezzofanti given
by the Rev. Ingraham Kip, a clergyman of the Episcopalian Church in
America: but the details into which this gentleman enters, regarding
his Eminence’s knowledge of the English language and literature, are so
important, that it would be unpardonable to pass them by.
“He is a small lively looking man,” says Mr. Kip, “apparently
over seventy. He speaks English with a slight foreign
accent—yet remarkably correct. Indeed, I never before met with
a foreigner who could talk for ten minutes without using some
word with a shade of meaning not exactly right; yet, in the
_long conversation I had with the Cardinal, I detected nothing
like this. He did not use a single expression or word in any
way which was not strictly and idiomatically correct._ He
converses, too, without the slightest hesitation, never being
at the least loss for the proper phrase.
In talking about him some time before to an ecclesiastic, I
quoted Lady Blessington’s remark, ‘that she did not believe he
had made much progress in the literature of these forty-two
languages; but was rather like a man who spent his time in
manufacturing keys to palaces which he had not time to enter;’
and I inquired whether this was true. ‘Try him,’ said he,
laughing; and, having now the opportunity, I endeavoured to do
so. I led him, therefore, to talk of Lord Byron and his works,
and then of English literature generally. He gave me, in the
course of his conversation, quite a discussion on the subject
which was the golden period of the English language; and of
course fixed on the days of Addison. He drew a comparison
between the characteristics of the French, Italian, and Spanish
languages; spoke of Lockhart’s translation from the Spanish,
and incidentally referred to various other English writers. He
then went on to speak of American literature, and paid high
compliments to the pure style of some of our best writers. He
expressed an opinion that, with many, it had been evidently
formed by a careful study of the old authors—those ‘wells of
English undefiled’—and, that within the last fifty years we had
imported fewer foreign words than had been done in England. He
spoke very warmly of the works of Mr. Fennimore Cooper, whose
name, by the way, is better known on the continent than that of
any other American author.”
As Mr. Kip, unfortunately, was not acquainted with any of the Indian
languages of North America, he was unable to test the extent of the
Cardinal’s attainments in these languages. His account, nevertheless, is
not without interest.
“In referring to our Indian languages, he remarked, that the
only one with which he was well acquainted was the Algonquin,
although he knew something of the Chippewa and Delaware; and
asked whether I understood Algonquin; I instantly disowned
any knowledge of the literature of that respectable tribe of
Savages; for I was afraid the next thing would be a proposal
that we should continue the conversation in their mellifluous
tongue. He learned it from an Algonquin missionary, who
returned to Rome, and lived just long enough to enable the
Cardinal to begin this study. He had read the works of Mr.
Du Ponceau[533] of Philadelphia, on the subject of Indian
languages, and spoke very highly of them.”
It is right to add Mr. Kip’s conclusions from the entire interview, and
his impressions regarding the natural and acquired powers of the great
linguist.
“And yet,” he concludes, “_all this conversation by no
means satisfied me_ of the depth of the Cardinal’s literary
acquirements. There was nothing said which gave evidence of
more than a superficial acquaintance with English literature;
the kind of knowledge which passes current in society, and
which is necessarily picked up by one who meets so often
with cultivated people of each country. His acquirements in
words are certainly wonderful; but I could not help asking
myself their use. I have never yet heard of their being of
any practical benefit to the world during the long life of
their possessor. He has never displayed anything philosophical
in his character of mind; none of that power of combination
which enables Schlegel to excel in all questions of philology,
and gives him a talent for discriminating and a power of
handling the resources of a language which have never been
surpassed.”[534]
Perhaps the reader will be disposed to regard Mr. Kip’s criticism as
somewhat _exigeant_ in its character; and to think that, even taking his
own report of his conversation with the Cardinal, and of the number and
variety of the English and American writers, with whom, and with whose
peculiar characteristics, he was acquainted—some of them, moreover—as
for example, Lockhart’s Spanish Ballads—a translation from a foreign
language—most unlikely to attract a “superficial” foreigner, he was a
little unreasonable in refusing “to be satisfied with the depth of the
Cardinal’s literary acquirements.” For my part, I cannot help thinking
this interview, even as recorded by Mr. Kip, one of the most astonishing
incidents in the entire history of this extraordinary man. And I may add
to what is here stated of his familiarity with the principal English
authors, native and American, that, as I am informed by the Rev. Mr.
Gray, of Glasgow, the Cardinal was also intimately acquainted with the
national literature of Scotland; that he had read many of the works of
Walter Scott and Burns; and that he understood and was able to enjoy the
Lowland Scottish dialect, which is one of the great charms of both.
Mr. Kip’s impressions as to the Cardinal’s want of skill in the science
of language and of its philosophical bearing on history and ethnology,
must be admitted to have more foundation, and are shared by several of
the scholars who visited him, especially those who cultivated ethnology
as a particular study. I have reserved for this place a short notice of
the Cardinal, which has been communicated to me by Baron Bunsen, and
which, while it does ample justice to Mezzofanti’s merits as a linguist,
puts a very low estimate on his accomplishments as a philologer, and a
critic. The reader will gather from much of what has been already said,
that I am far from adopting this estimate in several of its particulars;
but Baron Bunsen’s opinion upon any question of scholarship or criticism
is too important to be overlooked.
“I saw him first as Abate and Librarian at Bologna, in 1828,
when travelling through Italy, with the Crown Prince (now
King) of Prussia. When he came to Rome as head librarian to
the Vatican, I have frequently had the pleasure of seeing
him in my house, and in the Vatican. He was always amiable,
humane, courteous, and spoke with equal fluency the different
languages of Europe. His gentleness and modesty have often
struck me. Once, when some misrepresentations of Lady Morgan
in her book on Italy, were mentioned before him with very
strong vituperation, ‘Poor Lady Morgan!’ he said, ‘it is not
yet given to her to see truth.’ When complimented by an English
lady upon his miraculous facility in acquiring languages, with
the additional observation that Charles the Fifth had said,
‘as many languages as a man knows, so many times he is a man,’
he replied, ‘Well, that ought rather to humble us; for it is
essential to man to err, and therefore, such a man is the more
liable to error, if Charles the Fifth’s observation is true.’
On the other side, I must confess that I was always struck by
the observation of an Italian who answered to the question:
‘Non è miracoloso di vedere un uomo parlare quaranta due
lingue?’ replied, ‘Si, senza dubbio; ma più miracoloso ancora
è di sentire che questo uomo in quaranta due lingue non dice
_niente_.’ A giant as a linguist, Mezzofanti certainly was a
child as a philologer and philological critic.
He delighted in etymologies, and sometimes he mentioned new
and striking ones, particularly as to the Romanic languages
and their dialects. But he could not draw any philosophical
or historical consequences from that circumstance, beyond the
first self-evident elements. He had no idea of philosophical
grammar. I have once seen his attempt at decyphering a Greek
inscription, and never was there such a failure. Nor has he
left or published anything worth notice.
I explain this by his ignorance of all _realities_. He
remembered words and their sounds and significations almost
instinctively; but he lived upon reminiscences: he never had
an original thought. I understood from one of his learned
colleagues, (a Roman Prelate,) that it was the same with his
theology; there was no acuteness in his divinity, although he
knew well St. Thomas and other scholastics.
As to Biblical Criticism, he had no idea of it. His knowledge
of Greek criticism too was very shallow.
In short, his linguistic talent was that of seizing sounds and
accents, and the whole (so to say) idiom of a language, and
reproducing them by a wonderful, but equally special, memory.
I do not think he had ever his equal in this respect.
But the cultivation of this power had absorbed all the rest.
Let it, however, never be forgotten that he was, according to
all I have heard from him, a charitable, kind Christian, devout
but not intolerant, and that his habitual meekness was not a
cloak, but a real Christian habit and virtue. Honour be to his
memory.”
There is a part of this criticism which is unquestionably just: but
there are also several of the views from which I am bound to dissent
most strongly, and to which I shall have occasion to revert hereafter.
Meanwhile, that the Cardinal paid more attention to these inquiries than
Mr. Kip and M. Bunsen suppose, will appear from the testimony of the Abbé
Gaume, author of the interesting work, “_Les Trois Rome_.”
“I had often met the illustrious philologer,” says M. Gaume,
“at the Propaganda, where he used to come to spend the
afternoon. Kind, affable, modest, he mixed with the students,
and spoke by turns Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Chinese, and
twenty other languages, with a facility almost prodigious.
When I entered, I found him studying Bas-Breton, and I have
no doubt that in a short time he will be able to exhibit it
to the inhabitants of Vannes themselves. His eminence assured
me of two points. The first is the fundamental unity of all
languages. This unity is observable especially in the parts of
speech, which are the same or nearly so in all languages. The
second is the trinity of dialects in the primitive language;—a
trinity corresponding with the three races of mankind. The
Cardinal has satisfied himself that there are but three races
sprung from one common stock, as there are but three languages
or principal dialects of one primitive language;—the Japhetic
language and race; the Semitic language and race; and the
Chamitic language and race. Thus the unity of the human kind
and the trinity of races, which are established by all the
monuments of history, are found also to be supported by the
authority of the most extraordinary philologer that has even
been known.
The Cardinal’s testimony is the more important inasmuch as
his linguistic acquirements are not confined to a superficial
knowledge. Of the many languages which he possesses, there is
not one in which he is not familiar with the every day words,
common sayings, adages, and all that difficult nomenclature
which constitutes the popular part of a language. One day
he asked one of our friends to what province of France he
belonged. ‘To Burgundy;’ replied my friend. ‘Oh!’ said
Mezzofanti, ‘you have two Burgundian dialects; which of them do
you speak?’ ‘I know,’ replied our friend, ‘the patois of Lower
Burgundy.’ Whereupon the Cardinal began to talk to him in Lower
Burgundian, with a fluency which the vine-dressers of Nantes or
Beaune might envy.”[535]
This curious familiarity with provincial _patois_, described by the
Abbé Gaume, extended to the other provincial dialects of France. M.
Manavit found him not only acquainted with the Tolosan dialect, but
even not unread in its local literature. His library contains books in
the dialects of Lorraine, Bearne, Franche Comté, and Dauphiné. I have
already mentioned his speaking Provençal with Madame de Chaussegros;
and Dr. Grant, bishop of Southwark, told me that he was able, solely by
the accent of the Abbé Carbry, to determine the precise place of his
nativity, Montauban.
Another language regarding which, although it has more than once been
alluded to, few testimonies have as yet been brought forward, is Spanish.
I shall content myself, nevertheless, with the evidence of a single
Spaniard, which, brief as it is, leaves nothing to be desired. “I can
assert of his Eminence,” writes Father Diego Burrueco, a Trinitarian
of Zamora, who knew the Cardinal during many of these years, “that he
spoke our Spanish like a native of Castile. He could converse in the
Andalusian dialect with Andalusians; he was able, also, to distinguish
the Catalonian dialect from that of Valencia, and both from that of the
Island of Majorca.”[536] We have already seen that, at a very early
period of his life, he studied the Mexican, Peruvian, and other languages
of Spanish America. That he spoke both Mexican and Peruvian after he
came to Rome, Cardinal Wiseman has no doubt. He is also stated to have
learned something of the languages of Oceanica from Bishop Pompalier,
of New Zealand. I may add here, though I have failed in finding native
witnesses, that it is the universal belief in Rome that he spoke well
both ancient and modern Chaldee, and ancient Coptic, as also the modern
dialect of Egypt. He had the repute also of being thoroughly familiar
with both branches of the Illyrian family—the Slavonic and the Romanic.
To the testimonies already borne to his skill in Armenian and Turkish,
I must add that of the Mechitarist, Father Raphael Trenz, Superior of
the Armenian College in Paris, who knew him in 1846. “Having conversed
with his Eminence,” writes this father,[537] “in ancient and in modern
Armenian, and also in Turkish, I am able to attest that he spoke and
pronounced them all with the purity and propriety of a native of these
countries.”
Perhaps also, although we have had many notices of his skill in Russian
and Polish from a very early period, it may be satisfactory to subjoin
the reports of one or two travellers who conversed with him in these
languages during his latter years.
To begin with Russian. A traveller of that nation who twice visited him
about this time, cited by Mr. Watts, describes him as “a phenomenon as
yet unparalleled in the literary world, and one that will scarce be
repeated, unless the gift of tongues be given anew, as at the dawn of
Christianity.”
“Cardinal Mezzofanti,” he writes, “spoke eight languages
fluently in my presence: he expressed himself in Russian
very purely and correctly; but, as he is more accustomed to
the style of books than that of ordinary discourse, it is
necessary to use the language of books in talking with him for
the conversation to flow freely. His passion for acquiring
languages is so great, that even now, in advanced age, he
continues to study fresh dialects. He learned Chinese not long
ago; and is constantly visiting the Propaganda for practice in
conversation with its pupils of all sorts of races. I asked
him to give me a list of all the languages and dialects in
which he was able to express himself, and he sent me the name
of GOD written in his own hand, in fifty-six languages, of
which thirty were European, not counting their subdivision of
dialects, seventeen Asiatic, also without reckoning dialects,
five African, and four American. In his person, the confusion
that arose at the building of Babel is annihilated, and all
nations, according to the sublime expression of Scriptures,
are again of one tongue. Will posterity ever see anything
similar? Mezzofanti is one of the most wonderful curiosities of
Rome.”[538]
In the end of the year 1845, Nicholas, the late Emperor of Russia, (who
of course is an authority also on the Polish language,) came to Rome, on
his return from Naples, where he had been visiting his invalid Empress.
The history of his interview with the Pope, Gregory XVI., and of the
apostolic courage and candour with which, in two successive conferences,
that great pontiff laid before him the cruelty, injustice, and impolicy
of his treatment of the Catholic subjects of his empire, is too well
known to need repetition here.[539] It was commonly said at the time,
and has been repeated in more than one publication, that the Pope’s
interpreter in this memorable conference was Cardinal Mezzofanti. This is
a mistake. The only Cardinal present at the interview was the mild and
retiring, but truly noble-minded and apostolic, Cardinal Acton.
A few days, however, after this interview, M. Boutanieff, the Russian
minister at Rome, wrote to request that Cardinal Mezzofanti would wait
upon the Emperor; and a still more direct invitation was conveyed to
him, in the name of the Emperor himself, by his first aide-de-camp. The
Cardinal of course could not hesitate to comply. Their conversation was
held both in Russian and in Polish. The Emperor was filled with wonder,
and confessed that, in either of these languages it would be difficult
to discover any trace of foreign peculiarity in the Cardinal’s accent or
manner.[540] It is somewhat amusing to add, that the Cardinal is said to
have taken some exceptions to the purity, or at least the elegance, of
the Emperor’s Polish conversational style.
As regards the Polish language, however, the year 1845 supplies other and
more direct testimonies than that of the Emperor Nicholas.
In an extract cited by Mr. Watts from the Posthumous Works of the eminent
Polish authoress, Klementyna z Tanskich Hoffmanowa, who visited Rome in
the March of that year, it is stated that “the cardinal spoke Polish
well, though with somewhat strained and far-fetched expressions;” and
that he was master of the great difficulty of Polish pronunciation—that
of the marked _l_—“although he often forgot it.” This lady has preserved
in her Diary a Polish couplet, written for her by the Cardinal with his
own hand, under a little picture of the Madonna.
Ten ogien ktory żyia w sercu twoiem
O Matko Boża! zapal w sercu moiem.[541]
Another, and to the Cardinal far more interesting, representative of the
Polish language appeared in Rome during the same year. Mezzofanti had
long felt deeply the wrongs of his oppressed fellow-Catholics in Poland
and Lithuania. A few months before the Emperor’s arrival in Rome, they
had been brought most painfully under his eyes by the visit of a refugee
of that vast empire, and a victim of the atrocious policy which had
become its ruling spirit—the heroic Makrena Mirazylawski, abbess of the
Basilian convent of Minsk, the capital of the province of that name. The
organized measures of coercion by which the Emperor endeavoured to compel
the Catholic population of Lithuania and Poland, and the other Catholic
subjects of the empire, into renunciation of their allegiance to the
Holy See, and conformity with the doctrine and discipline of the Russian
church, comprised all the members of the Catholic church in Russia
without exception, even the nuns of the various communities throughout
their provinces. Among these was a sisterhood of the Basilian order in
the city of Minsk, thirty-five in number. The bishop of the diocese and
the chaplain of the convent, having themselves conformed to the imperial
will, first endeavoured to bend the resolution of these sisters by
blandishment, but in the end sought by open violence to compel them into
submission. But the nobleminded sisters, with their abbess at their head,
firmly refused to yield; and, in the year 1839, the entire community
(with the exception of one who died from grief and terror) were driven
from their convent, and marched in chains to Witepsk, and afterwards
to Polosk, where, with two other communities equally firm in their
attachment to their creed, they were subjected, for nearly six years, to
a series of cruelties and indignities of which it is difficult to think
without horror, and which would revolt all credibility, were they not
attested by authorities far from partial to the monastic institute.[542]
Chained hand and foot; flogged; beaten with the fist and with clubs;
thrown to the earth and trampled under foot; compelled to break stones
and to labour at quarries and earthworks; dragged in sacks after a
boat through a lake in the depth of winter; supplied only with the
most loathsome food and in most insufficient quantity; lodged in cells
creeping with maggots and with vermin; fed for a time exclusively on salt
herrings, without a drop of water; tried, in a word, by every conceivable
device of cruelty;—the perseverance of these heroic women is a living
miracle of martyr-like fidelity. Nine of the number died from the effects
of the excessive and repeated floggings to which, week after week, they
were subjected, three fell dead in the course of their cruel tasks; two
were trampled to death by their drunken guards; three were drowned in
these brutal _noyades_; nine were killed by the falling of a wall, and
five were crushed in an excavation, while engaged in the works already
referred to; eight became blind; two lost their reason; several others
were maimed and crippled in various ways; so that, in the year 1845,
out of the three united communities (which at the first had numbered
fifty-eight) only four, of whom Makrena was the chief, retained the use
of their limbs! These heroines of faith and endurance contrived at last
to effect their escape from Polosk, from which place it had been resolved
to transport them to Siberia; and, through a thousand difficulties and
dangers, Makrena Mirazylawski made her adventurous way to Rome.
The sufferings and the wrongs of this interesting stranger found a ready
sympathy in Cardinal Mezzofanti’s generous heart. He listened to her
narrative with deep indignation, and took the liveliest interest in all
the arrangements for her safe and fitting reception and that of her
companions.
I was naturally anxious to hear what, on the other hand, were the
abbess’s impressions of the cardinal. In reply to the inquiries of my
friend, Rev. Dr. Morris, she “spoke of him in the very highest terms.”
“He was,” she said, “a living saint,” and she described both his charity
and his spirituality as very remarkable. When Father Ryllo (the Jesuit
Rector of the Propaganda before F. Bresciani) left Rome for the African
Mission, Cardinal Mezzofanti became Mother Makrena’s director, and
continued to be so for two years. “He spoke Polish,” she declares,
“like a native of Poland, and wrote it with great correctness.” Having
ascertained that the abbess had had a considerable packet of papers
written by him in Polish, generally on those occasions when he could not
come to her as usual, on various spiritual subjects, I was most anxious
to obtain copies of them; but I was deeply mortified to learn that they
were all unfortunately lost in the Revolution, when she was driven out
of her little convent near Santa Maria Maggiore. This humble community
was afterwards increased by the arrival of other fugitives from different
parts of the Russian Empire; nor did the cardinal cease till the very
last days of his life his anxious care of all their spiritual and
temporal interests.
Another religious institution to which he devoted a good deal of his
time was the House of Catechumens, of which, as has already been stated,
he was Cardinal Protector. When M. Manavit was in Rome the inmates of
this establishment, then in preparation for baptism, were between thirty
and forty, several of whom were Moors or natives of Algeria; and there
are few who will not cordially agree with him[543] in looking upon “the
modest Cardinal, catechism in hand, in the midst of this humble flock, as
a nobler picture, more truly worthy of admiration, than delivering his
most learned dissertation on the Vedas to the most brilliant company that
ever assembled in the halls of the Propaganda.”
In this, and in more than one other charitable institution of Rome, the
Cardinal took especial delight in assisting at the First Communion of the
young inmates; and, from the simple fervour of his manner and the genuine
truthfulness of his piety, he was most happy and effective in the little
half hortatory, half ejaculatory discourses, called _Fervorini_, which in
Rome ordinarily, on occasions of a First Communion, precede the actual
administration of the sacrament.
M. Manavit adds that, even after Mezzofanti became cardinal, his old
character of _Confessario dei Forestieri_ (“Foreigners’ Confessor”) was
by no means a sinecure. To many of the Polish exiles, clergy and laity,
who visited or settled in Rome, he acted as director, especially after
Father Ryllo’s departure to Africa. He was equally accessible to low and
high degree. M. Mouravieff[544] (the Russian traveller already cited)
mentions an instance in which, having heard of a poor servant maid,
a young Russian girl, who desired to be received into the Church, he
paid her repeated visits, instructed her in the catechism, and himself
completed in person every part of her preparation for the sacraments.
* * * * *
The death of Pope Gregory XVI., (June 1st, 1846) which, although in a
ripe old age, was at the time entirely unexpected, was a great affliction
to Mezzofanti, whose affectionate relations with him were maintained to
the very last. The Cardinal was, of course, a member of the conclave
in which (June 16th) Pius IX. was elected. The speedy and unanimous
agreement of the Cardinals in this election—one of the few which seemed
to convert the traditional form of “election by inspiration,” into a
reality—was commemorated impromptu by him in the following graceful
epigram:—
Gregorius cœlo invectus sic protinus orat:
“Heu cito Pastorem da, bone Christe, gregi!”
Audit; et immissus pervadit pectora Patrum,
Spiritus: et Nonus prodiitecce Pius![545]
During the pontificate of Gregory XVI., Cardinal Mezzofanti never held
any office of state; nor did the change of sovereign make any change
in his rank or his occupations. He was, of course, continued by the
new government in all his appointments; and the new Pope, Pius IX.,
regarded him with the same friendship and favour which he had enjoyed
at the hands of his predecessor. In the social and political changes
which ensued, Mezzofanti, from his non-political character, had no part.
No one sympathized more cordially with the beneficent intentions of
his Sovereign; but, completely shut out as he was by his position from
political affairs, he pursued his quiet career, with all its wonted
regularity, through the very hottest excitement of the eventful years of
1847 and 1848.
Many visitors who conversed with him in these, the last years of his
life, have repeated to me the accounts which have already become familiar
from the reports of those who knew him in earlier years. The fulfilment
of his public duties as Cardinal;—the care of the institutions over which
an especial charge had been assigned him;—the confessional, whenever his
services were sought by a foreigner;—above all, his beloved pupils in the
Propaganda—these formed for him the business of life.
“Almost every evening, when I was in the College of the
Propaganda,” says F. Bresciani, “he would come to exercise
himself with these dear pupils, who are collected there from
all nations of the world, to be educated in sacred and profane
literature and in the apostolic spirit. Then, as he conversed
with me in the halls of the Propaganda when the pupils were
returning from their evening walks, he would go to meet them
as he saw them coming up the steps, and, as they passed him,
would say something to them in their own languages; speaking
to one, Chinese; to another, Armenian; to a third, Greek; to a
fourth, Bulgarian. This one he would accost in Arabic, that, in
Ethiopic, Geez, or Abyssinian; now he would speak in Russian,
then in Albanian, in Persian, in Peguan, in Coptic, in English,
in Lithuanian, in German, in Danish, in Georgian, in Kurdish,
in Norwegian, in Swedish. Nor was there ever any risk that he
should get entangled, or that a word of another language or a
wrong pronunciation should escape him.”[546]...
“Every year, from the time of his coming to Rome, even after
he had been made Cardinal, he used to assist the students in
composing their several national odes for the Polyglot Academy
of the Propaganda, which is held during the octave of the
Epiphany, and in which the astonished foreigners who witness
it behold a living emblem of the unity of the Catholic Church,
which alone is able, through the Holy Spirit that vivifieth
her, to show forth in one fraternity the union of all tongues,
in praising and blessing the Lord who created us and redeemed
us by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now the Cardinal, in these
fifty tongues and upwards, in which the pupils composed, would
make all the necessary corrections whether of thought, metre,
or phrase, with all, and perhaps more than all, the facility
and exactness of others in writing poetry in their native
tongue. After he had corrected the compositions, he would
take his beloved pupils, one by one, and instruct them in the
proper mode of reciting and pronouncing each. And, as some of
them occasionally had entered college when very little boys,
and had forgotten some of the tones or cadence of their native
languages, he would come to their aid by suggesting these,
testing and correcting them with the utmost gentleness and
patience.”[547]
It would be out of place here to enter into any detail of the startling
and violent changes by which these tranquil occupations were rudely
interrupted. The Cardinal had watched with deep anxiety the gradually
increasing demands with which each successive generous and confiding
measure of the administration of Pius IX. had been met; but even his
sagacious mind, schooled as it had already been in the vicissitudes of
former revolutions, was not prepared for the succession of terrible
events which crowded themselves into the last few weeks of the “year
of revolution”—the furious demands of the clubs—the expulsion of the
Jesuits—the assassination of De Rossi—the obtrusion of a republican
ministry—the flight of the Pope—the proclamation of the Republic. Amid
all the terrors of the time, he had but one thought—gratitude for the
safety of the Pope. He was urged by his friends to imitate the example
of the main body of the Cardinals, and to follow his Sovereign to Gaeta
or Naples; but he refused to leave Rome, and continued through all the
scenes of violence which followed the flight of Pius IX., to live,
without any attempt at concealment, at his old quarters in the Palazzo
Valentiniani.
Nevertheless, although, personally, Cardinal Mezzofanti suffered no
molestation, the alarm and anxiety inseparable from such a time, could
not fail to tell upon a constitution, at no time robust, and of late
years much enfeebled. From the beginning of the year 1849, his strength
began sensibly to diminish. It was characteristic of the man that even
all the terrors of the period could not make him forget his favourite
festival of the Epiphany; and that, among the numberless more deplorable
changes which surrounded him, he still had a regret for the absence of
the accustomed Polyglot Academy of the Propaganda. Before the middle of
January he became so weak, that it was with the utmost difficulty he was
able to say mass in his private chapel. While he was in this state of
extreme debility, he was seized with an alarming attack of pleurisy; and
although the acute symptoms were so far relieved at the end of January,
that his family entertained sanguine hopes of his recovery, this illness
was followed, in the early part of February, by an attack of gastric
fever, by which the slender remains of his strength were speedily
exhausted.
The venerable sufferer at once became sensible of his condition. From the
very first intimation of his danger, he had commenced his preparation
for death, with all the calm and simple piety which had characterised
his life. In accordance with one of our beautiful Catholic customs—at
once most holy in themselves, and an admirable help even to the sublimest
piety—he at once entered upon a _Novena_, or nine days’ devotion, to St.
Joseph; who, as, according to an old tradition, his own eyes were closed
in death by the blessed hands of his divine Saviour, has been adopted
by Catholic usage as the Patron of the Dying, and who was besides the
name-saint and especial Patron of the Cardinal himself. In these pious
exercises he was accompanied by his chaplain, by his nephews, Gaetano and
Pietro, and above all, by his niece, Anna, who was most tenderly attached
to him, and was inconsolable at the prospect of his death. He himself
fixed the time for receiving the Holy Viaticum and the Extreme Unction.
They were administered by Padre Ligi, parish priest of the Church of SS.
Apostoli, assisted by the Cardinal’s chaplain, and by his confessor,
Padre Proja, now Sacristan of St. Peter’s. The chaplain and the members
of his family frequently assembled at his bed-side, to accompany and
assist him in his dying devotions; and the intervals between these common
prayers, in which all alike took part, were filled up with pious readings
by Anna Minarelli, and with short prayers of the holy Cardinal himself.
“Dio mio! abbiate pietà di me!” “My God, have mercy on me!”—was his ever
recurring ejaculation, mingled occasionally with prayers for the exiled
Pontiff, for the welfare of his widowed Church, and for the peace of his
distracted country. “_Abbiate pietà della Chiesa! Preghiamo per lei!_”
By degrees he became too feeble to maintain his attention through a
long prayer; but even still, with that deeply reverent spirit which had
always distinguished him, he would not suffer the prayer to be abruptly
terminated. “_Terminiamo con un Gloria Patri_,” “Let us finish with a
Gloria Patri:”—he would say, when he found himself unable longer to
attend to the Litany of the Dying, or the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin.
But in a short time he would again summon them to resume their devotion.
Early in March it became evident that his end was fast approaching. He
still retained strength by energy enough to commence a second Novena
to his holy Patron St. Joseph—a pious exercise, which, in the simple
words of his biographer, “he was destined to bring to an end in heaven.”
During the last three days of life, his articulation, at times, was
barely distinguishable; but even when his words were inaudible, his
attendants could not mistake the unvarying fervour of his look, and the
reverent movements of the lips and eyes, which betokened his unceasing
prayer. From the morning of the 15th of March, the decline of strength
became visibly more rapid; and, on the night of that day, he calmly
expired.[548] His last distinguishable words, a happy augury of his
blessed end—were: “_Andiamo, andiamo, presto in Paradiso._” “_I am
going—I am going—soon to Paradise!_”
The absence of the Roman Court, as well as the other unhappy
circumstances of the times, precluded the possibility of performing his
obsequies with the accustomed ceremonial. An offer of the honours of
a public funeral, with deputations from the university, and an escort
of the National Guard, was made by M. Gherardi, the Minister of Public
Instruction in the new-born Republic. But these, and all other honours
of the anti-Papal Republic, were declined by his family;—not only from
the unseemliness of such a ceremonial at such a time, but still more as
inconsistent with the loyalty, and the personal feelings, principles, and
character, of the illustrious deceased.
Without a trace, therefore, of the wonted solemnities of a cardinalitial
funeral—the _cappella ardente_; the lofty catafalque; the solemn lying in
state; the grand _Missa de Requiem_;—the remains of the great linguist
were, on the evening of the 17th of March, conducted unostentatiously,
with no escort but that of his own family and of the members of his
modest household, bearing torches in their hands, to their last
resting-place in Sant’ Onofrio, on the Janiculum—the church of his
Cardinalitial title.
There, within the same walls which, as we saw, enclose the ashes of
Torquato Tasso, the tomb of Cardinal Mezzofanti may be recognised by
the following unpretending inscription, from the pen of his friend Mgr.
Laureani:—
HEIC. IN. SEDE. HONORIS. SUI.
SITUS. EST.
JOSEPHUS. MEZZOFANTI. S. R. E. CARD.
INNOCENTIA. MORUM. ET. PIETATE. MEMORANDUS.
ITEMQUE. OMNIUM. DOCTRINARUM.
AC. VETERUM. NOVORUMQUE. IDIOMATUM.
SCIENTIA.
PLANE. SINGULARIS. ET. FAMA. CULTIORI. ORBI.
NOTISSIMUS.
BONONIAE. NATUS. ANNO. MDCCLXXIV.
ROMAE. DECESSIT. AN. MDCCCXLVIIII.
CHAPTER XVII.
(RECAPITULATION.)
We have now before us, in the narrative of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s life,
such materials for an estimate of his attainments as a linguist and a
scholar, as a most diligent and impartial inquiry has enabled me to bring
together. I can truly say that in no single instance have I suffered
my own personal admiration of his extraordinary gifts to shape or to
influence that inquiry. I have not looked to secure a verdict by culling
the evidence. A great name is but tarnished by unmerited praise—_non
eget mendacio nostro_. I have felt that I should consult best for the
fame of Mezzofanti, by exhibiting it in its simple truth; and I have
sought information regarding him, fearlessly and honestly, in every
field in which I saw a prospect of obtaining it,—from persons of every
class, country, and creed—from friendly, from indifferent, and even from
hostile quarters;—from all, in a word, without exception, whom I knew
or thought likely to possess the means of contributing to the solution
of the interesting problem in the annals of the human mind, which is
involved in his history. It only remains to sum up the results. Nor is
it easy to approach this duty with a perfectly unbiassed mind. If, on the
one hand, there is a temptation to heighten the marvels of the history,
viewed through what Carlyle calls “the magnifying _camera oscura_ of
tradition,” on the other, there is the opposite danger of unduly yielding
to incredulity, and discarding its genuine facts on the sole ground
of their marvellousness. I shall endeavour to hold a middle course. I
shall not accept any of the wonders related of Mezzofanti, unless they
seem attested by undisputable authority: but neither shall I, in a case
so clearly abnormal as his, and one in which all ordinary laws are so
completely at fault, reject well-attested facts, because they may seem
irreconcilable with every-day experience. Our judgments of unwonted
mental phenomena can hardly be too diffident, or too circumspect. The
marvels of the faculty of memory which we all have read of; the prodigies
of analysis which many of us have witnessed in the mental arithmeticians
who occasionally present themselves for exhibition; the very vagaries
of the senses themselves, which occasionally follow certain abnormal
conditions of the organs—are almost as wide a departure from what we are
accustomed to in these departments, as is the greatest marvel related of
Mezzofanti in the faculty of language. Perhaps there could not be a more
significant rebuke of this universal scepticism, than the fact that the
very event which Juvenal, in his celebrated sneer at the tale of
Velificatus Athos, et quidquid Græcia mendax
Audet in historiâ—
has selected as the type of self-convicted mendacity—the passage of
Xerxes’s fleet through Mount Athos—now proves to be not only possible,
but absolutely true; and it is wisely observed by Mr. Grote, that, while
no amount of mere intrinsic probability is sufficient to establish the
truth of an unattested statement, on the other hand, “statements in
themselves highly improbable may well deserve belief, provided they be
supported by sufficient positive evidence.” (_Hist. of Greece_, I. 571.)
* * * * *
There are two heads of inquiry which appear to me specially deserving of
attention.
First, the number of languages with which Cardinal Mezzofanti was
acquainted, and the degree of his proficiency in each.
Secondly, his method of studying languages, and the peculiar mental
development to which his extraordinary success as a linguist is
attributable.
I.—I wish I could begin, in accordance with a suggestion of my friend
M. d’Abbadie, by defining exactly what is meant by _knowledge_ of a
language. But unfortunately, the shades of such knowledge are almost
infinite. The vocabularies of our modern languages contain as many
as forty or fifty thousand words; and Claude Chappe, the inventor of
the telegraph, calculates, that for the complete expression of human
thought and sentiment in all its forms, at least ten thousand words
are necessary. On the other hand, M. d’Abbadie, in his explorations in
Abyssinia, was able to make his way without an interpreter, though his
vocabulary did not comprise quite six hundred words; and M. Julien,
in his controversy with Pauthier, asserts that about four thousand
words will amply suffice even for the study of the great classics of a
language, as Homer, Byron, or Racine.
Which of these standards are we to adopt?
And even if we fix upon any one of them, how shall we apply it to
the Cardinal, whereas we can only judge of him by the reports of his
visitors, who applied to him, each a standard of his own?
It is plain that any such strict philosophical notion, however desirable,
would be inapplicable in practice. It appears to me, however, that the
objects of this inquiry will be sufficiently attained by adopting a
popular notion, founded upon the common estimation of mankind. I think a
man may be truly said to know a language thoroughly, if he can read it
fluently and with ease; if he can write it correctly in prose, or still
more, in verse; and above all, if he be admitted by intelligent and
educated natives to speak it correctly and idiomatically.
I shall be content to apply this standard to Cardinal Mezzofanti.
* * * * *
Looking back over the narrative of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s life, we can
trace a tolerably regular progress in the number of languages ascribed to
him through its several stages. In 1805, according to Father Caronni, “he
was commonly reported to be master of more than twenty-four languages.”
Giordani’s account of him in 1812, seems, although it does not specify
any number, to indicate a greater total than this. Stewart Rose, in
1817, speaks of him as “reading twenty languages, and conversing in
eighteen.” Baron von Zach, in 1820, brings the number of the languages
spoken by him up to thirty-two. Lady Morgan states, that by the public
report of Bologna he was reputed to be master of forty. He himself, in
1836, stated to M. Mazzinghi that he knew forty-five; and before 1839, he
used to say that he knew “fifty, and Bolognese.” In reply to the request
of M. Mouravieff, a little later, that he would give him a list of the
languages that he knew, he sent him a sheet containing the name of God in
fifty-six languages. In the year 1846 he told Father Bresciani that he
knew seventy-eight languages and dialects;[549] and a list communicated
to me by his nephew, Dr. Gaetano Minarelli, by whom it has been compiled
after a diligent examination of his deceased uncle’s books and papers,
reaches the astounding total of one hundred and fourteen!
It is clear, however, that these, and the similar statements which have
been current, require considerable examination and explanation. It is
much to be regretted that the Cardinal did not, with his own hand,
draw up, as he had often been requested, and as he certainly intended,
a complete catalogue of the languages known by him, distinguishing,
as in the similar statement left by Sir William Jones, the degrees of
his knowledge of the several languages which it comprised. In none of
the statements on the subject which are in existence, is any attempt
made to discriminate the languages with which he was familiar from
those imperfectly known by him. On the contrary, from the tone of some
of his panegyrists, it would seem that they wish to represent him as
equally at home in all;—a notion which he himself, in his conversations
with Lady Morgan, with Dr. Tholuck, with M. Mazzinghi, and on many
subsequent occasions, distinctly repudiated and ridiculed. In his
statement to Father Bresciani, in 1846, the Cardinal did not enumerate
the seventy-eight languages and dialects which he knew or had studied;
but in the year before his death, 1848, he told Father Bresciani that he
was then engaged in drawing up a comparative scheme of languages, their
common descent, their affinities, and their ramifications; together with
a simple and easy plan for acquiring a number of languages, however
dissimilar.[550] At my request, Father Bresciani kindly applied to Dr.
Minarelli, the nephew and representative of the deceased, for a copy
of this interesting paper; but unfortunately no trace of it is now
discoverable, and Dr. Minarelli supposes that, as was usual with him when
dissatisfied with any of his compositions, the Cardinal burnt it before
his death.
During the course of this search, however, Dr. Minarelli himself was led
to draw up, partly from his own knowledge of his uncle’s attainments,
partly from the inspection of his books and papers, a detailed list
of the languages with which he believes the Cardinal to have been
acquainted. This list he has kindly communicated to me. From its very
nature, of course, it is to a great extent conjectural; it makes no
pretension to a scientific classification of the languages; and it
contains several evident oversights and errors; but as the writer, in
addition to his long personal intercourse with his uncle, enjoyed the
opportunity of access to his papers and memoranda, and above all to his
books in various languages, his grammars, dictionaries, and vocabularies,
and the marginal notes and observations—the schemes, paradigms,
critical analyses, and other evidences of knowledge, or at least of
study—which they contain; and as he has been mainly guided by these in
the compilation of his list of languages, I shall translate the paper in
its integrity, merely correcting certain obvious errors, and striking
out a few of the items in the enumeration, in which, clearly by mistake,
the same language is twice repeated. The order of languages is in part
alphabetical.
1. Albanese or Epirote.
2. Arabic.
3. Armenian.
4. Angolese.
5. Aymara.
6. Algonquin.
7. Brazilian.
8. Mexican.
9. Paraguay.
10. Peruvian.
11. Birman.
12. Bohemian.
13. Bunda, (in Angola.)
14. Betoi.
15. _Baure_,[551] (?)
16. _Braubica_,[552] (?)
17. Chaldee.
18. Chinese.
19. Cochin-Chinese.
20. Tonkinese.
21. Japanese.
22. Curaçao.
23. Coptic.
24. Chilian.
25. Koordish.
26. Californian.
27. Cora.
28. _Conserica_,[553] (?)
29 _Cahuapana_.[554] (?)
30 Canisiana.
31 Cayubaba.
32 Cochimi.
33 Danish.
34 Swedish.
35 Norwegian.
36 Icelandic.
37 Lappish.
38 Tamul.
39 Hebrew.
40 Rabbinical Hebrew.
41 Samaritan.
42 Coptic Egyptian.
43 Coptic Arabic.[555]
44 Etruscan[556] (so far as known to the learned.)
45 Ethiopic.
46 _Emabellada_.[557] (?)
47 Phenician, (so far as it is known.)
48 Flemish.
49 French.
50 Breton French.
51 Lorraine Dialect.
52 Provençal.
53 Gothic and Visi Gothic.
54 Ancient Greek.
55 Romaic.
56 Georgian or Iberian.
57 Grisons, or Rhetian.
58 Guarany.
59 Guariza.
60 Illyrian.
61 Iberian.[558]
62 _Idioma Mistico._[559]
63 Itomani.
64 Cingalese.
65 Hindostani.
66 Malabar.
67 Malay.
68 Sanscrit.
69 Sanscrit Dialect of Eastern Persia.
70 English.
71 Ancient Breton.[560]
72 Scottish Celtic.[561]
73 Scotch.
74 Irish.
75 Welsh.
76 Italian.
77 Friulese.
78 Maltese.
79 Sardinian.
80 Lombard, Ligurian, Piedmontese, Sicilian & Tuscan dialect of
Italian.
81 Latin.
82 Maronite and Syro-Maronite. (?)
83 Madagascar.
84 Mobima.
85 Moorish.
86 Maya.
87 Dutch.
88 Othomi.
89 Omagua.
90 Australian.[562]
91 Persian.
92 Polish.
93 Portuguese.
94 Peguan.
95 Pimpanga.[563]
96 Quichua.[564]
97 Russian.
98 _Rocorana_ (?)[565]
99 Slavonic.
100 Slavo-Carniolan.
101 Slavo-Servian.
102 Slavo-Ruthenian.
103 Slavo-Wallachian.
104 Syriac.
105 Samogitian, or Lettish.
106 Spanish.
107 Catalonian.
108 Basque.
109 Tanna.[566]
110 German.
111 Tibetan.
112 Turkish.
113 Hungarian.
114 Gipsy.
Such is the Cavaliere Minarelli’s report of the result at which he
has arrived, after an examination of the books and manuscripts of
his illustrious uncle. In its form, I regret to say, it is far from
satisfactory. It places on exactly the same level languages generically
distinct and mere provincial varieties of dialect. In one or two
instances, also, (as Angolese and Bunda, Swedish and Norwegian,) the same
language appears twice under different names. Above all, the compiler has
not attempted to classify the languages according _to the degree of the
Cardinal’s acquaintance with each of them_; nor has he entered into any
explanation of the nature of the evidence of acquaintance with each of
them which is supplied by the documents upon which he relies.[567]
As I cannot, consistently with the fundamental principle of this inquiry,
accept such a statement, when unsupported by the testimony of native (or
otherwise competent) witnesses for the several languages, as conclusive
evidence of the Cardinal’s knowledge of the languages which it ascribes
to him, I shall merely offer this otherwise interesting paper at whatever
may be considered its just value; and I shall endeavour to decide the
question upon grounds entirely independent of it, and drawn solely from
the materials which I have already placed before the reader.
It will, no doubt, have been observed that, so far as regards the reports
of the travellers and others who conversed with the Cardinal, the degrees
of his power of speaking the several languages have been very differently
tested. In some languages he was, as it were, perpetually under trial:
in others, very frequently, and in prolonged conversations; in others,
less frequently, but nevertheless searchingly enough; in others, in
fine, perhaps only to the extent of a few questions and answers. It is
absolutely necessary, in forming any judgment, to attend carefully to
this circumstance. I shall endeavour, therefore, to divide the languages
ascribed to him into four different classes.
First, languages certainly spoken by Cardinal Mezzofanti with a
perfection rare in foreigners.
Secondly, languages which is he said to have spoken well, but as to which
the evidence of sufficient trial is not so complete.
Thirdly, languages which he spoke freely, but less perfectly.
Fourthly, languages in which he could merely express himself and initiate
a conversation. I shall add:—
Fifthly, certain other languages which he had studied from books, but
does not appear to have spoken.
And lastly, dialects of the principal languages. This order, of course,
precludes all idea of a scientific classification[568] of the languages
according to families.
I.—_Languages frequently tested, and spoken with rare excellence._[569]
1 Hebrew, (Supra, p. 283, 341, 345, 371.)
2 Rabbinical Hebrew, (283, 341.)
3 Arabic, (283, 371, 441.)
4 Chaldee, (278, 384, 362, 451.)
5 Coptic, (311, 441, 451.)
6 Ancient Armenian, (352, 441.)
7 Modern Armenian, (352, 441.)
8 Persian, (278, 352, 394.)
9 Turkish, (226, 311, 393, 441.)
10 Albanese, (362, 393, 451.)
11 Maltese, (336, 362.)
12 Greek, (353.)
13 Romaic, (353.)
14 Latin, (201, 347.)
15 Italian, (_passim._)
16 Spanish, (276, 312, 441.)
17 Portuguese, (337, 367.)
18 French, (271, 276, 387.)
19 German, (239, 250, 271, 277, 281, 325, 345, 346, 393.)
20 Swedish, (271, 272, 350, 351.)
21 Danish, (239, 281.)
22 Dutch, (328, 330, 332.)
23 Flemish, (324, 328.)
24 English, (223, 226, 228, 348, 403.)
25 Illyrian, (393, 441.)
26 Russian, (244, 442, 443.)
27 Polish, (328, 444, 447.)
28 Czechish, or Bohemian, (246, 233.)
29 Magyar, (242, 389, 391.)
30 Chinese, (309, 310, 365, 368, 369, 451.)
II.—_Stated to have been spoken fluently, but hardly sufficiently tested._
1 Syriac, (354, 364.)
2 Geez, (383, 385, 394.)
3 Amarinna, (384, 385, 334.)
4 Hindostani, (364, 366.)
5 Guzarattee, (367.)
6 Basque, (393, 388.)
7 Wallachian, (216, 244.)
8 Californian, (355-7.)
9 Algonquin, (360-1.).
III. _Spoken rarely, and less perfectly._
1 Koordish, (394, 451.)
2 Georgian, (251, 394.)
3 Servian (the dialects of Bosnia and of the Bannat,) (394.)
4 Bulgarian, (365, 393, 441.)
5 Gipsy language, (244.)
6 Peguan, (364, 418, 451.)
7 Welsh, (320, 322, 323.)
8 Angolese, (370, 394.)
9 Mexican, (441.)
10 Chilian, (441.)
11 Peruvian, (441.)
IV. _Spoken imperfectly;—a few sentences and conversational forms._
1 Cingalese, (363.)
2 Birmese, (270, 463.[570])
3 Japanese, (463.)
4 Irish, (442.)
5 Gælic, (424.)
6 Chippewa Indian, (360.)
7 Delaware, (360.)
8 Some of the languages of Oceanica, (441.)
V. _Studied from books, but not known to have been spoken._
1 Sanscrit, (291, 394.)
2 Malay, (464.)
3 Tonquinese, (463.)
4 Cochin-Chinese, (463.)
5 Tibetan, (465.)
6 Japanese, (463.)
7 Icelandic, (464.)
8 Lappish, (394.)
9 Ruthenian, (311.)
10 Frisian, (282.)
11 Lettish, (394, 451.)
12 Cornish, (old British of Cornwall,) (280.)
13 Quichua, (ancient Peruvian,) (281.)
14 Bimbarra, (Central African,) (281.)
VI.—_Dialects spoken, or their peculiarities understood._
1.—HEBREW.
Samaritan, (416.)
2.—ARABIC.
Syrian dialect (fluently, 371.)
Egyptian do., (311.)
Moorish, (171.)
Berber, (463.)
3.—CHINESE.
Kiang-Si dialect, (416.)
Hu-quam do., (416.)
4.—ITALIAN.
Sicilian, (324, 354.)
Sardinian, (158-9.)
Neapolitan, (324.)
Bolognese, (247, 344.)
Lombard, (464.)
Friulese, (464.)
5.—SPANISH
Catalan, (441.)
Valencian, (441.)
Majorican, (441.)
6.—BASQUE.
Labourdain, (387-8.)
Souletin, (387.)
Guipuscoan, (388.)
7.—MAGYAR.
Debreczeny, (391.)
Eperies, (391.)
Pesth, (391.)
Transylvanian, (491.)
8.—GERMAN.
Ancient Gothic, (464.)
Rhetian (Grisons,) (Appendix.)
_Sette Communi_ dialect, (218.)
Dialects of Northern and Southern Germany, (243.)
9.—FRENCH.
Provençal, (275.)
Tolosan, (440.)
Burgundian, (444.)
Gascon, (463.)
Bearnais, (440.)
Lorraine, (463.)
Bas Breton, (439.)
10.—ENGLISH.
Somersetshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire dialects, (404.)
Lowland Scotch, (437.)
I should add that many of these dialects, as the Moorish and Berber
Arabic, the Spanish of Majorca, the Provençal French, the Italian of
Sicily and Sardinia, and the language of the Grisons or Graubünden, might
most justly be described as separate languages, at least as regards the
difficulty of acquisition. In the catalogue of the Cavaliere Minarelli a
series of languages (the very names of which the reader probably never
has heard,) are enumerated, chiefly of the central and South American
families—of the former, the Cora, the Tepehuana, the Mistek, the Othomi,
the Maya; of the latter, the Paraguay, the Omagua, the Aymara, the
Canisiana, and the Mobima. I am not aware of the authority on which the
Cavaliere relies in reference to these languages. For the majority of
them, I must say that I cannot find in the catalogue of the Cardinal’s
library any distinct trace whatever of his having studied them; but it
is certain that he had given his attention early to the languages of
these countries; that he had opportunities in Bologna of conversing with
ex-Jesuit missionaries from the central and South American provinces; and
that the library of the Propaganda, of which he had the unrestricted use,
contains many printed and manuscript elementary works in languages of
which little trace is elsewhere to be found.
Summing up, therefore, all the authentic accounts of him as yet made
public; discarding the loose statements of superficial marvel-mongers,
and divesting the genuine reports, as far as possible, of the vagueness
by which many of them have been characterized, it appears that, in
addition to a large number of (more than thirty) minor dialects,
Mezzofanti was acquainted in various degrees with seventy-two languages,
popularly, if not scientifically, regarded as distinct:—almost the exact
number which F. Bresciani ascribes to him; that of these he spoke with
freedom, and with a purity of accent, of vocabulary, and of idiom, rarely
attained by foreigners, no fewer than thirty; that he was intimately
acquainted with all the leading dialects of these; that he spoke less
perfectly, (or rather is not shown to have possessed the same mastery
of) nine others, in all of which, however, his pronunciation, at least,
is described as quite perfect; that he could, (and occasionally did,)
converse in eleven other languages, but with what degree of accuracy it
is difficult to say; that he could at least initiate a conversation,
and exchange certain conversational forms in eight others; and that he
had studied the structure and the elementary vocabularies of fourteen
others. As regards the languages included in the latter categories, it
is quite possible that he may also have spoken in a certain way some at
least among them. So far as I have learned, there is no evidence that he
actually did speak any of them: but with him there was little perceptible
interval between knowledge of the elementary structure and vocabulary of
a language, and the power of conversing in it.
Such is the astounding result to which the united evidence of this
vast body of witnesses, testifying without consent, and indeed for
the most part utterly unknown to each other, appears irresistibly to
lead. I am far, I confess, from accepting in their strict letter many
of the rhetorical expressions of these writers—the natural result of
warm admiration, however just and well founded. I do not believe, for
example, that in each and all the thirty languages enumerated in the
first category, the Cardinal actually spoke, as some of the witnesses
say, “with all the purity and propriety of a native;” that he could not
in any one of them “be recognized as a foreigner;” or that, in them
all, he “spoke without the slightest trace of peculiar accent.” On the
contrary, I know that, in several of these, he made occasional trips.
I do not overlook the “four minor mistakes” in his German conversation
with Dr. Tholuck; nor his occasionally “forgetting the marked _l_ in his
Polish,” nor the criticism of his manner in several other languages,
as “formed rather from books than from conversation.” Neither do I
believe that he had mastered the _entire_ vocabulary of each of these
languages. Nor shall I even venture to say to what point his knowledge
of the several vocabularies extended. So far from shutting out from my
judgment the drawbacks on the undiscriminating praise heaped upon the
Cardinal by some of his biographers, which these criticisms imply, I
regard them as (by recalling it from the realm of legend,) forming the
best and most secure foundation of a reputation which, allowing for every
drawback, far transcends all that the world has ever hitherto known.
I do not say that in all these languages, or perhaps in any of them,
Cardinal Mezzofanti was the perfect paragon which some have described
him; but, reverting to the standard with which I set out, I cannot
hesitate to infer from these united testimonies, that his knowledge of
each and every one of the leading languages of the world, ancient and
modern, fully equalled, and in several of these languages excelled, the
knowledge of those who are commonly reputed as accomplished linguists in
the several languages, even when they have devoted their attention to
the study of one or other of these languages exclusively. I do not say
that he was _literally faultless_ in speaking these languages; nor that
what I have said is literally true of _each and every one_ of the thirty
that have been enumerated: but, if the attestations recorded in this
volume have any meaning, they lead to the inevitable conclusion, that in
the power of speaking the languages in which he was best tried,—whether
Hebrew, or Arabic, or Armenian, or Persian, or Turkish, or Albanese,
or Maltese, or Greek, or Romaic, or Latin, or Italian, or Spanish, or
Portuguese, or French, or Swedish, or Danish, or Dutch, or Flemish, or
English, or Russian, or Bohemian, or Magyar, or Chinese;—his success is
entirely beyond suspicion, and will bear comparison with that of the most
accomplished non-native masters of these languages, even those who have
confined themselves to one or two of the number. For the few languages
upon which I myself may presume to speak, I most unhesitatingly adopt
this conclusion, comparing my recollections of the Cardinal with those
I retain of almost any other foreigner whom I have ever heard speak the
same languages.
The reader’s recollection of the attainments of the most remarkable
linguists enumerated in the memoir prefixed to this biography will enable
him, therefore, to see how immeasurably Cardinal Mezzofanti transcends
them all. Taking the very highest estimate which has been offered of
their attainments, the list of those reputed to have possessed more
than ten languages is a very short one. Only four—Mithridates, Pico
of Mirandola, Jonadab Alhanar, and Sir William Jones—are said, in the
loosest sense, to have passed the limit of twenty. To the first two fame
ascribes twenty-two, to the last two twenty-eight languages. Müller,
Niebuhr, Fulgence Fresnel, and perhaps Sir John Bowring, are usually set
down as knowing twenty languages. For Elihu Burritt, Csoma de Körös,
their admirers claim eighteen. Renaudot, the controversialist, is said
to have known seventeen, Professor Lee sixteen, and the attainments of
the older linguists, as Arias Montamus, Martin del Rio, the converted
Rabbi Libertas Cominetus, the Admirable Crichton—are said to have ranged
from this down to ten or twelve—most of them the ordinary languages of
learned and of polite society. It is further to be observed that in no
one of those cases has the evidence been examined, the trustworthiness
of the witnesses considered, or the degrees of knowledge of the various
languages ascertained. Whatever of doubt rests even upon the vaguest
statements regarding Mezzofanti, applies with double force in every one
of the above instances.
But even putting these considerations aside, and accepting the estimates
upon the showing of the parties themselves or their admirers, how far
does the very highest of them fall short of what has been demonstrated of
Cardinal Mezzofanti!
* * * * *
II. On the curious question as to the system pursued by the Cardinal
in the study of languages, I regret to say that little light seems now
obtainable. The variety of systems employed by students is endless.
The eccentric linguist, Roberts Jones, described in the Introductory
Memoir, as soon as he had an opportunity of comparing the vocabulary of
a new language with those which he had already studied, proceeded by
_striking out of it_ all those words which were common to it with any of
the languages already familiar to him, and then impressing on his memory
_the words which remained_. M. Antoine d’Abbadie told me that, in the
unwritten languages with which he had to deal, his plan was to write
out, with the aid of an interpreter, a list of about five hundred of the
leading and most indispensable words, and a few conversational forms; and
then to complete his stock of words “by the assistance of _an intelligent
child who knew no language but the one which he was studying_;—because
children best understand, and most readily apprehend, an imperfectly
conveyed meaning.” Some students commence with the vocabulary; others,
with the structural forms of a language. With some the process is tedious
and full of labour: others proceed with almost the rapidity of intuition.
In comparing the various possible systems, it has not unnaturally
been supposed that the process which, in Cardinal Mezzofanti, led to
results so rapid and so extraordinary, might be usefully applied, at
least in some modified form, to the practical study of languages, even
on that modest scale in which they enter into ordinary education. But
unfortunately, even if such a fruit could be hoped from his experience,
it does not appear that the Cardinal possessed any extraordinary secret,
or at least that he ever clearly explained to any of his visitors the
secret process, if any, which he employed. One thing at least is certain,
and should not be forgotten by those who are always on the look out for
short roads to learning, that, whatever may have been his system, and
however it may have quickened or facilitated the result for him, it did
not enable him to dispense with the sedulous and systematic use of all
the ordinary appliances of study, and especially of every available means
for the acquisition of vocabularies, and of practice in their exercise.
It is true he told M. Libri that he found the learning of languages
“less difficult than is generally thought: that there is but a limited
number of points to which it is necessary to direct attention; and that,
when one is master of these points, the remainder follows with great
facility;” adding that, “when one has learned ten or a dozen languages
essentially different from each other, one may, with a little study and
attention, learn any number of them.” But he also stated to Dr. Tholuck
“that his own way of learning new languages was no other than that of
our school-boys, by writing out paradigms and words, and committing
them to memory.” (P. 278.) Dictionaries, reading-books, catechisms,
vocabularies, were anxiously sought by him, and industriously used. The
society and conversation of strangers was eagerly—in one less modest
and simple it might almost appear obtrusively—courted, and turned to
advantage. A constant and systematic habit of translation and composition
both in prose and verse was maintained. In a word, nothing can be
clearer than that with Mezzofanti, as with the humblest cultivators of
the same study, the process of acquiring each new language was, if not
slow, at least laborious; and that, with all his extraordinary gifts,
the eminence to which he attained, is in great part to be attributed to
his own almost unexampled energy, and to the perseverance with which he
continued to cultivate these gifts to the very latest day of his life.
He understood thoroughly, as all who have ever attained to eminence
have understood, the true secret of study—economical and systematic
employment of time. The great jurist D’Aguesseau composed one of his
most valuable works in the scraps of time which he was able to save
from his wife’s unpunctuality in the hour of dinner. Mezzofanti made it
a rule, even amid his most frequent and most distracting occupations,
to turn to account every chance moment in which he was released from
actual pressure. No matter how brief or how precarious the interval, his
books and papers were generally at hand. And even when no such appliance
of study were within reach his active and self-concentrated mind was
constantly engaged. He possessed a rare power of self-abstraction, by
which he was able to concentrate all his faculties upon any language
which he desired to pursue, to the exclusion of all the others that he
knew. In this respect he was entirely independent of books. When the
great mathematician, Euler, became blind, he was able to form the most
complicated diagrams, and to resolve the most intricate calculations, in
his mind. Every one has heard, too, of cases like that of the prisoner
described by Pope:—
Who, locked from ink and paper, scrawls
With desperate charcoal on his darkened walls.
But Mezzofanti’s power of mental study was even more wonderful. He
had the habit of _thinking when alone, in each and all of his various
languages_ in succession; so that, without the presence of a second
individual, he almost enjoyed the advantage of practice in conversation!
The only parallel for this extraordinary mental phenomenon that I know,
is a story which I have somewhere read, of a musician who attained to
great perfection as an instrumental performer, although hardly ever known
to touch an instrument for the purpose of practice. This man, it is said,
was _constantly practising in his mind_; and his fingers were actually
observed to be always in motion, as though engaged in the act of playing.
On the other hand, it is certain that Mezzofanti’s power of acquiring
languages was mainly a gift of nature. It is not easy to say in what this
natural gift consisted. Among the faculties of the mind chiefly employed
in acquiring language—perception, analysis, judgment, and memory—by some
it has been placed in his intuitive quickness of perception—by others
in his memory—and by others, in his power of analysing the leading
inflexional and structural characteristics by which each language is
distinguished. Others place it in some mysterious delicacy of his
ear, which detected in each language a sort of rhythm or systematic
structure, and thus supplied a key to all its forms. But no one of these
characteristics, taken singly, even in its very highest development, will
account for a success so entirely unexampled. Almost all great linguists,
it is true, have been remarkable for their powers of memory; but there
are many examples of such memory, unaccompanied by any very peculiar
excellence in the gift of languages. Still less can it be ascribed
exclusively to any quickness of perception, or any perfection of analytic
or synthetic power. Perhaps there is no form in which these powers are so
wondrously displayed, as in the curious phenomena of mental arithmetic.
And yet I am not aware that any of the extraordinary mental calculators
has been distinguished as a linguist. On the contrary, many of them have
been singularly deficient in this respect. Mr. George Bidder, one of the
latest, and in many respects most creditable, examples of this faculty,
confesses his entire deficiency in talent for literature or language; and
Zachariah Dase, whose performances as a calculator almost exceeded all
belief, could never master a word of any foreign language except a little
German.
But in Cardinal Mezzofanti we meet not only each of these qualities, but
a most perfect and perfectly balanced union of them all. His memory in
itself would have made him an object of wonder. Quick and tenacious to a
degree certainly not inferior to any recorded example of the faculty, it
was one of the most universal in its application of which any record is
preserved; embracing every variety of subject—not alone the vocabularies
and forms which he acquired, but every kind of matter to which it was
directed; history, poetry, and even persons and personal occurrences. But
there was, above all, one characteristic in which it was distinguished
from almost all other memories. Some of those qualities already named
were possessed by other individuals in an equal, if not a greater or more
striking, degree. Henderson, the player, was said to be able to repeat
the greater part of the most miscellaneous contents of a newspaper after
a single reading; and the mental arithmetician just named, Zachariah
Dase, after _dipping_ his eye over a row of twelve figures, could repeat
them backwards and forwards, and in every other order, and could multiply
them instantaneously by one or two figures at pleasure. Some memories
too possessed this faculty entirely independent of the judgment or the
reasoning powers. Père Menestrier was able to repeat a long jumble of
unmeaning names after hearing them but once, and the young Corsican
mentioned by Padre Menocchio could do the same, even after the lapse of
an entire year! But the perfection of Mezzofanti’s memory was different
from all these, and consisted in its _extraordinary readiness_. Sir W.
Hamilton, in one of his notes on Reid, happily reviving an old view of
Aristotle, distinguishes between _memory_ (μνημή) and _reminiscence_,
(ἀνάμνησις)—between spontaneous and elaborated memory—memory of
intuition, and memory of evolution. In Mezzofanti the latter hardly
appears to have had a place. His memory seems to have acted by intuition
alone. It was not only a rare capacity for storing up and retaining the
impressions once made upon it, no matter how rapid and how various, but a
power of holding them _distinct from each other_, and ready for instant
use. And thus, over the vast and various assortment of vocabularies
which he possessed, he enjoyed a control so complete, that he would
draw upon each and all at pleasure, as the medium for the expression of
his thoughts;—just as the experimentalist, by the shifting of a slide,
can change, instantaneously and at will, the colour of the light with
which he illuminates the object of exhibition. Dugald Stewart tells the
case of a young woman who could repeat an entire sermon after a single
hearing, and whose sole trick of memory consisted in connecting in her
mind each part of the discourse with a part of the ceiling. It would
almost seem as if the memory of Mezzofanti had some such local division
into compartments, in which the several vocabularies _could_, as it were,
_be stored apart_, and through which his mind could range at pleasure,
culling from each the objects or words which it desired, no matter how
various or how unconnected with each other.
With such a memory as this to guide its action, and to supply the
material for its operation, the extraordinary and almost intuitive power
of analysis—something in its own order like what Wollaston called in
William Phillips, the “mathematical sense”—which Mezzofanti possessed,
and which enabled him at once to seize upon the whole system of a
language—form, structure, idiom, genius, spirit—led by a process which it
is easy to understand, to the wonderful results which this great linguist
accomplished. Memory supplied the material with unfailing abundance and
regularity. The analytic faculties were the tools which the mind employed
in operating upon the material thus supplied for the use.
Such appears to have been the mental process. But for the practical power
of speaking the languages thus mastered in theory, Mezzofanti was also
indebted to his singularly quick and delicate organization of ear and
tongue. It might seem that the former of these organs could only enter
as a very subordinate element, and in a purely mechanical way, into
the faculty of speech. Indeed the French journals of the past month,
(February, 1858,) contain an account of a deaf and dumb man, M. Moser,
who (of course entirely unaided by ear,) has mastered, besides Greek and
Latin, no fewer than fourteen modern languages. But, strange as this may
seem, it is certain that in Mezzofanti’s case the ear, in addition to
its direct and natural use in comprehending and catching up the sounds
of languages, and appreciating all their delicate varieties and shades,
(in which it is admitted to have been ready and infallible beyond all
precedent,) had a nobler, and as it were, more intellectual function;
that its office was a thing of mind as well as of organization; that he
possessed, as it were, _an inner and higher sense_, distinct from the
_material organ_; and that the impressions which this sense conveyed,
helped him to the structure and the philosophical character of language,
as well as to its rhythm, its vocal sounds, and its peculiar intonations.
It is difficult to explain the exact mental operation, by which this
curious result was attained; but the Cardinal himself repeatedly declared
his consciousness of such an operation, and ascribed to it, in a great
degree, the rapidity and the ease with which he overcame what to others
form the main difficulty in the study of a language, and with which,
having once made the first step in each language, he mastered, as if by
intuition, all the mysteries of its structural system.
Another element of his wonderful talent was his genuine enthusiasm
and the unpretending simplicity of his character. “Pretension,” says
Emerson, “may sit still, but cannot act.” There was no pretension about
Mezzofanti; nor had he anything of that morbid intellectual sensitiveness
which shrinks from the first blunders to which a novice in a foreign
language is exposed, and which restrains many from the attempt to speak,
by the very apprehension of failure.[571] Children, as is well known,
learn to speak a language more rapidly than their elders. I cannot doubt
that Mezzofanti’s child-like simplicity and innocence, were among the
causes of his wonderful success as a speaker of many tongues.
* * * * *
It was not to be expected that a man so eminent in one absorbing pursuit
should have made a very distinguished figure in general literature or
science. Among the many laudatory reports of him which are contained
in this volume, a few will be found which hardly concede to him even a
second-rate place as a scholar, still less as a philologer. In some of
the literary circles of Rome, Mezzofanti was not popular. M. Libri[572]
alludes to one source of unfriendly feeling in his regard. There is
another which may perhaps have already struck the reader. From some of
the facts noticed in the Introductory Memoir of German linguists[573]
and from other incidental allusions, the reader will have observed a
certain tendency on the part of philologers to depreciate the pursuit of
linguists, and to undervalue its usefulness; and it is precisely from
the philologers that this low estimate of Mezzofanti proceeds. It is
only just, however, to Baron Bunsen, who is pre-eminently the head of
the German school of that science, to admit that he carefully draws the
distinction between the two branches of the study of language—that of the
linguist, and that of the philologer. And although the natural preference
which a student unconsciously gives to his own favourite pursuit, no
doubt leads him to attach little value to what Mezzofanti knew, and to
dwell more on what in his opinion he did not know, yet it must be said
that he gives him full credit for his unexampled power as a linguist.
The Baron’s recollections, nevertheless, contain a summary of the
strictures upon the literary character of Mezzofanti, which were current
during his lifetime—that his learning was merely superficial—that in the
phrase of the late Mr. Francis Hare, “with the keys of the knowledge of
every nation in his hand, he never unlocked their real treasures;” that
in all the countless languages which he spoke he “never said anything;”
that he left no work or none of any value behind him; that he was utterly
ignorant of philology; that his theology was mere scholasticism; that
he had no idea of Biblical criticism, and that even as a critical Greek
scholar, he was very deficient.
It would be a very mistaken zeal for the honour of Cardinal Mezzofanti
to deny the literal truth of several of these criticisms. Most of the
branches of knowledge in which he is here represented as deficient, are
in themselves the study of an ordinary life. To have added them all to
what he really did possess, would have been a marvel far exceeding the
greatest wonder that has ever been ascribed to him; nor was any one
more ready than the modest Cardinal himself, not merely to admit many
particulars in which his learning was defective, but even to disparage
the learning which he actually possessed. He confessed over and over
again, that he was no philologer—that he was nothing but “an ill bound
dictionary.” He expressed his regret to Guido Görres, that he had begun
his studies at a time when this science was not cultivated. He lamented
the weakness of his chest and other constitutional infirmities, which
prevented him from writing. He deplored to Cardinal Wiseman, that, when
he should be gone, he would have left behind him no trace of what he knew.
But, notwithstanding his own modest estimate of himself, I think enough
will be found in the testimonies of many unsuspected witnesses embodied
in this Memoir, to shew that the depreciating strictures, to which I have
here alluded, are grievously exaggerated. Cardinal Mezzofanti certainly
was not a scientific philologer; but the Abbé Gaume’s memorandum proves
that, while he had little taste for the mere speculative part of the
subject—for those
Cloud-built towers by ghostly masons wrought,
On shadowy thoroughfares of thought—
he was fully sensible of the true use of the science, and had not
neglected the study, especially in its most important aspect—its bearing
upon religious history. He was not a professed archæologist. He may have
failed in the interpretation of the particular Greek inscription, to
which Baron Bunsen refers; nor did he pursue Greek criticism as a special
study. But his friends Cavedoni and Laureani, themselves accomplished
archæologists, entertained the highest respect for his judgment in that
study. The Abate Matranga bore ample witness to the depth and accuracy
of his Greek scholarship; and I myself, in the few observations which I
heard him offer on the Eugubian inscriptions, was struck by the sagacity,
the precision, and the suggestive spirit which they evinced.
Far more unjust, however, are Mr. Hare’s remark about the keys, and the
still more disparaging saying, quoted by Baron Bunsen, which describes
Mezzofanti as, “with all his forty-two languages, never saying anything.”
The numberless reports of visitors at every period of his life, from Mr.
Stewart Rose, in 1817, downwards, which are detailed in this volume, put
entirely beyond question both his capacity and his actual attainments
in general literature. Each visitor, for the most part, found him well
acquainted with the literature of his own country. Very many of them
(as Baron Glucky de Stenitzer for Hungary[574]) bear witness to his
familiarity with their national histories. His conversation with M.
Libri, “on the most difficult points in the history of India,” evinced a
mind of a very different calibre from what these supercilious criticisms
suppose: and, from the historian of the Mathematical Sciences, it is no
ordinary compliment towards one with whom these can have been but a
subordinate study, that, without a moment’s preparation, (the subject
having been only casually introduced by M. Libri,) he “spoke for
half-an-hour on the astronomy and mathematics of the Indian races, in
a manner which would have done honour to a man whose chief occupation
had been tracing the history of the sciences.”[575] I must dissent
strongly, also, from the disparaging opinion that M. Bunsen expresses
as to the Cardinal’s capacity for the more strictly professional
sciences of Biblical criticism and Theology. M. Bunsen, no doubt, when
he speaks of Biblical criticism, speaks mainly of the German School of
that science, and very probably of the last and most popular critic,
Lachmann. Now, with all their merits, there is much in the spirit and
the language of many of these writers, and, I may specially say, of
Lachmann, against which Mezzofanti’s whole mind would have revolted; and
I can well understand that, between his opinions and those of the Baron
regarding them, there would have been but little sympathy. But it is
most unjust to Mezzofanti to say that “he had no idea” of the subject.
One of his earliest literary friends was the great Biblical scholar and
critic, De Rossi. While he was still professor at Bologna, the Abate
Cavedoni, of Modena, spoke with high praise of his ability as a biblical
critic. The Abate Mellini, professor of Scripture in Bologna, gratefully
acknowledges the assistance which he derived from him in reference to the
versions of the Bible: and Cardinal Wiseman, who will not be suspected
of undervaluing any branch of Biblical science, told me that, although
it is quite true that Mezzofanti had no love for the German critics,
and though he never was a professed critic himself, he was nevertheless
quite conversant with the science, and understood its history and its
principles, and the divisions of MMS., recensions, families, &c.,
perfectly well.
As to Theology, his reputation in Rome was not high. Yet his attainments,
especially in moral theology, were considered respectable. The readers
of Sir W. Hamilton will not look on the charge of “scholasticism” as any
very grave disparagement; but I must add that neither did Mezzofanti
neglect the modern divines, even those outside of Italy. With Guido
Görres he spoke of Möhler’s well-known _Symbolik_, although it was at
that period but little known beyond the limits of Germany.
As a preacher, Mezzofanti, though earnest and impressive, never was
in any way remarkable. He confined himself chiefly to the duty of
catechetical instruction; and in Rome his only efforts as a preacher,
were the short and simple exhortations addressed to children at the time
of admitting them to their first Communion—a duty of the ministry which
was especially dear to him.
The truth is, that all these criticisms of Mezzofanti, and the
impressions as to the superficial character of his acquirements which
they embody, have emanated for the most part from casual visitors, who
saw him but for a brief space, and whose opportunity of testing his
knowledge was probably limited to a few questions and answers, in a
language not his own; the main object of the visit being, not to sound
the depth or accuracy of his knowledge in itself, but merely the fluency
and correctness of his manner of speaking the language in which the
visitor desired to try him. Whereas, on the contrary, those who bear
witness to the solidity of his information and the vast range of his
knowledge, are those who knew him long and intimately; who met him as a
friend and companion, not as an object of curiosity, and of wonder; and
whose estimate of him was founded upon the impressions of familiar and
every-day intercourse—the only safe test of character or of acquirements.
* * * * *
There is more truth in the strictures upon Mezzofanti as a writer. In
this respect, indeed, he is known very little; for his only published
composition, the Panegyric of Father Aponte, and the fugitive poetical
exercises in the appendix of this Memoir, can hardly be said to place him
in the category of authors. Unhappily, indeed, the spirit of authorship
is, with many, a question rather of temperament than of ability. In some
it is the very breath of their life—an actual necessity of existence. To
others it is a barren and ungrateful labour—undertaken with reluctance,
and pursued without satisfaction. Southey used to say, that he never
felt fully master of himself and of all his unclouded faculties, till
he found himself seated at his desk. The current of his thoughts never
flowed freely except through his pen. On the contrary, Magliabecchi—the
living library—the _helluo librorum_—never could prevail on himself to
publish a single line! Unfortunately for science, Mezzofanti was of the
latter class. Partly from constitutional delicacy, and especially from
weakness of the chest, the effort of writing was to him irksome and
even injurious. Partly too, no doubt, the same constitutional tendency
of mind which rendered speaking easy and attractive, indisposed him for
the more toilsome—to him positively distressing—mode of communicating
his thoughts by writing. Except for the purposes of private study,
therefore, he seldom wrote more than some fugitive piece; and, even
when he was prevailed on to write at greater length, he was seldom
sufficiently satisfied with his own performances to permit them to be
made public. Several, even of these essays which were read by him in the
learned societies of Bologna and Rome, are known to have been destroyed
by himself before his death; including some which, from their title
and subject, might naturally have been expected to afford some insight
into the character of his mind, and his capacity for dealing with the
philosophy of language.
Accordingly, the small figure which he made as a writer, and the little
trace which he has left behind him of the vast stores of languages
which he had laid up during life, have led to an undue depreciation
of his career, as objectless and unprofitable, whether to himself or
to his fellow-men. Whatever be the truth of this estimate, no one was
more painfully sensible of it than the Cardinal himself. Many of his
expressions of regret have been already recorded; but only those who knew
him intimately, could know the depth and sincerity of his repinings.
Still, although it is not possible to avoid sharing in this regret, he
would be very exacting, indeed, and would set up for himself a very
terrible standard whereby to judge his own conduct, who could venture to
pronounce such a career as Mezzofanti’s empty or unprofitable. Even if
we put aside entirely the consideration of his literary life, and test
him by the rules of personal duty alone, the life of Cardinal Mezzofanti
was a model of every virtue of the Christian and of the priest. Devout
almost to scrupulousness, sincerely humble, simple in his habits, modest
and unexacting in his own person, but spending himself unhesitatingly
in the service of others; courteous, amiable, affectionate, warm in his
friendships, he was known only to be loved, and he never forfeited a
friendship which he once had formed. His benevolence was of the true
Christian stamp—not a mere unreflecting impulse, but a sustained and
systematic love of his fellow creatures. Although his charity was of the
tenderest and most melting kind—although in truth, like Goldsmith’s Vicar,
His pity gave, ere charity began—
although his alms, limited as were his means, were so prodigal as
to earn for him the sobriquet of _Monsignor Limosiniere_, “_My Lord
Almoner_;”—yet it would be a great mistake to measure his benevolence
by the actual extent of poverty which it relieved, or of the assistance
it administered. His active spirit grasped every detail of this work of
God—the care of the sick, the instruction of the young, the edification
and enlightenment of the stranger;—nay, the very courtesies of social
intercourse had for him all the sacred significance of a duty; and, while
he never offended the sensibility of his companions by unseasonably
obtruding over-serious conversation, yet he never lost sight, even in
his lightest hours, of the obligation of good example and edification
which his position and character imposed upon him.
And as regards the great pursuit of his literary life, which some have
presumed to deny as “empty word-knowledge,” and unprofitable display, it
must never be forgotten—even though we should be content to judge its
value by the selfish standard of mere utility—that, for himself, one of
its earliest and most attractive, as well as most endearing sources of
interest, lay in the opportunity which it afforded him for the exercise
of his sacred ministry and the only less sacred offices of charity and
humanity; that many of its most precious acquisitions were gathered in
these very exercises of religion and of benevolence; that his usual text
books in each new language were the catechism and the Bible; and that his
favourite theatre for the display of his gifts were the sick wards of the
hospitals of Bologna, the Santo Spirito or the House of Catechumens at
Rome, and the halls and _camerate_ of the great Missionary College of the
Propaganda.
For myself, I cannot envy the moral and intellectual utilitarianism,
which pauses to measure by so paltry a standard a great psychological
phenomenon, such as Nature, in the most prodigal exercise of her powers,
has never before given to man to see. As well might we shut our eyes
to the glory of those splendid meteors which at intervals illumine the
sky, because we are unable to see what cold and sordid purpose of human
utility they may be made to subserve.
I prefer to look to him with grateful and affectionate admiration, as
a great example of the successful cultivation of one of the noblest of
God’s gifts to His creatures;—as the man who has approached nearest
to the withdrawal of that barrier to intercommunion of speech which,
in punishment of human pride, was set up at Babel; and of whom, more
literally than of any other son of Adam, it may be said, that he could
Hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind.
APPENDIX.
[Allusion is made, more than once, in this volume, to Cardinal
Mezzofanti’s habit of amusing himself and his friends by writing short
metrical pieces in various languages, and of composing or correcting
the odes recited by the pupils at the annual Polyglot Academy of the
Propaganda. In the absence of other data for judging of his skill as a
linguist, these fragments, trifling though they be, are of considerable
interest; and I had hopes of being able to form a little collection of
them, as a contribution to the enquiry regarding him. Unfortunately my
search for these remains, trivial and fugitive as most of them must have
been, has been very unsuccessful. I am only able to add a few to those
which appear in the sheet of fac-similes, or which have been already
incidentally introduced in the course of the narrative.
The short pieces recited at the Propaganda Academy, being the property of
the pupils themselves, are not preserved in the college archives. I have
only succeeded in obtaining four of these pieces:—two from Rome, a Greek
Anacreontic Ode, and a couple of stanzas in the Grisons dialect; and
two in Angolese from the Rev. Charles Fernando, Missionary Apostolic in
Ceylon.
The Abbate Mazza, Vice-Rector of the Pontifical Seminary at Bologna, has
kindly sent me a Hebrew Psalm addressed by Mezzofanti, as a tribute on
his Jubilee (or the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a priest),
to his old friend and master, Father Emmanuel Aponte; and a Latin
Hexameter Poem, descriptive of St. Peter’s Church at Rome, recited by him
in the _Accademia degli Arcadi_, on his being elected a member of that
body.
These little pieces, it need hardly be said, are offered merely as
specimens of Mezzofanti’s power as a linguist, and not as possessing any
striking excellence, whether of poetry or sentiment. It is only just to
his memory to add that, judging from his well-known habit of composition,
they may all be presumed to be literally _impromptu_, and are entitled to
the full indulgence usually accorded to such productions.]
I. _Hebrew Psalm,[576] addressed to Father Emmanuel Aponte—on the
fiftieth anniversary of his ordination._
לסיוף מהזופאנתי
א. שמך עמנואל שס טוב כשמן תורף ץל כן רצו נץריﬦ ואהיבוך וזקניﬦ
גם המה בקשו חכמה שפתיך
ב. מה גאוו צל צייﬦ רגליך מבשר משמיץ משמיץ שלוס מבשר טוב משמיץ
ישוץה
ג. אור גגה בארצסו בץﬨ באך ממזרת מאז הגדלת השמחה והרביﬨ דץﬨ
ומוםר נﬨﬨ לרﬥ דורשי בינה ואור פני אדני בכל מץשיך ראו ץינינו
ד. הנה היום החלפת כנשר לבוא משכנות אדגי ואחרי חמישים שנﬣ תוצא
עוד לחם ויין כהן לאל ץליון כהן ץולם ץל דברתי מלכיצדך
ה. לכו נננו לארנדי ﬨשוץה לעור ישץנו כי התלה זקן טוכ חסיד לו
לגשת אליו לכהן להתפלל לפניו ולכתר ץןיגו
ו. גתת ארני לעמגואל חן וכבוד כי ﬣלך בתמים למד חןכמה ועאה עדק
ז. וץﬨה לנך אזנך אלהיﬦ מלך הכבור ץנה עבדיך תלמידי זקן טוב תן לו
ארך ומיﬦ ורצון וברכה תעטרהו
Transcriber’s Note: A better version might be:
ליוסף מהזופאנתי
א. שמך עמנואל שם טוב כשמן תורק על כן רצו נערים ואהיבוך וזקנים
גם המה בקשו חכמה שפתיך
ב. מה גאוו על איים רגליך מבשר משמיע משמיע שלום מבשר טוב משמיע
ישועה
ג. אור נגה בארצנו בעת באך ממזרח מאז הגדלת השמחה והרבית דעה
ומוסר נתת לכל דורשי בינה ואור פני אדני בכל מעשיך ראו עינינו
ד. הנה היום החלפת כנשר לבוא משכנות אדגי ואחרי חמישים שנה תוצא
עוד לחם ויין כהן לאל עליון כהן עולם על דברתי מלכיצדך
ה. לכו רננו לאדני תשועה לצור ישענו כי הפלה זקן טוב חסיד לו לגשת
אליו לכהן להתפלל לפניו ולכפר עלינו
ו. נתת אדני לעמגואל חן וכבוד כי הלך בתמים למד חכמה ועאה עדק
ז. ועתה לנך אזנך אלהים מלך הכבוד ענה עבדיך תלמידי זקן טוב תן לו
ארך יומים ורצון וברכה תעטרהו
_Latin Translation._
Josephus Mezzofanti.
1. Nomen tuum, Emanuel, nomen bonum, sicut oleum effusum,
propterea excurrerunt adolescentes, et dilexerunt te. Et senes
ipsi quoque quæsierunt sapientiam labiorum tuorum,
2. Quam speciosi fuerunt in insulis pedes tui, evangelizans
predicator! prædicans pacem, evangelizans bonum, prædicans
salutem!
3. Luxfulsit in terra nostra, quando venisti ab oriente: ex
eo tempore magnificasti lætitiam et multiplicasti scientiam,
et eruditionem dedisti omnibus quærentibus intelligentiam; et
lumen vultus Domini in omnibus operibus tuis viderunt oculi
nostri.
4. Ecce hodie innovas te sicut aquila, ut intres in habitacula
Domini: et post quinquaginta annos profers adhuc panem et
vinum, sacerdos Dei Altissimi, sacerdos in eternum secundum
ordinem Melchisedec.
5. Venite exultemus Domino, jubilemus petræ salutis nostræ;
quia segregavit senem bonum sanctum sibi, ut accederet ad
eum, ut fungeretur sacerdotio, ut ovaret ante faciem ejus, ut
propitiaret super nos.
6. Dedisti Domine Emanueli gratiam et gloriam, quia ambulavit
in integritate, docuit sapientiam, et operatus est justitiam.
7. Nunc ergo inclina aurem tuam, Deus Rex Gloriæ! Exaudi servos
tuos, discipulos senis boni! Da illi longitudinem dierum et
beneplacito ac benedictione corona his illum!
II. _Greek Anacreontie Ode “On the Adoration of the Shepherds,” composed
for the Propaganda Academy._
Ὁ καιρὸς ἦλθεν ᾔδη
Ὁν εἵσαν οἱ προφήται·
Υἱος δ’ ὁ του Θέοῖο
Ἐξ ουρανῶν κατήλθεν,
Ἱνα βροτους σαὤσῃ.
Αύτὸς δ’ Ἄναξ ἀνάκτων,
Ἐκ Παρθένου γενητὸς,
Θρόνον Θεῳ πρέποντα,
Οὐκ εἶχεν, ἄλλὰ φάτνον.
Ὁ δ’ Ἄγγελος παραστάς
Τοἶς ποιμεδιν, διδάσει
Ὡς κόσμου ἤλθ’ ὁ Σωτήρ.
Oἱ δ’ εὐθεώς λαβόντες
Δῶρα βρέφει φέεουσι,
Χάριν δ’ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ εὖρον.
Πένης δ’ ὅλως ἅμ’ ἆυτοίς
Ἀμνὸν τὸν εἶχε μοῦνον
Ἤνεγκε τῴ Νεογνῷ.
Ὁ Παῖς ὁρᾷ τὸν ὰμνόν,
Καί προζγελᾲ διδόντι.
Τὶ τότ’; Ἔγνω γἕρ αὑτου
Τῦπὸν—Θεοῦ περ αὐτός
Ὁ πρᾶος ἐστίν ἀμνός
Ἁμαρτίας ἀφαιρὡν
Tόυ κόσμου—Αμνὲ, χαἶρε!
Ἄρον δ’ ἁμαρτίας μου!
Ἄρον—χάριν τε δός μοι!
III. _Latin Hexameter Poem, recited in the Arcadian Academy at Rome._
J. M.
PASTOR ARCAS.
Romuleas Arces, fulgentia Templa Tonantis
Quae fuerant dudum, conscendo munere vestro,
Arcades; et celsas sedes teneo, Arcas et ipse,
Et parvi custos nemoris. Sed non ego doctus,
Aut calamos inflare leves, aut dicere versus;
At geminare sonos gaudens, et reddere voces,
Quas longinqua edit gens, aut contermina nostræ.
Hic adsum, florens postquam est exacta juventa,
Temporaque adventans mihi tardior inficit aetas,
Adsumus hic, patriosque lares, et linquimus arva,
Pinguia quæ Rheni preterfluit unda minoris:
Linquimus et colles, varium queis Daedala tellus
Submittit florem et vites—tua munera, Bacche!
Linquimus et turres, quarum altera celsa minatur
In cœlum, impendit præfracto vertice flexa
Altera, nutanti similis jam jamque ruenti.
Adsumus hic tandem, Eumetes[577] cum tempora vittâ
Tergeminâ redimit, cœlique oracula promit.
Scilicet hic nobis suprema e sede benignus,
Annuit. Æternam tum nos advenimus Urbem.
Hic vestra assidue lustrans decora alta, Quirites,
Quaeque recens tulit, et quæ prisci temporis aetas.
Vocibus hæc refero, “Vos terque, quaterque beati,
Non peritura quibus vulgata est fama per orbem!”
Eximia at quoties cerno heic monumenta virorum,
Felsina quos aluit, quosve extulit infula Petri,
Quive aedes vestras decorant et Templa, Quirites,
Tunc animus nobis patriæ exardescit amore!
Dulcia tune nostrum pertentant gaudia pectus!
Tum Templum ingressus, quo nil præstantius aevis,
Praeteritis vidit Sol, aspicietque futuris,
Admiror molem ingentem, artificumque labores,
En mihi spectanti fulget morientis imago,
Mira senis,[578] sapiens qui dia volumina pandit!
Aspice, ut in genua is procumbens corpore toto,
Brachia demittit, languentia lumina torquet,
Et capit extrema, eternae sed pabula vitæ,
Illic cerne modo, ut malo suspenditur alto,
Saevi qui morbi contagia depulit Urbe!
Hinc miles validis incurvat viribus arcum,
Atque hinc acer equus permissis fertur habenis:—
Diffugiunt matres, puerique, ignobile vulgus;—
Ast Heros ad cœlum ardentia lumina tendit,
Dicenti similis:—“Nostrum accipe, Christe, cruorem!”
Protinus en Michael exerto devolat ense,[579]
Ac monstrum horrendum sub tristia Tartara mittit,
Parte alia occubuit cœlesti percita amore,
Et volat ad superos virgo de germine Petri![580]
Hæc præclara artis miracula, Felsina prodis,
In tua cum varios inducis vela colores!
Sed quinam effulgent niveo de marmore vultus!
En opus, en!—Algarde, tuum, et spirantia signa![581]
Attila hic, ille Leo: demissi nubibus instant
Et Petrus et Paulus, magnæ tutamina Romæ!
Attila terrarum metus, et squalentibus armis,
Horridus, ense ferox Martis, (sic namque putaret,
Ensem quem Pastor vitulæ vestigia læsæ,
Atra cruore sequens Scythiis invenerat agris,)
Elatosque gerens animos cœlique flage lum,
Sese compellans, sibi totum adsciverat Orbem.
Ergo suis atrox erumpit sedibus, atque
Bella ciet populis late, crudelia bella;
Omnia namque furens ferro populatur et igne;
Efferus incedit per membra fluentia tabo;
Respicit, et gaudet loca jam convulsa ruinis.
Immites primum Dacas juga ferre coegit;
Tum quoque Bistonios, dein Odrysiosque feroces;
Illyriumque; tuas exin, Germania, terras!
Illum nec Rhenus nec Gallia terret ovantem;
Pulsus, proh, remeat, pelagi ceu refluit unda!
Ocius ille domum rediit: pudor incitat iras;
Agmina dira legit, bellumque ferocius urget,
Ac nova Romanæ meditatur praelia genti.
Qualis percussus saevo leo vulnere, pugnam
Integrat, et late silvas rugitibus implet;
Talem Hunnorum Rex gestans in corde furorem,
Italiae ingreditur campos et milite complet.
Omnis humo fumat jam Aquileja; Mediolanum,
Et Verona ruunt; Ticinum et Parma fatiscunt:
Attila per medias cædes bacchatur et ignes:
Sed nihil ille actum reputat, dum Roma superstes.
Ire parat Romam: convellit signa, movetque
Agmina; cen apium ducunt examina reges!
Tunc illum miles dictis affatur amicis.
“Quo tibi nunc iter? Heu! acies Alaricus in Urbem,
Induxit;—mox ingreditur dum mænia Rhegi,
Connubiumque parat, fato decedit acerbo!”
Hæc audit, dubiusque hæret. Mox æstuat ira
Dux, movet et castra. Est eadem sententia menti,
Cum subito miserisque dolens, et cœlitus actus,
Magnus adest Leo, sacra vitta et veste decorus.
Constitit ille tremens, stupet, et vox faucibus hæret!
Verba deinde audit dulci stillantia melle;
Mitescunt animi dictis, et corda residunt.
“Attila quo cessere minæ, quo spiritus acer?”
Hæc miles. Contra Hunnorum Rex talia fatur:
“Nonne duos aetate graves atque ore severo,
Delapsos caelo spectas mortemque minantes,
Districtis gladiis? Feror hinc!—Jam tollite signa,
Et patrios fines, montes silvasque petamus:—
Mens hand illa mihi bello contendere Divis!”
Hæc ait, et nostris excedit finibus Hunnus.
Ast nullæ servant latebræ, nullique recessus,
Persequitur quos ira Dei. Namque Attila, solvit
Dum metibus sese, parat et dulces hymenæos,
Occubuit proprio suffusus nocte cruore!
Est Deus in cœlis fandi memor atque nefandi!
At Leo contendit Romam, jussitque lubentes,
Et Petro et Paulo persolvere vota Quirites;
Et Petrus et Paulus resonant per templa, per aedes!
Felix Roma! Tibi hæc data sunt munimina cœlo!
Et dedit Eumetem mitis Deus atque benignus!
Imperat Eumetes, et pax dominabitur Orbi!
Arcades, o Petrum et Paulum celebrate canentes;
Et vestros repetent septena cacumina versus!
Vos Petri Paulique fidem servate, Quirites!
Eternum servate fidem, servabitis Urbem!
IV. _Epiphany Ode in the Angolese language, written for the Academy of
1845._[582]
He Zambi! Mubundulula,
Mubundulula coettu.
Mu Quixixi Quitombi,
Quitombi, O—vundu,
O Riala muca cuffua mucutu,
Muca! I’nhia!
Tctembuca!
Kieno ki Miscino,
Skitatu miscino,
A—ssueta a Belem,
A-beza camona,
Camona cafeli.
Nhi-bula-canu,
Una camona Zambi,
Zambi ni Riala ni,
Mubundulula via Quinixi,
Ocutanhinha u-a-gile,
Hi Riala! batessa ocutanhinha,
Beza a-camona,
A-camona cafeli,
Eyè muca muno,
V. _Angolese Ode for the Academy of 1846._
Tctembuca, Tctembuca!
I’nhai? Kieno ki,
Amona—Miscino,
Kitatu Misciso,
A-bocala monsu,
Monsu via Kian cu,
Kieno-ki! una-a-beza,
A-beza camona,
Camona cafeli.
Ah! nghi-bala cana,
Tina camona Zambi,
Monandanghi Zambi,
Mubundulula, Mobundulala, coettu!
VI. _Epiphany Ode in the Grisons, or Graubünden, Dialect._
Steila che partas legerment,
E trej reigs clomag d’alg orient,
Ti clara steila ventireila,
Meinag a Dieu l’olma fideiola!
O Telg da Dieu! o mig salvader!
D’ilg pievelg tuttig ti ey sprindrader!
Gloria al Bab che Ti ha envian!
Piugch alg Christgang ehe Ti has trostigian!
VII. [The following epigram was addressed to Cardinal Lambruschini on the
appearance of his Essay on the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. It is
hardly worthy of the subject.]
Tota es pulcra, DEI Genitrix, ab origine pulcra es!
Hoc decuit, potuit, fecit et Omnipotens.
Asserit invictus decus hoc Tibi fulgidus ostro
Auctor. Scriptorem protege, Virgo, tuum.
The Italian version which accompanied it is much more happy.
Tutta se’bella, o di DIO Madre;
Sin da principio bella tu sé.
Cosi addicevasi, e il Sommo Padre
Tutto potendo, cosi pur fé.
Or Ti mantiene un tanto onore,
Chi d’ostro fulgido tra lo splendor,
A’ penna invitta di grande Autore:
Proteggi, o Vergine, il tuo Scrittor!
VIII. _French Stanza given to children after their First Communion._
Demandez an bon Dieu le don de la sagesse;
C’est le veritable trésor!—demandez-le sans cesse!
Mais it faut le chercher avec simplicité
Pour guide, mes enfans, prenant la Pieté.
IX. _Italian Stanza._
Di mille voci e mille quanto al cuore
Più soave e gradita è la parola,
Che un afflitto consola,
E l’anima solleva al Creatore!
X. _English verses given to an Irish student on his leaving the
Propaganda._
“May Christ be on your lips and heart!
Show forth by facts what words impart;
That, by sound words and good behaviour,
You may lead others to the Saviour.”
XI. _Written for a student._
O man, what is thy science?—Vanity:
And thou art nothing without charity.
END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Works I., p. 42.
[2] Mithridates, Vol. II. Einleitung, p. 7.
[3] See the whole legend in Huc’s Chinese Empire, II., p. 187-8.
[4] Auswahl Historischer Stücke aus Hebräischen Schriftstellern, von den
zweiten Jahrhundert bis auf die Gegenwart, Berlin, 1840, p. 10. The book
is entitled _Pirki Rabbi Eliezer_, “The chapters of Rabbi Eliezer.” Its
date is extremely uncertain. See Moreri Dict. Hist. VII., 361.
[5] See Prideaux’s Life of Mahomet, p. 66.
[6] According to the account of Pliny, Dioscurias, a city of Colchis (the
present Iskuriah,) was frequented for commercial purposes by no less than
_three hundred different races_; and he adds that a hundred and thirty
interpreters were employed there under the Romans (_Hist. Nat._ VI.,
5. Miller’s Ed. II., 176.) The Arabian writers, Ibn Haukal and Musadi,
mention seventy-two languages which were spoken at Derbent. Strabo speaks
of twenty-six in the Eastern Caucasus alone. See _The Tribes of the
Caucasus_, p. 14, also p. 32.
[7] Dahlmann, p. 47. It would be presumptuous to differ from so ingenious
a writer, and so profound a master of the subject which he treats; but I
may observe that there are some passages of Herodotus which seem to imply
a certain degree at least of acquaintance with Egyptian (for instance II.
79, II. 99), and with the ancient language of Persia, as IX. 100, &c. It
must be admitted, however, that a very superficial knowledge of either
language would suffice to explain these allusions.
[8] XVII. 17.
[9] This is not Mithridates’s only title to distinction. Perhaps it may
not be so generally known that he was equally celebrated for his powers
of eating and drinking! Athenæus tells of him that he once offered a
prize of a talent to the greatest eater in his dominions. After a full
competition the prize was awarded to Mithridates _himself_.—_Athenæus,
Deipnosoph., Book X., p. 415._
[10] VIII. 7.
[11] Hist. Nat. VII. 24, and again XXV. 2.
[12] Life of Anthony. Langhorne’s Plutarch, v. p. 182.
[13] It was probably by some such fanciful analogy that Cecrops obtained
the name δίφυης, because he knew both Greek and Egyptian.
[14] See a long list of examples cited by Bayle, Dict. Histor. I. 943.
The legislation on the subject, however, was not uniform; nor is it easy
to reconcile some parts of it with each other, or to understand any
general principles on which they can be founded.
[15] Pænulus, act v., sc. 1.
[16] With the exception of Tacitus, who claimed to be of the family of
the great historian, and made a vigorous but unsuccessful effort for the
revival of declining Latinity.
[17] See Milman’s Latin Christianity, I., 28-9.
[18] In some congregations, as early as the first and second century,
there were official interpreters [Ἑρμηνεύται], whose duty it was to
translate into the provincial tongues, what had been read in the church.
They resembled the interpreters of the Jewish synagogue. See Neander’s
Kirchen-Geschichte, I. 530.
[19] Stromata, I. 276 (Paris, 1641.)
[20] Opp. I. 326 (Paris, 1609.) Hom. in Laudem St. Basilii.
[21] See Bayle, Dict. Historique, I. 408. It is curious that the
victorious Mussulmen at Jerusalem enacted the very opposite. No Christian
was permitted to speak the sacred language of the Koran. See Milman’s
“Latin Christianity,” II. 42, and again III. 225. It would be interesting
to examine the history of enactments of this kind, and their effects upon
the languages which they were intended to suppress,—the Norman efforts
against English, those of the English against Celtic, Joseph II’s against
Magyar, and others of the same kind.
[22] Ep. VI. 27.
[23] When the Patriarch Nestorius wrote to Pope Celestine his account of
the controversy now known under his name, the latter was obliged, before
he could reply, to wait till Nestorius’s letter had been translated into
Latin. Erat enim in Latinum sermo vertendus. This letter, together with
those of Cyril of Alexandria, form part of an interesting correspondence
which illustrates very strikingly the pre-eminence then enjoyed in the
Church by the Roman bishop, and is found in Hardouin’s Concilia, I. 1302.
See also Walch’s Historie der Ketzereien, V. 701.
[24] Even Pope Vigilius himself professes his want of familiarity with
the Greek language. See his celebrated _Constitutum_ in Hardouin’s Coll.
Concil III. col. 39.
[25] See the original in Labbe’s _Concilia_, VIII. 835. Both the original
and the translation will be found in Leibnitz’s “System of Theology,” p.
52, note.
[26] See Milman’s Latin Christianity, IV. p. 58, and again 367.
[27] The titles of nearly two hundred of his works are still preserved.
[28] Rohrbacher Hist. de l’Eglise, XIX., 569.
[29] He is the author of a History of Spain, in nine books; and besides
his very remarkable attainments as a linguist, was reputed among the most
learned scholars of his age.
[30] See the account in Labbe, Collect. Concil. VII. 79. The writer
observes; Cum ab apostolorum tempore auditum non sit nec scriptum
reperiatur, quemque ad populum eandem concionem habuisse tot ac tam
diversis linguis cuncta exponendo. The fact is also related by Feyjoo,
Teatro critico, IV. p. 400. An interesting account of this remarkable
scholar will be found in the _Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus_ II. _pp. 149-50_.
[31] The Family of Barbaro produced many distinguished linguists,
according to the opportunities of the time. Francesco Barbaro, born in
1398, was one of the earliest eminent Greek scholars of Italy. Ermolao,
the commentator on Aristotle, was said by the wits of his time to have
been such a purist in Greek, that he did not stop at consulting the devil
when he was at a loss for the precise meaning of a word—the much disputed
ἐντελεχέια of Aristotle!—See Bayle’s Dict. Hist. Art. _Barbaro_ I. 473.
[32] Venice was long remarkable for her encouragement of skill in living
languages. It was a necessary qualification for most of her diplomatic
appointments; and, while Latin, in Europe, was still the ordinary medium
of diplomatic intercourse, we find a Venetian ambassador to England, in
1509, Badoer, capable of conversing like a native in English, French, and
German.—See an interesting paper, “Venetian Dispatches,” in the Quarterly
Review, vol. xcvi. p. 369.
[33] M’Crie’s Reformation in Spain, I. p. 61. See also Hallam’s Literary
History, I. p. 197.
[34] See the Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. I. pref. p. vii.
[35] See Hefele’s _Der Cardinal Ximenes_: one of the most interesting and
learned biographies with which I am acquainted, p. 124.
[36] Vol. II., p. 788.
[37] Naima’s Annals of the Turkish Empire, translated by M. Frazer, for
the Oriental Translation Society. For this fact I am indebted to the
kindness of Mr. Watts, of the British Museum, but I am unable to refer to
the passage.
[38] Pilgrimage to El Medinah, II. p. 368.
[39] Ibid. I., p. 179.
[40] Burton’s Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah. III., 368.
[41] Annals of the Turkish Empire, p. 45.
[42] A melancholy instance of the capriciousness of this sort of
reputation, and of the unhappiness by which, in common with many other
gifts, it is often accompanied, is recorded in the Paris journals of the
early part of this year. A man apparently about fifty years old, named
Tinconi, a native of Constantinople, was found dead at his lodgings in
the Rue des Vieux Augustins, having perished, as it afterwards appeared,
of hunger. This ill-fated man was possessed of an ample fortune, and had
held high diplomatic appointments; and, besides being well-versed in
ancient and modern literature, he spoke not fewer than ten languages,
and knew several others! Yet almost the only record of his varied
accomplishments is that which also tells the story of his melancholy end!
[43] See his life by Pococke, prefixed to the translation of his work _De
Termino Vitæ_. 1699.
[44] See Dr. Paul De Lagarde’s learned dissertation, “De Geoponicon
Versione Syriacâ” (p. 3, Leipsig, 1855). This dissertation is an account
of a hitherto unknown Syriac version of the “Scriptores Rei Rusticæ”
which Dr. De Lagarde discovered among the Syriac MSS. of the British
Museum. He has also transcribed from the same collection many similar
remains of Syriac literature, partly sacred, partly profane, which he
purposes to publish at intervals. Some of the former especially, as
referring to the Ante-Nicene period, are, like those already published
by Mr. Cureton, of great interest to students of Christian antiquity,
although the same drawback—doubt as to their age and authorship—must
affect the doctrinal value of them all.
[45] This laborious and prolific writer, whose works fill nearly 20
volumes, is said to have used the same pen for no less than forty
years, and to have been thrown almost into despair upon its accidental
destruction at the end of that period.
[46] Some of these visited the English universities. Of one among the
number, named Metrophanes Critopulus, who was sent by Cyrillus Lucaris
to be indoctrinated in Anglican Theology, and who lived at Oxford at
the charge of archbishop Abbott, a very amusing account is given by the
disappointed prelate in a letter quoted by Neale (History of Alexandria,
II., 413-5.) He turned out “an unworthy fellow,” “far from ingenuity
or any grateful respect,” a “rogue and beggar,” and in other ways
disappointed the care bestowed on him.
[47] One specimen may suffice, which is furnished by Mr. Neale:
“_Collavi_ (_I have collated_) sua notata cum textu Bellarmini.” Neale,
II., p. 402. The Easterns seldom seem at home in the languages of Europe;
Italian, and still more French orthography, is their great puzzle. I have
seen specimens of Oriental Italian which, for orthography, might rival
“Jeames’s” English, or the French of Augustus the Strong.
[48] Panagiotes was a native of Scio, and was known in his later life
under the sobriquet of “the Green Horse,” in allusion to a local proverb,
that “it is easier to find a green horse than a wise man in Scio.”
The appellation was the highest tribute that could be rendered to the
prudence and ability of Panagiotes; but it is also a curious confirmation
of the evil repute, as regards honesty, in which the islanders of the
Egean were held from the earliest times. The reader will probably
remember the satirical couplet of Phocylides about the honesty of the
Lerians, which Porson applied, in a well-known English parody, to the
Greek scholarship of Herrmann.
————Λέριοι κάκοι ὄυκ ὁ μὲν ὅστδ’ όυ
Πάντες πλήν Προκλέους και Πρόκλεης Λέριος.
[49] An elaborate account of them will be found in Neumann’s _Versuch
einer Geschichte der Armenischen Literatur_. Leipzig, 1836. On the
exceeding importance of the Armenian language for the general study
of the entire Indo-Germanic family, see the extremely learned essay,
_Urgeschichte der Armenier, ein Philologischer Versuch_. (Berlin, 1854.)
It is published anonymously, but is believed to be from the pen of the
distinguished Orientalist named in page 22.
[50] I do not think it necessary to mention (though he is a little
earlier) Felix of Ragusa, the principal librarian, or rather book
collector, of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary. He is said to have
known, besides Greek and Latin, the Chaldee, Arabic, and Syriac languages.
[51] Sugli Uomini di gran Memoria, p. 27.
[52] The history of this MS. is a strange one. In the sack of Pavia by
the French under Lautrec, it was carried off among the plunder. Teseo was
in despair at the loss, and was returning to Rome with a sad heart. At
Ferrara, he chanced to see a quantity of papers at a charcoal burner’s,
just on the point of being consigned to the furnace. What was his delight
to find his precious Psalter among them! He began the printing of it at
Ferrara without delay, but did not live to see its completion.
[53] Adelung’s Mithridates, I., 646. See also Biogr. Universelle, II., p.
25.
[54] Biograph. Univ. XV. 239.
[55] There is another Pigafetta (Felippo), some years the junior of
Antonio, who was also a very extensive traveller, having visited Turkey,
Egypt, Syria, Croatia, Hungary, the Ukraine, and the northern kingdoms.
He was sent into Persia on a diplomatic mission by Sixtus V. But I have
not been able to find any record of his skill in languages.
[56] Thevet’s _Thresor des Langues_, p. 964.
[57] Raimondi had spent many years in the East, and was acquainted
with most of the Oriental languages, living and dead. He projected
a polyglot bible which should contain the Arabic, Syriac, Persic,
Ethiopic, Armenian, and Coptic versions, accompanied by the Grammars and
Dictionaries of these languages. But the death of Gregory XIII., on whose
patronage he mainly relied for the execution of his project, put a stop
to the undertaking.
[58] A copy of this work is found in the Catalogue of Cardinal
Mezzofanti’s Library, by Signor Bonifazi. It is in 4 vols., fol., Milan,
1632.
[59] Conciliatio Ecclesiæ Armenæ cum Romana, ex ipsis Armenorum Patrum
et Doctorum Testimoniis. 2 vols fol., Romæ 1658—It is in Bonifazi’s
Catalogue of the Mezzofanti Library, p. 20.
[60] Feller’s Dict. Biog. art. _Galani_.
[61] The learned Jesuit, Father Giambattista Ferrari, author of the
_Nomenclator Syrus_, is an exception to the general rule. He does not
appear to have been a member of any of the Eastern missions. Angelo
Canini, the eminent Syriac scholar, though born in Italy, belongs rather
to the French school.
[62] Wadding assigns his death to the year 1638; but it is clear from
the preface of the Thesaurus that he was dead several years before its
publication, which was in 1636.
[63] _Alcorani Textus Universus._ 2 vols, fol., Padua, 1698.
[64] Biogr. Uni. XV. 263, (Brussels Ed.)
[65] He must not be confounded with a German Orientalist, Christopher
Sigismund Georgi, who lived about the same time.
[66] Biographie Universelle, Vol. XXVI, p. 128.
[67] For this interesting anecdote of Father Ignazio de Rossi, I am
indebted to Cardinal Wiseman, who learned it from the companions of the
good old father upon the occasion. His Eminence added, that it was done
as a mere amusement, and without the least effort or the remotest idea of
preparation.
[68] Through the kindness of the Cavaliere Pezzana, Royal Librarian and
Privy Councillor of Parma, I have been fortunate enough to obtain copies
of some of Mezzofanti’s letters to De Rossi, which will be found in their
chronological order hereafter.
[69] It is a magnificent folio, entitled “Epithalamia Exoticis Linguis
Reddita;” one of the most curious productions of the celebrated press of
Bodoni. Parma, 1775.
[70] The _Panglossia_ in honour of Peiresc was the work of many hands,
and cannot fairly be compared with the Epithalamia of De Rossi. I have
never seen a copy of the latter, nor does De Rossi himself, in his modest
autobiography, (_Memorie Storiche_, Parma, 1807, p. 19), enumerate the
languages which it contained.
[71] The ingenious mechanician, Prince Raimondo di Sansevero, of Naples,
had some name as a linguist. He is said to have known Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and several modern languages. But his knowledge
was very superficial.
[72] _Theatro Critico_, IV., p. 401, Art. _Glorias de España_.
[73] _Bibliotheca Hispana_, Vol. IV., p. 75.
[74] Thus amusingly “Englished” in Wanley’s “Wonders of the Little
World,” p. 285:—
“A young man have I seen,
At twenty years so skilled,
That every art he knew, and all
In all degrees excelled!
Whatever yet was writ,
He vaunted to pronounce
(Like a young Antichrist) if he
Did read the same but once.”
[75] P. 457. The work was printed in the same volume with Peter Martyr’s
_De Rebus Oceanicis_. Cologne, 1574.
[76] Bruce’s Travels, III, 134.
[77] Duret refers for some notice of Covilham, to the rare work of
Alvarez, _De Historia Ethiopum_. In the hope of discovering something
further regarding this remarkable and little-known linguist, I
endeavoured to consult that author; but I have not been able to find a
copy. It is not in the British Museum.
[78] Galatinus de Arcanis Cath. Veritatis Libri XII. (Frankfort 1572), B.
III. c. 6, p. 120.
[79] There is considerable difference of opinion as to his birth-place.
But Nicholas Antonio, in the Bibliotheca Hispana, says it was Frexenal.
Vol. III. p. 207.
[80] Enfans Celebres, p. 198. Baillet says it was an edition of Seneca’s
Tragedies; but this is a mistake. The _In Senecæ Tragedias Adversaria_
did not appear till 1574.
[81] _Teatro Critico_, IV. 401.
[82] Feyjoo IV. p. 401. “Seguramente podemos creers in alguna rebaxa.”
The _Bibliotheca Hispana_ enumerates twelve languages, Greek, Latin,
Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, French, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, and
English. I. p. 207.
[83] This is, strange as it may seem, the lowest computation, and rests
on _Lope de Vega’s_ own testimony, written in 1630, five years before his
death. Speaking of the number of his dramatic fictions, he says to his
friend,
_Mil y quinientos_ fabulas admira.
By other authors the number is made much greater. According to some, as
his friend, Montalvan, he wrote _eighteen hundred_ plays; and Bouterwek,
in his History of Spanish Literature, puts it down at the enormous
estimate of _two thousand_. “_Spanish Literature_,” I. p. 361.
[84] Montalvan says _four hundred_. The _Bibliotheca Hispana_ says (vol.
iv., p. 75) “_eighteen hundred plays, and above four hundred sacred
dramas_.”
[85] A long list of grammars, vocabularies, dictionaries, catechisms,
&c., in more than forty-five different languages, compiled by the Spanish
missionaries, is given in the Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. IV. pp. 577-79.
[86] M. d’Abbadie assures me that Father Paez is still spoken of as “Ma
alim Petros” by the professors of Gondar and Bagënndir.
[87] Neale’s _History of the Patriarchate of Alexandria_ (London, 1837)
II. 405.
[88] Letter to M. Le Leu de Wilhem, quoted by Neale, II. 402.
[89] Biographie Universelle, IX. 301.
[90] Of the latter work I have never seen the Italian original. I know it
only from the Spanish _Catalogo de las Lenguas de las naciones conocidas,
y numeracion, division, y classes de estas, segun la Diversidad de sus
idiomas y dialectos_. 6 vols 4to. Madrid, 1800-5.
[91] Anthony Rodolph Chevalier, a Hebraist of some eminence, born in
Normandy in 1507, three years before Postel, has perhaps some claim to be
mentioned before him, inasmuch as several of his versions are inserted in
Walton’s Polyglot; but his history has hardly any interest.
[92] See Adelung’s Mithridates, I. 646. Postel published in the same
year, the first grammar of the Arabic language ever printed. Paris 1558.
[93] _Thresor de l’ Histoire de toutes les Langues de cet Univers._
Cologne, 613, p. 964.
[94] Adelung, in the appendix of the first volume of his _Mithridates_,
has enumerated several other Pater Nosters, Thevet, Vulcanius (the
latinized form of _Smet_), Merula, Duret, Mauer Waser, Reuter, Witzen,
Bartsch, Bergmann, and others. None of these collections, however,
possesses any special interest, as bearing on the present inquiry, nor
does it appear that any of the authors was particularly eminent as a
speaker of languages; unless we are to presume that Thevet, Duret,
Gramaye, and Witzen, may, in their long travel or sojourn in foreign
countries, have acquired the languages of the nations among whom they
lived. Of the last three names I shall say a few words hereafter.
[95] A portion of the edition contains a Latin preface, explanatory of
the plan and contents; but the majority of the copies have this preface
in Russian; and, in all, the character employed throughout the body of
the work is Russian. This character, however, may be mastered with so
little difficulty, that, practically, its adoption can hardly be said
to interfere materially with the usefulness of the work; and the use of
the Russian character had many advantages over the Roman, in accurately
representing the various sounds, especially those of the northern
languages.
An alphabetical digest (4 vols. 4to. 1790-1) of all the words contained
in the Vocabulary (arranged in the order of the alphabet without
reference to language) was compiled, a few years later, by Theodor
Jankiewitsch de Miriewo, by which it may be seen at once to what language
each word belongs. But this digest is described as unscientific in its
plan and execution; and it was commonly believed that the Empress was so
dissatisfied with it, that the work was suppressed and is now extremely
rare; but I have been informed by Mr. Watts of the British Museum, that
copies of it are now not unfrequently offered for sale. A copy has been
for some years in the British Museum.
[96] It is true that some part of its materials have since become
superannuated by the fuller and more accurate researches of later
investigators, (see Bunsen’s Christianity and Mankind, III. 47.) But it
is nevertheless a work even still of immense value.
[97] Strange and incredible as this anecdote may seem, it is told
seriously by Scaliger himself, who adds that the same extraordinary power
was possessed also by Jerome Cardan and by his father. See the curious
article in _Moreri_, _voce_ “Scaliger.”
[98] Enfans Celebres, p. 196.
[99] An equally eulogistic epigram, by Heinsius, is quoted by Hallam,
Literary History, II. 35.
[100] Scaligeriana, p. 130. This collection is the first of the series of
_anas_ since so popular.
[101] Ibid. p. 232.
[102] On Scaliger’s powers of abuse, see M. Nisard’s brilliant and
amusing Triumvirat Literaire au XVI. Siecle, p. 296, 302, 305, &c. The
“triumvirs” are Lipsius, Scaliger and Casaubon.
[103] Feller’s Dict. Biograph., vol. V. p. 312.
[104] Mithridates, I. 650.
[105] Cologne 1615.
[106] I cannot help thinking that Adelung quite underrates this curious
work. I have seldom consulted it but with pleasure or profit. And the
concluding chapter, “on the language of animals and of birds,” on
which great ridicule has been thrown, is in reality a very curious,
interesting, and judicious essay.
[107] Mr. Kenrick, in the preface of his recent work on Phœnicia,
confesses that “the most diligent reader of ancient authors with a view
to the illustration of Phœnician history, will find himself anticipated
or surpassed by Bochart.”
[108] Bochart’s death was the consequence of a fit with which he was
seized during a vehement dispute which he had with Huet, in the academy
of Caen in 1667, respecting the authenticity of some Spanish medals.
Huet appears to have long felt the memory of it painfully. He alludes to
it in a letter to his nephew, Piadore de Chersigne, above forty years
afterwards; and seems to console himself by thinking that Bochart’s death
“ne lui fut causèe par notre dispute, sinon en partie.” It is curious
that Disraeli has overlooked this in his “Quarrels of Authors.”
[109] Feller’s Dict. Biograph., vol. X. p. 476.
[110] Perhaps I ought to mention Renaudot’s contemporary, the Jesuit,
Father Claude Francis Menestrier, (1631-1704), who although not a great
linguist, is at least notable for the rather rare accomplishment of
speaking Greek with remarkable propriety and fluency, and still more for
his prodigious memory, which Queen Christina of Sweden tried by a very
singular ordeal. She had a string of three hundred words, the oddest
and most unconnected that could be devised, written down without the
least order or connexion, and read over once in Menestrier’s presence.
He repeated them in their exact order, without a single mistake or
hesitation!—_Biographie Univ., Vol. XXVIII._, _p._ 293.
A still more extraordinary example of this power of memory is related
by Padre Menocchio (the well-known Biblical commentator, Menochius) of
a young Corsican whom Muret met at Padua, and who was not only able
to repeat in their regular order a jumble of words similar to that
described above, but could repeat them _backwards, and with various other
modifications_! The youth assured Muret that he could retain in this way
36,000 words, and that he would undertake to keep them in memory for an
entire year! See Menocchio’s _Stuore_, Part III., p. 89. The _Stuore_
is a miscellaneous collection, compiled by this learned Jesuit during
his hours of recreation. He called the work by this quaint title (Ang.
“_Mats_”) in allusion to the habit of the ancient monks, who used to
employ their leisure hours in weaving _mats_, in the literal sense of
the word. This fanciful title is not unlike that chosen by Clement of
Alexandria for a somewhat similar miscellany, his Στρώματα [Tapestry], or
perhaps the more literal one “Patchwork,” assumed by a popular writer of
our own time.
[111] Many of the French missionaries in China, of course, were
distinguished Chinese scholars. The Dictionary of Pere Amiot, for
example, although not published till after his death, is still a standard
work. It was edited by Langlés in 1789-90.
[112] For instance his _Memoire dans le quel on prouve que les Chinois
sont une Colonie Egyptienne_; a notion which was warmly controverted by
his fellow pupil, Deshauterayes. De Guignes argues from the supposed
resemblance of the Chinese and Phœnician characters. His great Chinese
Dictionary, with Klaproth’s supplement, (2 vols. fol., Paris, 1813-19) is
in Mezzofanti’s Catalogue, p. 6.
[113] Although of French parents, Ruffin was born in 1742 at Salonica,
where his father was living in the capacity of chief interpreter of
France. Feller, vol XI., p. 163.
[114] Biogr. Univ. XIX., 172 (Brussels ed.)
[115] Biogr. Univ., vol. LXX., p. 189-200.
[116] Auguste Herbin, a few years Remusat’s senior (having been born at
Paris 1783), was cut off in the very commencement of a most promising
career as an Orientalist. He died in 1806, before he had completed his
twenty-fourth year.
[117] M. Eugene Borè has been in Armenia what the two D’Abbadies have
been in Abyssinia—at once a scholar and a missionary—the pioneer of
religion and civilization, no less than of science.
[118] I gladly avail myself of this opportunity to acknowledge the
valuable assistance on many points which I have received, in the form
both of information and of suggestion, at the hands of this distinguished
philologist and traveller. I am but speaking the common feeling of the
learned of every country, when I express a hope that, before long,
the world may be favoured with the results of his long and laborious
researches in the language, literature, and history of Ethiopia.
[119] Journ. Asiat. 3me., Serie, Vol. VI. p. 79.
[120] Under this head are included all the members of the German
family—Dutch, Flemings, Swedes, Danes, Swiss, &c. I have found it
convenient, too, to include Hungarians (as Austrian subjects), although,
of course, their proper ethnological place should be elsewhere.
[121] Better known by his Grecised name, Capnio (καπνιον, _Rauchlein_,
“_a little smoke_.”)
[122] Bibliander was a Swiss, born at Bischoffzell about 1500. His family
name was _Buchmann_ (Bookman), which, in the fashion of his time, he
translated into the Greek, Bibliander.
[123] Duret says they were “beyond numbering”; but so vague a statement
cannot be urged too literally. _Thresor_, p. 963.
[124] Zurich 1545. It is a small 12mo.
[125] Gesner’s Mithridates is perhaps remarkable as containing the
earliest printed specimen of the Rothwälsches, or “Gipsy-German.” He
gives a vocabulary of this slang language, of about seven pages in
length. It is only just to his memory to add that in his Epilogue,
which is a very pleasing composition, he acknowledges the manifold
imperfections of the work, and only claims the merit of opening a way for
inquirers of more capacity and better opportunities of research.
[126] Mithridates, I., 649.
[127] Biographie Universelle, Vol. VIII., 485.
[128] Feller, Vol. VIII., 136.
[129] Mithridates, I., 596.
[130] Biogr. Univ., Art. Kircher.
[131] Even at his meals Ludolf always kept an open book before him.
[132] Feller’s Dict. Biog. VII., p. 622.
[133] Biographie Universelle, Vol. XLI., p. 180.
[134] Adelung’s Mithridates, I., 660.
[135] They are given in the second volume. Witzen’s letters to Leibnitz
are of the years 1697, 1698, and 1699. Opp. Vol. VI., Part II., pp.
191-206. The specimens of the Pater Noster are in the Collectanea
Etymol., ib. 187.
[136] I., 664.
[137] See several interesting examples in the first of Cardinal Wiseman’s
Lectures “On the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion,”
I., p. 25. The two lectures on the Comparative Study of Languages
exhaust the whole history of philological science down to the date of
their publication. Ample justice is also rendered to Leibnitz’s rare
philological instinct by Chevalier Bunsen, Christianity and Mankind,
III., 44. See also Guhrauer’s “Leibnitz: Eine Biographie,” II., 129.
[138] See Denina’s La Prusse Litteraire, III., 83.
[139] He wrote chiefly in Russian. See Meusel’s Gelehrte Deutschland, a
dry but learned and accurate Dictionary of the living writers of Germany
in the end of the eighteenth century, begun by Homberger in 1783, but
continued by Meusel.
[140] Biogr. Univ., VI., 399.
[141] Biog. Univ., p. 402.
[142] Denina (Prusse Litteraire, III., p. 31) observes that the name of
Michaelis would appear to have had the profession of Oriental literature
as its peculiar inheritance.
[143] For a complete enumeration of his works see Meusel’s Gelehrte
Deutschland, II., 563.
[144] 3 vols., 8vo., London, 1827.
[145] Biographie Universelle, LVIII., p. 4.
[146] Feller, I., 66. See also Bunsen, III., 42.
[147] Vol. I., p. xx.
[148] Bunsen’s “Christianity and Mankind,” III., p. 44.
[149] See preface of the _Vocabularia Comparativa_. Also Biographie
Universelle, XXXII., p. 440.
[150] The Japanese he learned from a shipwrecked native of Japan whom he
met at Irkutsch; probably the same mentioned in “Golownin’s Narrative.”
[151] Biogr. Univ., LXVIII., 532.
[152] Life and Letters of Niebuhr, I. p. 27-8.
[153] “Christianity and Mankind,” III., p. 60.
[154] As a mere linguist I should name Dr. Pruner, a native of Bavaria,
but long a resident of Egypt, where he was physician of the late Pasha.
M. d’Abbadie states that Dr. Pruner is reputed to speak twelve languages,
Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, English, French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish.
[155] This Grammar has appeared in successive sections, commencing in
1833, and only completed in 1852.
[156] Klaproth, the great explorer of the Caucasian languages, does not
properly belong to Schlegel’s school, as he comparatively overlooks the
great principle of Schlegel—the grammatical structure of languages.
[157] Castrén was an accomplished writer both in his own language and in
German, and a poet of much merit. His Swedish version of the old Finnic
Saga “Kalevala,” is perhaps deserving of notice as having furnished in
its metre the model of the new English measure adopted by Longfellow in
his recent poem “Hiawatha.” Castrén’s birth-place is close to Uleåborg,
the spot resorted to commonly by travellers who desire to witness the
phenomenon of “the Midnight Sun.”
[158] Bunsen, III., p. 274.
[159] Bunsen, III., p. 53.
[160] Ibid, 270.
[161] In his “Comparative Grammar of the Drâvidian or South-Indian Family
of Languages.”
[162] The fiercest of them all is contained not in the Journal, but in a
pamphlet which was distributed to members of the Society.
[163] Dr. Paul De Lagarde, for instance, has the reputation of knowing
above twenty languages.
[164] Christianity and Mankind, III., 271.
[165] Knight’s Cyclopædia of Biography, I. 450-3.
[166] Cancellieri, Sugli Uomini di gran Memoria, e sugli Uomini
smemorati, p. 50-1.
[167] Life of James Crichton of Cluny, commonly called “the Admirable
Crichton.” Edinburgh, 1819.
[168] _Wonders of the Little World_, p. 286.
[169] II., p. 223.
[170] “New Atlantis.” Bacon’s Works, II., 84.
[171] Life of Edward Lord Clarendon, I., p. 35.
[172] Literary History, II., 85.
[173] Church History, III., 87.
[174] Disraeli’s Miscellanies, p. 131.
[175] Ibid.
[176] Rose’s Biographical Dictionary, XI., 166.
[177] Disraeli’s Miscellanies, p. 131.
[178] Wilkins was an eminent mathematician, and one of the first members
of the Royal Society. But his reputation as a humourist was his chief
recommendation to Buckingham. His character in many respects resembled
that of Swift. One of his witticisms is worth recording. After the first
appearance of his well-known Voyage to the Moon [“Discovery of a New
World, with a Discourse concerning the Possibility of a Voyage thither”],
the eccentric Duchess of Newcastle jestingly remarked to him that the
only defect in his account was that it omitted to tell where the voyagers
would find lodging and accommodation by the way. “That need present no
difficulty to your Grace,” said Wilkins; “you have built so many _castles
in the air_ that _you_ cannot be at any loss for accommodation on the
journey.”
[179] He published the “Pantheisticon,” the most profane of all his
works, under this pseudonym. I regret to see that an elaborate attempt
to recall this long-forgotten book into notice, is made by Dr. Hermann
Hettner, in his “Geschichte der Englischen Literatur von 1660 bis 1770,”
the first volume of which has just been published at Leipsic (1856). Dr.
Hettner has even been at the pains to translate largely from its worst
profanities.
[180] Disraeli’s Miscellanies, p. 110.
[181] Among the crowd of bubble companies which arose about the time
of the Revolution, was the “Royal Academies Company,” which professed
to have engaged the best masters in every department of knowledge, and
issued 20,000 tickets at twenty shillings each. The fortunate holders
were to be taught at the charge of the company! Among the subjects of
instruction languages held a high place; and the scheme of education
comprised Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Spanish! See Macaulay’s
History of England, IV., 307.
[182] Disraeli has a curious chapter on Henley, _Miscellanies_, pp. 73-8.
[183] A plan for the promotion of Oriental studies, under the patronage
of the Company, formed one of the many magnificent schemes of Warren
Hastings, himself no mean linguist. Hastings consulted Johnson on the
subject; and it is observed as an evidence of his extraordinary coolness
and self-possession, that his letter, acknowledging Johnson’s present
of Sir W. Jones’s Persian Grammar, was written in the midst of the
excitement of one of the most eventful days in his chequered life. See
Croker’s Boswell’s Life of Johnson. VIII., 38-42, and Macaulay’s Essays,
p. 593.
[184] Even during an attack of ophthalmia he did not relax in his
application to study, but used to get some of his schoolfellows to read
for him while he was himself disabled from reading.
[185] Lord Teignmouth’s Life of Sir William Jones, II., 168.
[186] II., 168.
[187] He displayed great disinterestedness in the public service by
voluntarily relinquishing, several years before his death, (1836) a large
pension which he held under the crown.
[188] 1765-1837.
[189] Memorials of My Own Time, p. 180.
[190] Lockhart’s Life of Scott, I., p. 323.
[191] Life of Thomas Young, M.D. By George Peacock, D.D. London, 1855.
[192] See an interesting memoir in the National Review, II., 69-97.
[193] Christianity and Mankind, III., 48.
[194] Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion, I., 180.
[195] See especially an exceedingly learned and interesting article in
the Dublin Review, Vol. XXXIX., pp. 199-244. on Dr. Donaldson’s _Jashar_.
[196] Illustrated London News, Feb. 10, 1856.
[197] See a memoir of Dr. Samuel Lee in Jerdan’s “Portrait Gallery,” Vol.
V.
[198] Journal of a Residence in London. By Nathaniel Wheaton, A.M., p. 85.
[199] People’s Journal, Vol. I., p. 244.
[200] Knight’s Cyclopædia of Biography, art. Burritt.
[201] I must here acknowledge my especial obligations to Mr. Watts; not
alone for the facilities kindly afforded to me in consulting books in the
British Museum Library, but for the valuable assistance in discovering
the best sources of information which his extensive acquaintance with
Slavonic literature enabled him to render to me in the inquiry.
[202] For some account of this traveller see Otto’s Lehrbuch der
Russischen Literatur, p. 231.
[203] König’s Literarische Bilder aus Russland, p. 33.
[204] Ibid.
[205] Otto’s Lehrbuch, p 246. Pameva was not properly a Russian, having
been born in Moldavia; but he became a monk at Kiew, which thenceforward
was the country of his adoption.
[206] Grammatica Russica et Manuductio ad Linguam Slavorum, Oxford, 1696.
[207] See Guhrauer’s “_Leibnitz, eine Biographie_,” Vol. II., pp. 271-5,
for the details of this magnificent scheme.
[208] Otto’s Lehrbuch, p. 179.
[209] See an article on “Russian Literature,” _Foreign Quart. Review_,
Vol. 1., p. 610.
[210] See an interesting notice in Otto’s Lehrbuch, _sub voce_.
[211] Otto’s Lehrbuch, p. 294. 5.
[212] See König’s _Literarische Bilder aus Russland_, p. 38, also Otto’s
_Lehrbuch_, p. 204, and Bowring’s _Russian Anthology_, 1. 205. 8. His
works fill 6 vols. 8vo. 1804.
[213] Otto’s Lehrbuch, p. 257.
[214] Biograph. Univ. VIII. p. 87.
[215] Otto’s Lehrbuch, p. 246.
[216] See an interesting sketch of this institute, by M. Dulaurier:
L’Institut Lazareff des Langues Orientales, Paris 1856.
[217] Dulaurier, p. 48.
[218] Historic View of the Language and Literature of the Slavonic
Nations, by Talvi—the pseudonym of Theresa A. L. von Jacob, (formed of
her several initials), daughter of the celebrated Professor von Jacob,
and now wife of Dr. Robinson the eminent American Biblical scholar, p. 73.
[219] Ibid.
[220] Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia and China, 2 vols.
8vo, 1827.
[221] Historical View of Slavonic Languages, p. 32.
[222] Ibid, p. 98. His Georgian Dictionary obtained the Demidoff prize.
See catalogue de l’Academie Imperiale a St. Petersbourg, p. 58.
[223] 3 vols. 4to. Moscow, 1840.
[224] Literarische Bilder aus Russland (König), pp. 312-21.
[225] Literature and Language of Slavonic Nations, p. 244.
[226] In one vol. 4to, Petersburg, 1851.
[227] De Origine et Rebus Gestis Polonorum, Lib. XXX., ibid. 244.
[228] Lit. and Lang. of Slavonic Nations, p. 178.
[229] The _Thesaurus_ (4 vols, folio, Vienna 1680) supposes in its
author a knowledge of at least eight different languages, Arabic,
Persian, Turkish, Latin, Italian, French, German, and Polish. Meninski
was a man of indomitable energy. In two successive pamphlets which he
published in the course of a controversy which he carried on with his
great rival, Podestà (who was professor of Arabic in the University) he
went to the pains of actually _transcribing with his own hand in each
copy_ the quotations from Oriental authors, as there were no Oriental
types in Vienna from which they could be printed! Meninski’s Thesaurus,
however, is best known from the learned edition of it which was printed
at Vienna (1780-1802) under the revision of Baron von Ienisch, himself
an Orientalist of very high reputation, and for a considerable time
interpreter of the Austrian embassy at Constantinople.
[230] Literature of Slavonic Nations, 270. See also an interesting memoir
in the _Biographie Universelle_. He was born at Warsaw in 1731, and
survived till 1808.
[231] See Biographie Universelle (Supplement), Vol. LVII., p. 589.
Italinski continued and completed D’Hancarville’s great work on Etruscan
Antiquities.
[232] Ibid., p. 190.
[233] See an interesting memoir in Knight’s Cyclopædia of Biography, Vol.
III., pp. 280-1.
[234] See Staudenmaier’s “Pragmatismus der Geistes-gaben,” [Tübingen
1835], and Englmann’s “Von der Charismen im allgemeinen, und von
dem Sprachen-charismen im Besondern.” [Regensburg, 1848]. See also
a long list of earlier writers (chiefly Rationalistic) in Kuinoel’s
“Commentarius in Libros N. T.” vol. IV. pp. 40-2; also in Englmann, pp.
15-23.
[235] Jost’s Geschichte der Israeliten, VI., 166.
[236] P. 15. The example and patronage of Frederic tended much to promote
the revival of Oriental studies. Many of the earliest versions of the
works of Aristotle from the Arabic, were made under his auspices or those
of his son Manfred; among others (compare Jourdain’s “Recherches sur
les Traductions Latines d’Aristote,” p. 124, Paris 1843; also Whewell’s
“History of the Inductive Sciences,” I., p. 343;) that of Sir Michael
Scott of Balwearie, a learned Orientalist and an accomplished general
scholar, although his traditionary character is that of “the wizard
Michael Scott.” His namesake, Sir Walter, has immortalized him, not as a
scholar, but as
“A wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when, in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!”
Roger Bacon’s skill in Arabic and other Eastern tongues was probably one
of the causes which drew upon him the same evil reputation. I should have
mentioned Bacon among the few notable mediæval linguists. He was “an
industrious student of Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and the modern tongues.”
(Milman’s Latin Christianity, VI., p. 477). Perhaps I ought also to have
named Albert the Great (Ibid., p. 453); but I am rather disposed to
believe that the knowledge which he had of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic
authors, was derived from Latin versions, and not from the original works
themselves.
[237] Gerbert travelled to Spain with the express purpose of studying in
the Arabian schools. See Hock’s “Sylvester II., und sein Jahrhundert;”
also Whewell’s “Inductive Sciences,” I., 273.
[238] Duret’s _Thresor_, p. 963.
[239] Paul IV. is mentioned by Cancellieri, as having known the entire
Bible by heart. He names several other men, (one of them _blind_,) and
_six ladies_, who could do the same; he tells of one man who could repeat
it in Hebrew.
[240] Kemble’s Social and Political State of Europe, p. 9.
[241] His full name is “Phra Bard Somdetch Phra Paramendt Maha Mongkut
Phra Chom Klau Chau Hu Yua.” _Bowring’s Siam_, (Dedication.) The account
of the king is most interesting.
[242] Valery. Voyage Litteraire de l’Italie, p. 237. I have just met a
modern parallel for her. The brilliant Mme. Henrietta Herz, according
to her new biographer, Dr. Fürst, knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian,
French, Spanish, German, English, and Swedish, besides a slight knowledge
of Sanscrit, Turkish, and Malay—“Henriette Herz, ihre Leben und
Erinnerurgen,” Berlin, 1858.
[243] Tiraboschi Storia, Vol. V., p. 358.
[244] Valery, 237. Fleck (Wissenschaftliche Reise II., p. 97) says
Anatomy; but this is a mistake. There is a very interesting sketch of
Laura Bassi in Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, New Series, Vol. XII., pp.
31-2. She was solemnly admitted to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in
1732.
[245] Cancellieri, “Uomini di gran Memoria.”
[246] In the Bibliotheca Hispana, Vol. IV., pp. 344-53.
[247] Ibid, p. 345.
[248] Bibliotheca Hispana, vol. IV. p. 346.
[249] P. 346. An ode of Lope Vega’s in her praise describes her as a
“fourth Grace,” and a “tenth Muse”—“que as hecho quatre las Gracias y las
Musas diez.”
[250] Fragments in Prose and Verse, by Elizabeth Smith. With a Life by
Mrs. Bowdler, (Bath, 1810,) p. 264.
[251] Knight’s Cyclopædia of Biography, II. 419.
[252] “Sugli Uomini di gran Memoria,” pp. 72-80.
[253] His family name seems unknown; his father, who was a _facchino_,
(or porter,) being called simply _Il Modenese_.
[254] So marvellous was his performance, that it was seriously ascribed
to the Devil by Candido Brognolo, in his “_Alexicacon_,” (Venice 1663),
and Padre Cardi thought it not beneath him to publish a formal reply to
this charge.
[255] Feller, III. 132.
[256] Ibid, p. 70.
[257] Johnson’s Works, VI. p. 368-74.
[258] The Biographie Universelle places Amaduzzi’s birth (curiously
enough for its coincidence with those of the three just mentioned), in
1720: but this is a mistake; he was seventeen years old at the visit of
Joseph II. to Rome, in 1767. His birth therefore must be assigned to 1750.
[259] Cancellieri, pp. 84-7.
[260] The learned patristical scholar, John Baptist Cotelier,
(Cotelerius,) is another example of precocious development leading to
solid fruit. At twelve years of age Cotelier could read and translate
fluently any part of the Bible that was opened for him! I may also recall
here the case of Dr. Thomas Young, of whom I have already spoken. His
early feat of reading the entire Bible twice through before he was four
years old, is hardly less wonderful than any of those above recorded. See
National Review, vol. II. p. 69.
[261] A vocalist, named H. K. von Freher, has appeared recently, who
advertises _to sing_ in thirty-six different languages! He is a native
of Hungary. With how many of these languages, however, he professes to
be acquainted, and what degree of familiarity he claims with each, I am
unable to say; but he is described in the public journals as “speaking
English with purity;” and in one of his latest performances he favoured
the audience with “portions of songs in no less than three or four
and twenty different languages, commencing with a Russian hymn, and
proceeding on with a French romance, a Styrian song, a Polish air, which
he screeched most amusingly, a Sicilian song, as dismal as the far-famed
Vespers of that country, a Canadian ditty, a Hungarian serenade, a
Maltese air, a Bavarian, a Neapolitan barcarole, a Hebrew psalm, a
Tyrolean air, in which the rapid changes from the basso profondo to the
falsetto had a most singular effect.”
[262] The title of this singular volume is worth transcribing: “Coryat’s
Crudities, hastily gobbled up in five months’ Travels in France, Savoy,
Italy, Rhetia, (commonly called the Grisons’ Country), Helvetia, alias
Switzerland, some parts of High Germany, and the Netherlands; newly
digested in the hungry air of Odcombe in the county of Somersetshire,
and now dispersed to the Nourishment of the travelling Members of this
Kingdom.” 4to. London, 1611. It is further noticeable in this place for a
polyglot appendix of quizzical verses in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian,
French, Welsh, Irish, Macaronic, and Utopian, “by various hands.”
[263] 1 vol. 12mo, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758, and re-printed in
Dodsley’s Collections, 1761.
[264] This name was afterwards the subject of a punning epigram.
Mezzofanti is a compound word, (like the names Mezzaharba, Mezzavacca.
Mezzomorto, &c.,) and means _half-child_, [Mezzo-Fante.] Hence the
following distich:—
_Dimidium Fantis_ jam nunc supereminct omnes!
Quid, credis, fieret, si _integer_ ipse foret?
[265] In the Via Malcontenti. The house still exists, but has been
entirely remodelled. An inscription for the apartment in which Mezzofanti
was born was composed by D. Vincenzo Mignani:—
Heic Mezzofantus natus, notissimus Orbi,
Unus qui linguas calluit omnigenas.
Some years later Francis Mezzofanti removed to a house on the opposite
side of the same street, in which he thenceforward continued to reside.
This house also is still in existence, but has been modernized. In the
early part of the year 1800, Mezzofanti established himself, together
with the family of his sister, Signora Minarelli, in a separate
house, situated however in the same street: but, from the time of his
appointment as Librarian, in 1815, till his final removal to Rome, he
occupied the Librarian’s apartments in the Palazzo Dell’ Università.
[266] There has been some diversity of statement as to the year. The
_Enciclopedia Popolare_ (Turin 1851, supp. p. 299,) hesitates between
1774 and 1771. But there can be no doubt that it was the former.
[267] He merely learned to read and write.
[268] Antonio Dall’ Olmo was a professor in the University so far back as
1360. See Tiraboschi, “Letteratura Italiana,” V. p. 56.
[269] Mingarelli has been a distinguished name in Bolognese letters. The
two brothers, Ferdinand and John Lewis, were among the most diligent
patristical students of the last century. To the latter (of whom I shall
have to speak hereafter,) we are indebted for a learned edition of
the lost Περὶ Tρiάδος of the celebrated Didymus, the blind teacher of
Alexandria; the former also is spoken of with high praise by Tiraboschi,
VII., 1073. This family, however, is different from that of Minarelli,
with which Mezzofanti was connected.
[270] No fewer than eleven sons and four daughters. Of the sons only
two are now living—the Cavaliere Pietro Minarelli, who is a physician
and member of the Medical Faculty of Bologna, and the Cavaliere
Gaetano, an advocate and notary. A third son, Giuseppe, embraced the
ecclesiastical profession in which he rose to considerable distinction.
He was a linguist of some reputation, being acquainted with no fewer
than eight languages, (see the _Cantica di G. Morocco_, p. 12, note,)
an accomplishment which he owed mainly to the instruction of his uncle.
Some time after the departure of the latter for Rome, Giuseppe was named
Rector of the University of Bologna, and honorary Domestic Prelate of
the Pope Gregory XVI., but he died at a comparatively early age in
1843. A fourth son, Filippo, became an architect, but was disabled by a
paralytic attack from prosecuting his studies, and died after a lingering
and painful illness, July 23rd, 1839. The other sons died in childhood.
The four daughters, Maria, Anna, Gesualda, and Gertrude, still survive.
Maria and Gertrude married—the first, Signor Mazzoli, the second,
Signor Calori—and are now widows. Anna and Gesualda are unmarried. The
former resided with her uncle, from the time of his elevation to the
cardinalate till his death. She is said to be an accomplished painter in
water-colours. Her sister, Gesualda, is an excellent linguist.
[271] I take the earliest opportunity to express my most grateful
acknowledgment of the exceeding courtesy, not only of the Cavaliere
Minarelli and other members of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s family, but of many
other gentlemen of Bologna, Parma, Modena, Florence, Rome, and Naples.
I must mention with especial gratitude the Abate Mazza, Vice-Rector of
the Pontifical Seminary, at Bologna; Cavaliere Angelo Pezzana, Librarian
of the Ducal Library, at Parma; Cavaliere Cavedoni, Librarian of Modena;
Professor Guasti at Florence; Padre Bresciani, the distinguished author
of the “Ebreo di Verona,” at Rome; the Rector and Vice-Rector of the
Irish College, and the Rector and Vice-Rector of the English College in
the same city; and Padre Vinditti of the Jesuit College at Naples. For
some personal recollections of Mezzofanti and his early friends, and for
other interesting information obtained from Bologna, I am indebted to
Dr. Santagata, to Mgr. Trombetti, and to the kind offices of the learned
Archbishop of Tarsus, Mgr. De Luca, Apostolic Nuncio at Munich.
[272] This anecdote was told to Cardinal Wiseman by the late Archdeacon
Hare, as current in Bologna during the residence of his family in
that city. The Archdeacon’s brother, Mr. Francis Hare, was intimately
acquainted with Mezzofanti during his early life, and was for some time
his pupil.
[273] Headley’s “Letters from Italy,” pp. 152-3.
[274] Ibid, p. 152.
[275] He published a number of polemical and moral treatises, which are
enumerated in the “Memorie di Religione,” a journal published at Modena,
vol IV., pp. 456-61, where will also be found an interesting memoir of
the author.
[276] Another name, Molina, is mentioned, as one of his early masters,
in a rude poetical panegyric of the Cardinal, by an improvisatore named
Giovanni Masocco:—“Per la illustre e sempre cara Memoria del Card.
Giuseppe Mezzofanti,” [Roma 1849]. But I have not learned any particulars
regarding this Molina.
[277] This at least was Thiulen’s ordinary department. See the _Memorie
di Religione_, already cited.
[278] _Esquisse Historique sur le Cardinal Mezzofanti. Par A. Manavit._
Paris, 1853, p. 15.
[279] See the _Memorie di Religione_, vol. XV., where an interesting
biography of the Abate Ranzani will be found.
[280] Manavit, “Esquisse Historique,” p. 9.
[281] Ibid, p. 12.
[282] Manavit assigns a much later date, 1791. But the short memoir
by Signor Stoltz, [Biografia del Cardinal Mezzofanti; Scritta dall’
Avvocato G. Stoltz, Roma 1851,] founded upon information supplied by the
Cardinal’s family, which states that he had completed his philosophy
when he was but fifteen, (p. 6,) is much more reconcilable with facts
otherwise ascertained. His philosophical course occupied three years.
(See _De Josepho Mezzofantio, Sermones Duo auctore Ant. Santagata_,
published in the acts of the Institute of Bologna, vol. V. p. 169, et
seq.) His theological course (probably of four,) was completed in 1796,
or at farthest early in 1797. This would clearly have been impossible in
the interval assigned by Manavit.
[283] One of these, _Reflessioni sul Manuale dei Teofilantropi_,
is directed against the singular half-religious, half-social
confederation, entitled “Theophilanthropists,” founded in 1795, by La
Reveillere-Lepéaux, one of the directors of the French Republic. These
treatises are noticed in the _Memorie di Religione_, 1822, 1823, and
1824. Joseph Voglio is not to be confounded with the physiologist of the
same name, (John Hyacinth,) who was also professor in Bologna, but in the
previous generation.
[284] “De Josepho Mezzofantio Sermones Duo,” p. 172.
[285] Manavit, p. 13.
[286] Santagata’s “Sermones Duo,” p. 173.
[287] Elementi della Lingua Greca, per uso delle Scuole di Bologna.
Bologna 1807.
[288] See Kephalides “Reise durch Italien und Sicilien.” Vol. I. p. 29.
[289] See two interesting articles in the “Historisch-Politische
Blätter,” vol. X. p. 200, and folio. The writer was the younger Görres,
(Guido,) son of the well-known professor of that name. Most of his
information as to the early life of Mezzofanti was derived from the
Cardinal himself, with whom, during a long sojourn in Rome, in 1841-2, he
formed a very close and intimate friendship, and in company with whom he
studied the Basque language. I have spoken of Mingarelli in a former page.
[290] Manavit, p. 17.
[291] Santagata, p. 171.
[292] “Memorie di Religione,” vol. IV., p. 450.
[293] Santagata “De Josepho Mezzofantio,” p. 185. “Applausi dei
Filopieri,” p. 12-3. Mezzofanti was more fortunate in this experiment
than the Frenchman mentioned in Moore’s “Diary,” (vol. VI., p. 190,) who,
after he had taken infinite pains to learn a language which he _believed
to be Swedish_, discovered, at the end of his studies, that the language
which he had acquired with so much labour was _Bas-Breton_.
[294] M. Manavit (p. 19,) says, that he was at this time _twenty-two
years_ old. But this is an error of a full year. He was born on the
17th September, 1774; and therefore, before September 24th, 1797, had
completed his twenty-third year. M. Manavit was probably misled by
the dispensation in age which was obtained for him. But it must be
recollected that such dispensation is required for all candidates for
priesthood under _twenty-four years_ complete.
[295] This date, and the others relating to his university career, have
(through the kindness of the Nuncio at Munich, Mgr. De Luca,) been
extracted for me from an autograph note, deposited by Mezzofanti himself
in the archives of the university of Bologna, on the 25th of April, 1815.
[296] Santagata, Sermones, p. 190.
[297] Manavit, p. 28.
[298] Whewell’s Inductive Sciences, III. p. 86.
[299] Manavit, p. 19.
[300] Ibid, p. 29.
[301] The learned and munificent Egidio Albornoz, whom English readers
probably know solely from the revolting picture in Bulwer’s “Rienzi.”
The Albornoz College was founded in pursuance of his will, in 1377, with
an endowment for twenty-four Spanish students, and two chaplains. See
Tiraboschi “Letteratura Italiana,” V. p. 58.
[302] Görres, in the Histor. Polit. Blätter, X. p. 203.
[303] Manavit, p. 21.
[304] Manavit, p. 23.
[305] Ibid, pp. 104-5.
[306] Zach’s “Correspondance Astronomique,” vol. IV. p. 192.
[307] Alison’s “History of Europe,” vol. IV. p. 241, (fifth edition).
[308] Wap’s Mijne Reis naar Rome, in het Voorjaar van 1837. 2 vols. 8vo,
Breda, 1838, II. p. 28.
[309] p. 105.
[310] Santagata “Sermones,” p. 189.
[311] Ibid, p. 189.
[312] Lexicon Heptaglotton, Preface.
[313] Disraeli’s Curiosities of Literature, p. 372.
[314] Ibid, 369.
[315] Historisch-Polit. Blätter, Vol. X., p. 204.
[316] It would be curious to collect the opinions of scholars upon the
amount of time which may profitably be devoted to study. Some students,
like those named above, and others who might easily have been added;—as
the celebrated Père Hardouin; or the ill-fated Robert Heron, who died in
Newgate in 1807, and who for many years had spent from twelve to sixteen
hours a day at his desk [Disraeli, p. 84];—place no limit to the time of
study beyond that of the student’s physical powers of endurance. On the
other hand, Sir Matthew Hale (see Southey’s Life, IV., 357) said that six
hours a day were as much as any student could usefully bear; and even
Lord Coke was fully satisfied with eight. Much, of course, must depend
on the individual constitution; but of the two opinions the latter is
certainly nearer the truth.
[317] In “Lettere di Varii illustri Itali, del Secolo XVII., e del
Secolo XVIII.” Vol. III., p. 183. Count Stratico is the well-known
mathematician, the friend and colleague of Volta in the University of
Pavia.
[318] A Mission had existed in Congo since the end of the fifteenth
century.
[319] “Ragguaglio del Viaggio compendioso d’un Dilettante Antiquario
sorpreso da’ Corsari, condotto in Barberia, e felicemente ripatriato.”
2 vols. Milan, 1805-6. The work is anonymous, but the authorship is
plain from the passport and other circumstances. I am indebted for the
knowledge of the book (which is now rare) to Mr. Garnett of the British
Museum. A tolerably full account of it may be found in the _Bibliothèque
Universelle de Genêve_ (a continuation of the _Bibliothèque Britannique_)
vol. VIII., pp. 388-408.
[320] A similar narrative was published as late as 1817 by Pananti.
“Avventure ed Osservazioni sopra le Coste di Barberia.” Firenze 1817. It
was translated into English by Mr. Blacquiere, and published in 1819.
In the end of the seventeenth century, France and England severally
compelled the Dey of Algiers to enter into treaties by which their
subjects were protected from these piratical outrages; and in the
following century, the increasing naval power of the other great European
states tended to secure for them a similar immunity. But the weaker
maritime states of the Mediterranean, especially Naples, Sicily, and
Sardinia, were still exposed not only to attacks upon their vessels at
sea, but even to descents upon their shores, in which persons of every
age and sex were carried off and sold into slavery. The long wars of
the Revolution secured a sort of impunity for these outrages, which at
length reached such a height, that when, in 1816, the combined English
and Dutch squadron under Lord Exmouth destroyed the arsenal and fleet
of Algiers, the number of Christian captives set at liberty was no less
than ten hundred and eighty-three. Nevertheless even still the evil was
not entirely abated; nor can the secure navigation of the Mediterranean
be said to have been completely established till the final capture of
Algiers by the French under Duperre and Bourmont, in 1830.
[321] In virtue of a treaty made in 1683, after the memorable bombardment
of Algiers by Admiral Du Quesne.
[322] The Moorish form of the common Arabic name _Tezkerah_, [in Egypt,
(see Burton’s “Medinah and Meccah,” I. 26.) Tazkirêh] of a passport. The
Moorish Arabic differs considerably (especially in the vowel sounds,)
from the common dialect of the East. Caussin de Percival’s Grammar
contains both dialects, and a special Grammar of Moorish Arabic was
published at Vienna by Dombay, of which Mezzofanti was already possessed
(inf. 178.) Both the Grammars named above are in the Mezzofanti Library.
_Catalogo_, pp. 14 and 17. Father Caronni gives a fac-simile of a portion
of the _Tiscara_.
[323] Sidi Hamudah had been Bey of Tunis from the year 1782, when he
succeeded his brother, Ali Bey. He survived till 1815. His reign is
described as the Augustan age of Tunis (Diary of a Tour in Barbary,
II. 79). Father Caronni tells of him that when one of his generals,—a
Christian,—was about to become a Mahomedan in the hope of ingratiating
himself with Hamudah, he rebuked the renegade for his meanness. “A hog,”
said he, “remains always a hog in my eyes, even though he has lost his
tail.”
[324] This month is called in the common Arabic of Egypt _Gumada_. There
are two of the Mahomedan months called by this name, _Gumada-l-Oola_, and
_Gumada-t-Taniyeh_ (Lane’s Modern Egyptians, I. 330). The latter, which
is the sixth month of the year, is the one meant here. As the Mahomedan
year consists of only three hundred and fifty days, it is hardly
necessary to say that its months do not permanently correspond with those
of our year. They retrograde through the several seasons during a cycle
of thirty-three years.
[325] The year of the Hegira, 1219, corresponds with A.D. 1804.
[326] Ragguaglio del Viaggio, vol. II. p. 140-1. Milan 1806.—The book,
though exceedingly rambling and discursive, is not uninteresting. The
second part contains the Author’s antiquarian speculations, which
curiously anticipate some of the results of the recent explorations at
Tunis.
[327] Moore’s “Diary.” III. 138.
[328] This book is still in the Mezzofanti Library. It is entitled
_Anthologia Persiana: Seu selecta e diversis Persicis Auctoribus in
Latinum translata, 4to._ Vienna, 1778. See the “Catalogo della Libreria
del Card. Mezzofanti,” p. 109.
[329] Bodoni was the printer of De Rossi’s “Epithalamium” of Prince
Charles Emmanuel, in twenty-five languages, alluded to in page 33. I
should say however, that some of his classics,—especially his “Virgilii
Opera,” although beautiful specimens of typography, have but little
critical reputation.
[330] “Grammatica Linguæ Mauro-Arabicæ, juxta vernaculi Idiomatis Usum.”
4to. Vienna, 1800. See the “Catalogo della Libreria Mezzofanti” p. 14.
[331] “Institutiones Linguæ Turcicæ, cum Rudimentis parallelis Linguarum
Arabicæ et Persicæ.” 2 vols. 4to. Vienna, 1756. “Catalogo,” p. 36.
[332] An intended reprint of the edition of the _Divan_, which was
published at Calcutta, 1791.
[333] Probably the “Lexicon Hebraicum Selectum;” or the “Dissertation on
an edition of the Koran,” both of which were published at Parma, in 1805.
See “Catalogo della Lib. Mezzofanti,” p. 17 and p. 40.
[334] It was on occasion of one of Volta’s demonstrations that Napoleon
made the comparison which has since become celebrated. “Here, doctor,”
said he, to his physician Corvisart, pointing to the Voltaic pile; “here
is the image of life! The vertebral column is the pile: the liver is
the negative, the bladder, the positive pole.” See Whewell’s Inductive
Sciences, III. 87.
[335] For instance among the books which he asks the Count in this
letter to send, are the works of “_l’immortale Haüy_”—the celebrated
Abbé Haüy, who after Romè de l’Isle, is the founder of the science of
Crystallography, and who at this time was at the height of his brilliant
career of discovery. (Whewell’s “Inductive Sciences” III. 222.) Haüy’s
works were intended for his friend Ranzani.
[336] He alludes to the _Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana_.
Joseph Assemani’s nephew, Stephen Evodius, compiled a catalogue of the
Oriental MSS. at Florence.
[337] The exact title is “Geschichte der Scherifen, oder der Könige des
jetzt regierendes Hauses zu Marokko.” It was published, not at Vienna, as
this letter supposes, but at Agram, in 1801.
[338] A Moorish physician of Cordova, in the twelfth century, variously
called _Albucasa_, _Buchasis_, _Bulcaris_, _Gafar_; but properly _Abul
Cassem Khalaf Ben Abbas_. There are many early Latin translations of
his work. A very curious edition, with wood-cuts, (Venice, 1500,) is in
the British Museum. The one referred to in this letter is in Arabic and
Latin, 2 vols. 4to.
[339] “Arabisches, Syrisches, und Chaldäisches Lesebuch, Von Friederich
Theodor Rink und J. Severinus Vater,” Leipsic, 1802. Rink, Professor of
Theology and of Oriental Languages, at Heidelberg, was an orientalist of
considerable eminence. Vater is, of course, the well-known successor of
Adelung as editor of the _Mithridates_.
[340] Thus, in one of Mezzofanti’s letters, in 1812, he speaks of “Le
molestie che si spesso Le ho date colle mie lettere.”
[341] M. Patru spent three years in translating Cicero’s “Pro Archia;”
and in the end, had not satisfied himself as to the rendering of the very
first sentence.
[342] Moore’s _Diary_, III., 183.
[343] D’ Israeli’s Curiosities of Literature, p. 524.
[344] Moore’s _Diary_, III., 183.
[345] See Historisch-Politische Blätter, x. 203-4.
[346] See Alison’s History of Europe, Vol. vi., p. 371-2.
[347] Santagata “Sermones Duo,” p. 9.
[348] By his celebrated Essay “Ueber die Sprache und Weisheit der
Indier,” 1808.
[349] As this letter may perhaps possess some bibliographical value, I
shall translate it here—
“In making the catalogue for the library of His Excellency Count
Marescalchi, Minister of Foreign Affairs for the kingdom of Italy, I
have discovered a copy of the Siliprandine edition of Petrarch, which
corresponds exactly to the very full description published by you, except
that in this one the table of contents is at the close, in which place
you remark, (at page 35,) it would stand better than in that which it
occupies in your Parma copies. The leaves are 188 in number, as there
happens to be a second blank one before the index.
“I mention the fact to you at the suggestion of His Excellency; but I
gladly avail myself of the opportunity which the communication affords
me of thanking you in writing for your kindness in presenting me with
your learned letter upon the present edition, together with your valuable
bibliographical notices of the two exceedingly rare editions of the 15th
century,” and of renewing, at the same time, the assurance of my respect
and esteem.
“Bologna, Nov. 30, 1811.”
The title of Pezzana’s essay is “Noticie bibliographiche intoruo a due
rarissime edizioni del Petrarca del Secolo xv.,” Parma: 1808. It is
printed by Bodoni.
[350] _Opere di Pietro Giordani, Vols. I.-VI._ Milano, 1845. Giordani
is mentioned by Byron, (Life and Journals, VI, 262,) as one of the few
“foreign literary men whom he ever could abide.” It is curious that the
only other name which he adds is that of Mezzofanti.
[351] Opere di Pietro Giordani: Edited (with a biography) by Antonio
Gussalli. Gussalli is also the translator of F. Cordara’s “Expedition of
Charles Edward,” Milan: 1845. See Quarterly Review, lxxix., pp. 141-68.
[352] Ibid, pp. 235-36
[353] Cicognara is mentioned by Byron in the Dedication of the Fourth
Canto of Childe Harold (VIII. 192.) among “the great names which Italy
has still.”
[354] Ibid, p. 240.
[355] Opere di Pietro Giordani, II. 231.—Letter to Leopoldo Cicognara,
Jan. 30.
[356] Santagata “Sermones,” p. 20-1. There is a mixture of humour and
stateliness in the Doctor’s Latin rendering of the exclamation;—“_Ædepol,
est Diabolus!_”
[357] “Orazioni Funebrie Discorsi Panegyrici, di quelli pronunciati da
Moise S. Beer, già Rabbino Maggiore presso l’Università Israelitica di
Roma.” Fascicolo primo. Livorno 1837. The name _Beer_ is an eminent one
among the German Jews. The dramatist Michael Beer of Berlin; his brother,
William Beer the astronomer; and a second brother, Meyer Beer the
composer, (commonly written as one name, _Meyerbeer_,) have made it known
throughout Europe. Possibly Moses Beer was of the same family.
[358] See Stolz, “Biografia,” p. 12, Manavit, “Esquisse Historique,” p.
34.
[359] Memorandum in the archives of the University of Bologna.
[360] Many of these will be found in Mr. Watts’s interesting paper read
before the Philological Society, January 23, 1852: “On the Extraordinary
Powers of Cardinal Mezzofanti as a Linguist.” Some other notices, not
contained in that Paper, have since been kindly pointed out to me by the
same gentleman. I have been enabled to add several, hitherto unpublished,
certainly not inferior in authority and interest to any of the published
testimonies.
[361] He is so described by Baron Zach, (Correspondance Astronomique, IV.
145,) who commends the work highly.
[362] Kephalides, “Reise durch Italien und Sicilien,” vol. I. p.
28. The book is in two volumes, and has no date. The above passage
is quoted in Vulpius’s singular miscellany, “Curiositäten der
physisch-literarisch-artistisch-historischen Vor- und Mit-welt.” Vol.
X. p. 422. The Article contains nothing else of interest regarding
Mezzofanti; but it alludes to some curious examples of extraordinary
powers of memory.
[363] MS. Memorandum in the University Archives.
[364] The exact amount I am unable to state. But that, according to our
notions, it was very humble, may be inferred from the fact that, in the
same University and but a short time before, Giordani’s income from the
united offices of Lecturer on Latin and Italian Eloquence and Assistant
Librarian, was but 1800 francs. See his Life by Gussalli, “_Opere_,” Vol.
I., p. 19.
[365] MS. Memorandum in the University Archives.
[366] “Tragedie di Sofocle, recate in Versi Italiani da Massimo
Angelelli.” 2 vols., 4to. Bologna, 1823-4. This translation is highly
commended by Federici, in his “Notizie degli Scrittori Greci e delle
Versioni Italiane delle loro Opere,” p. 95.
[367] See Adelung’s “Mithridates,” II., 723-30. I refer to this passage
particularly, as explaining the peculiar difficulty which Wallachian, as
a spoken language, presents to a foreigner, from _its close resemblance
to other languages_.
[368] Manavit, p. 37.
[369] Besides the _Sette Communi_ of Vicenza, there are also
thirteen parishes in the province of Verona, called the _Tredici
Communi_;—evidently of the same Teutonic stock, and a remnant of the same
Roman slaughter. Adelung (II., 215) gives a specimen of each language.
Both are perfectly intelligible to any German scholar: but that of
Verona resembles more nearly the modern form of the German language.
The affinity is much more closely preserved in both, than it is in
the analogous instance of the Roman colony in Transylvania. I may be
permitted to refer to the very similar example of an isolated race and
language which subsisted _among ourselves_ down to the last generation,
in the Baronies of Forth and Bargie in the county of Wexford in Ireland.
The remnant of the first English or Welsh adventurers under Strongbow,
who obtained lands in that district, maintained themselves, through
a long series of generations, distinct in manners, usages, costume,
and even language, both from the Irish population, and, what is more
remarkable, from the _English settlers of all subsequent periods_.
An essay on their peculiar dialect, with a vocabulary and a metrical
specimen, by Vallancey, will be found in the Transactions of the Royal
Irish Academy, Vol. II. (Antiquities), pp. 194-3.
[370] Eustace’s Classical Tour in Italy, I., 142. The fact of Frederic’s
visit is mentioned by Maffei, in his Verona Illustrata.
[371] Memoirs of Robert Southey, Vol. V., p. 60.
[372] Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti, 2 vols., 8vo. London, 1857.
[373] Treasures of Art in England. By Dr. Waagen. Vol. III., pp. 187-94.
[374] I find the work (Croker’s Edition, London, 1847) in the Catalogue
of the “Libreria Mezzofanti,” p. 72.
[375] I may add that, in order to guard against any possible
misapprehension of Mr. Harford’s opinion, I called his attention to the
doubt which has arisen on the subject. In reply Mr. Harford assured me
that he himself heard Mezzofanti _speak_ Welsh at his first visit to
Bologna, in 1817.
[376] Letters from the North of Italy, Vol. II., p. 54.
[377] See Life, IV., p. 32. He had not visited Bologna in the interval.
[378] Perhaps it might be inferred from the false spelling of the
name—the use of _ph_ for _f_—(a blunder which violates so fundamental a
rule of Italian orthography as to betray a mere tyro in the study) that
this passage was penned soon after Byron’s arrival in Italy. But Byron’s
orthography was never a standard.
[379] Manavit, p. 106.
[380] Life and Works, IV., 262-3. It may be worth while to note this
curious and characteristic passage, as an example of what Byron has
been so often charged with—unacknowledged, (and perhaps unconscious)
plagiarisms from authors or works which are but little known. The idea of
“a universal interpreter at the time of the tower of Babel,” is copied
literally from Pope’s metrical version of the second satire of Dr. Donne,
to the hero of which the same illustration is applied, in exactly the
same way.
“Thus others’ talents having nicely shown,
He came by sure transition to his own;
Till I cried out: ‘You prove yourself so able,
_Pity you was not druggerman_ [dragoman] _at Babel!_
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question but the Tower had stood.’”
[381] Yet not without foundation in fact. My friend Mr. James E. Doyle,
was assured by the late Dr. Charles R. Walsh (an English surgeon of great
ability, who fell a victim to his exertions as an officer of the Board of
Health, during the last cholera in London), that he once heard Mezzofanti
“doing” the slang of a London cabman in great perfection.
[382] Gaume, “Les Trois Rome,” II., p. 415.
[383] Santagata, “Sermones Duo,” p. 11.
[384] Santagata, pp. 19-20.
[385] Bologna, 1820.—It was on the occasion of the celebration of
Father Aponte’s “Jubilee”—the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as
priest—that Mezzofanti addressed to him the Hebrew Psalm which will be
found in the Appendix.
[386] Reise durch Italien, I. p. 30-2.
[387] Biographie Universelle (Brussels Edition), XIX., 50-1.
[388] Italy, I., 292.
[389] Lady Morgan’s Italy, Vol. I., p. 200.
[390] This was not a mere joke. The Bolognese dialect has so many
peculiarities that, at least by any other than an Italian, it might well
deserve to be specially enumerated as a distinct acquisition. It has even
a kind of literature of its own;—a comedy of the 16th century, entitled
_Filolauro_; a version of the _Gerusalemme Liberata_; and several other
works named by Adelung (II., 514). The Bolognese Pater Noster is as
follows:—
“Pader noster, ch’ si in cil, si pur santifica al voster nom; vegna ’l
voster reyn; sia fatta la vostra volontà, com in cil, cosi in terra; ’l
noster pan quotidian daz incu; e perdonaz i noster debit, sicom no alteri
perdonen ai noster debitur; en c’indusi in Tentazion; ma liberaz da mal.
Amen.” Adelung, II., 515.
[391] Molbech’s Reise giennem en Deel af Tydskland, Frankrige England, og
Italien, i Aarene 1819 og 1820, vol. iii. p. 319, and following.
[392] The _Danske Ordbog_; first published in Copenhagen in 1833. The
veteran author, now in his seventy-first year, is actively employed in
preparing a new edition with large additions and improvements.
[393] Manavit, p. 50.
[394] Ibid, p. 51.
[395] Letter of the Abate Matranga, dated August 17, 1855.
[396] Correspondance Astronomique, February 20. The reader may be puzzled
at this seemingly anticipatory date; but the issue of the journal was
extremely irregular, and the February number was in reality not published
till after September in that year.
[397] Correspondance Astronomique, vol. iv. pp. 191-2.
[398] Correspondance Astronomique, vol. v. p. 160.
[399] Correspondance Astronomique, v. 163.
[400] Vol. I. pp. 481-2, London, 1844.
[401] In accounting for the appearance of such a narrative in a Journal
with a purely scientific title, Admiral Smyth observes, that “it was one
of Von Zach’s axioms that all true friends of science should try to keep
it afloat in society, as fishermen do their nets, by attaching pieces of
cork to the seine; and therefore he embodied a good deal of anecdote in
his monthly journal of astronomical correspondence, a most delightful and
useful periodical.”
[402] Mezzofanti and his friend presented to the Admiral the first volume
of the “Ephemerides,” which contained the coefficients for the principal
stars to be observed during five years—there were still at that time
three years to run;—and expressed a hope that England would contribute
funds towards the cost of the printing. On returning to England, the
admiral gave this copy to the Rev. Dr. William Pearson, then engaged
in the publication of his elaborate work on Practical Astronomy. Dr.
Pearson, (at p. 495 of the first volume,) describing a table of 520
zodiacal stars, thus acknowledges his obligations to that work. “The same
page also contains the N.E. angle that the star’s meridian makes with the
ecliptic, and the annual variation of that angle; the principal columns
of which have been taken from the _Bononiæ Ephemerides_ for 1817-1822,
computed by Pietro Caturegli, which computations have greatly facilitated
our labours.”
[403] Borrow’s Gipsies in Spain, p. 240. Ample specimens and descriptions
of it are given by Adelung, vol. I. pp. 244-52. It may, perhaps, be
necessary to add that neither of these dialects, nor indeed of any of the
dialects used by European gipsies, bears the least resemblance (although
often confounded with it) to the “thieves’ slang,” which is used by
robbers and other _mauvais sujets_ in various countries,—the “Rothwälsch”
(Red Italian) of Germany, the “Argot” of France, the “Germania” of
Spain, and the “Gergo” of Italy. All these, like the English “slang,”
consist chiefly of words borrowed from the languages of the several
countries in which they prevail, applied in a hidden sense known only
to the initiated. On the contrary the gipsy idiom is almost a language
properly so called. See a singular chapter in Borrow’s Gipsies in Spain,
242-57. For a copious vocabulary of the “Argot” of the French thieves,
see M. Nisard’s most curious and amusing _Litterature du Colportage_, II.
383-403.
[404] Blume’s Iter Italicum, II. p. 152.
[405] In 1823. See an interesting biography in the Memorie di Modena.
[406] Manavit, p. 51.
[407] I may preserve here an impromptu Greek distich of Mezzofanti’s,
addressed to Cavedoni on the publication of his “Memoir on the
antiquities of the Museum of Modena,” which, although commonplace enough
in sentiment, at least illustrates his curious facility of versification.
“Εις Kαιλεστινον Kαυεδόνιον.
Μνήματα τῶν πάλαι ἄνθρwπων σοφὸς ὅσσ’ ἀναφαίνεις,
Ἔκ χρόνος ὂυ πέρθει· σὄν δὲ κλέος θαλέθει.”
It was an impromptu in the literal sense of the word, being thrown off
without a moment’s thought, and in the midst of a group of friends. His
friend Ferrucci rendered it into the following Latin distich.
Celestino Cavedonio.
Omnia que prudens aperis monumenta priorum
Ævo intacta manent: hinc tibi fama viget.
[408] “L’Eneide di Virgilio, recata in versi Italiani, da Annibale
Caro,” 2 vols. folio. It was printed by De Romanis. The duchess was
the Lady Elizabeth Hervey, daughter of the episcopal Earl of Bristol;
and after the death of her first husband, Mr. Forster, had married
the Duke of Devonshire. She is the true heroine of Gibbon’s ludicrous
love-scene at Lausanne, described by Lord Brougham, but by him related
of Mademoiselle Susan Curchod, afterwards Madame Necker. See an article
in the Biographie Universelle, (lxii, p. 452,) by the Chevalier Artand
de Montor; also “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, (vol. i., p. 64,) by
an Octogenarian,” (the late Mr. James Roche, of Cork, the J. R. of the
Gentleman’s Magazine, and a frequent contributor to the Dublin Review,
and other periodicals)—a repertory of curious literary and personal
anecdotes, as well of solid and valuable information.
[409] This is probably the Grammar of the Mahratta language, published by
the Propaganda, in 1778. The name is sometimes latinized in this form.
Adelung, I., 220.
[410] Most likely Ludolf’s, Francfort, 1698.
[411] By Barth. Ziegenbolg, Halle, 1716.
[412] Bernard Havestadt, “Descriptio Status tum Naturalis, tum civilis,
tum Moralis, Regni Populique Chilensis,” Munster, 1777. It contains a
Chilian Grammar and Vocabulary, together with a Catechism in prose, and
also in verse.
[413] Probably the Catechism in the Moxa (South American) language,
mentioned by Hervas. See Adelung, III., 564.
[414] Fr. Jacobs, Vermischte Schriften, vol. vi. p. 517, and following.
[415] Stolz. _Biografia_, p. 10. For the details, however, I am indebted
to an interesting communication from the abate Mazza, Vice-Rector of the
Pontifical Seminary at Bologna.
[416] The author of this version, Ercole Faello, is not mentioned by
Tiraboschi, nor can I find any other notice of him. His version has no
value, except perhaps as a bibliographical curiosity; and Mezzofanti’s
criticism of it in his letter to Cavedoni, is the most judicious that
could be offered—the simple recital of a few sentences as a specimen of
its obscure and involved style. The Tetrasticha, especially, deserves
a better rendering. It consists of fifty-nine iambic tetrastichs, many
of which, besides the solid instruction which they embody, are full of
simple beauty. The Monosticha is chiefly notable as an ancient example
of an acrostic poem on a spiritual subject. It consists of twenty-four
iambic verses, commencing in succession with the successive letters of
the alphabet, thus:—
Ἀρχήν ἁπάντω· καὶ τὲλος ποιὂυ Θεόν·
Βίου τὸ κέρδος ὲκβιοῦ καθ’ ἡμέραν. κ.τ.λ.
Faello’s version appears not to have been known to the Benedictine
editors.
[417] See _Catalogo della Libreria_, p. 65.
[418] For an account of these books see Father Vincenzo Sangermano’s
_Relazione del Regno Barmano_, Rome, 1833. Sangermano was a Barnabite
Father, and had been for many years a missionary in Ava and Pegu. He
states that he himself translated these sacred books. (p. 359.) His
orthography of the names is slightly different from Mezzofanti’s.
[419] Idler in Italy, III. p. 321.
[420] Padre Scandellari died in December, 1831. He is spoken of in terms
of high praise in the Gazzetta di Bologna for Dec. 27.
[421] Madame de Chaussegros was the widow of the officer by whom Toulon
was surrendered to the English, in 1793.
[422] In the hope of arriving at a still more accurate estimate of
Mezzofanti’s performance in German conversation, I wrote to request of
Dr. Tholuck a note of the “four minor mistakes” to which he alluded.
Unfortunately the memorandum which he had made at the time, although he
recollects to have observed it quite recently in his papers, has been
mislaid, as has also been the Persian distich which Mezzofanti composed
during the interview.
[423] At the time of the Restoration, Cornish was still a living
language, especially in the West; but, a century later it had quite
disappeared, its sole living representative being an old fish-woman,
Dolly Pentrath, who was still able to curse and scold in her expressive
vernacular. See Adelung, II. 152.
[424] It was in great part from these papers that Cav. Minarelli compiled
the list of the several languages cultivated at various times by Cardinal
Mezzofanti, to which I shall have occasion to refer soon after.
[425] There is another circumstance of Dr. Tholuck’s narrative which it
is not easy to reconcile with the account already cited (p. 239,) from
M. Molbech’s Travels;—namely, that “when addressed in Danish he replied
in Swedish,” since the former was the only language in which, during an
interview of about two hours, Mezzofanti conversed with M. Molbech. In
order to remove all uncertainty as to this point, I have had inquiry of
M. Molbech in person, through the kind offices of the Rev. Dr. Grüder,
a learned German Missionary resident at Copenhagen, who himself knew
Cardinal Mezzofanti, and whose testimony to the purity and fluency of
his Eminence’s German conversation I may add to the many already known.
M. Molbech reiterates and confirms all the statements made by him in
his ‘Travels.’ He has even taken the trouble to forward a note in his
own hand-writing, referring to the page in the Transactions of the
Philological Society, which contains M. Watts’s translation from his
book. He adds, that when in 1847, his son waited upon the Cardinal in
Rome, for the purpose of presenting him some of M. Molbech’s works, he
found his Eminence’s recollection of the interview perfectly fresh and
accurate as to all its details.
[426] The reader will scarcely agree with this observation of Dr.
Tholuck. The Quichua was one of the languages which, as the Dr.
testifies, Mezzofanti only professed to know _imperfectly_. It must be
remembered too, that, during his early years he had many and prolonged
opportunities of intercourse with Father Escobar and other South American
Jesuit missionaries, who had settled at Bologna, and from whom he may
have acquired the language, much more solidly than he could be supposed
to learn it from a few casual interviews such as Dr. Tholuck most
probably contemplated.
[427] The Gulistan is found in the Cardinal’s catalogue, p. 109.
[428] p. 26. Oddly enough they are classed among the _Bohemian_ books.
[429] _Friesche Rymlerije._ It is mentioned by Adelung, II. p. 237.
[430] Vol. xvi., p. 229-30.
[431] See a very curious chapter in Tiraboschi, vol. vii., p. 139-201;
which Disraeli has, as usual, turned freely to his own account in the
Curiosities of Literature, p. 348-54.
[432] This is the origin of the nom-de-guerre, La Lasca—(_the Roach_,) by
which the too notorious novelist, Grazzini, chose to designate himself as
member of this society.
[433] All’ Em̅o Signor Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti, Applausi dei
Filopieri, 8vo. Bologna, 1838.
[434] Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration; from the Sanscrit of
Brahmegupta and Bhascara. Translated by H. T. Colebroke, London, 1817.
The _Bija Gannita_ had already been published by Mr. Strachey in 1813.
In referring to these Hindoo treatises on Mathematics, I may add, that
an interesting account of the Hindoo Logic, contributed by Professor Max
Müller, is appended to Mr. Thompson’s “Outline of the Laws of Thought,”
(pp. 369-89,) London, 1853. The analogies of all these treatises with
the works of the Western writers on the same sciences, are exceedingly
curious and interesting.
[435] Some curious and interesting remarks on the peculiarity of the
Indian languages here mentioned by M. Libri, will be found in Du
Ponceau’s “Memoire sur le Systeme Grammaticale des Langues Indiennes,”
pp. 143, and foll. Some words in the Chippewa language contain _thirteen_
or _fourteen_ syllables; but they should be called phrases rather
than words. M. Du Ponceau gives an example from the language of the
Indians of Massachusetts—the word _wutappesittukquissunnuhwehtunkquoh_,
“_genuflecting_!” p. 143. The same characteristic is found in the
Mexican and Central American languages. In Mexican “a parish-priest” is
“_notlazomanitzteopitzkatatzins_!”
[436] While M. Libri was writing this letter, he learned that Count
Pepoli was in possession of a short autobiographical sketch of
Mezzofanti. The count subsequently was good enough to permit me to
inspect this fragment; but I was mortified to find that it was not by the
Cardinal himself, but by some member of his family. It is very short, and
contains no fact which I had not previously known.
[437] See the series of the _Gazzetta di Bologna_; see also Spalding’s
“Italy and the Italian Islands,” for a compendious but accurate summary
of the facts.
[438] See the official announcements in the _Diario di Roma_ in March and
April.
[439] _Diario di Roma_, May 9, 1831.
[440] Mijne Reis naar Rome in het voorjaar van 1837. II. p. 35.
[441] The Memoirs of Father Ripa have enjoyed great popularity in the
abridged form in which they are published in Murray’s Home and Colonial
Library. This abridgment, however, gives but little idea of the work
itself.
[442] This Bull is in the _Bullarium_ of the Propaganda.
[443] Epistola Innocent III. vol. II. 723.
[444] According to my informant at Naples, the affection under which
Mezzofanti laboured is described by the local phrase “_rompergli le
chiancarelle_,”—a Neapolitan idiom which expresses something like our own
phrase that “his brains were addled.” It was ascribed to the excessive
difficulty of the Chinese, and to his own immoderate application. My
informant also states that, at his worst moments, his mind was recalled
at once from its wandering by the mere mention of the name of the Holy
Father, to whom he was most tenderly attached.
[445] Fleck’s Wissenschaftliche Reise, I. p. 94.
[446] After the Revolution of 1848-9 the Chinese students for a time
ceased to be sent to the Propaganda. Their entire course was completed in
the Neapolitan College. They have again resumed their attendance.
[447] Letters and Journals, III. 313, 315, 334.
[448] On the extraordinary Powers of Card. Mezzofanti, p. 122.
[449] Annales d’un Physicien Voyageur, par F. Forster, M.D. pp. 60-1,
Bruges, 1851.
[450] Miss Mitford, in her “Recollections of a Literary Life,” (vol. II.
203) relates this anecdote differently. She has confounded together two
different periods at which Dr. Baines met Mezzofanti—the first at Bologna
when this incident occurred, the second many years later, when Mezzofanti
was Librarian of the Vatican. The anecdote, as related above, was
communicated to me by the late Rev. Dr. Cox, of Southampton, who learned
it from the bishop himself.
[451] The relation of the English language to the ancient British tongue
is discussed by Latham, “The English Language,” vol. I. p. 344-5.
[452] Des Caractères Physiologiques des Races Humaines considérés dans
leur Rapports avec l’Histoire. Par. W. F. Edwards, p. 102.
[453] It can scarcely be necessary to allude to Mgr. Malou’s admirable
book On the Reading of the Bible in the vulgar Tongue. His interesting
essay On the Authorship of the Imitation of Christ, is less known.
[454] For this and the following notices I am indebted to the kind
offices of my friend Canon Donnet of Brussels.
[455]
“God calls, and points out the path of perfection,
Hearken my friend, to His voice—the voice of Truth.”
[456] Mijne Reis naar Rom in het Voorjahr van 1837. Door Dr. Jan J. F.
Wap., 2 vols., 8vo., Breda, 1839.
[457] In the year 1837. This is a slight mistake: he was only sixty-three.
[458] These books are found upon the Catalogue, p. 105.
[459] Afterwards Professor in the Catholic Seminary of Warmond, in
Holland, and at present Curé at Soest, in the province of Utrecht.
[460] “Let him who dares to doubt the gift of Pentecost, stand ashamed
and confounded before the mind of Mezzofanti. In him, let him honour that
man who is fit to be the earth’s interpreter—whose intellect penetrates
the language-secret of all nations.
“Accept, son of the South, the respectful salutation of the North. But
think, while your eye beholds my poor address, that if the Batavians’
language lacks Italian melody, their tongue and soul are both averse to
flattery.”
Mezzofanti’s reply:—
“Sir, when first the day my eyes were cast upon your beautiful address,
I was quite enraptured by your great kindness. It so raised up my mind
and heart, that, although master of fifty languages, my tongue remained
speechless—But lest I should seem an ingrate, I beg you just to read my
heart.”
[461] This is not quite correctly cited—The passage is in the sixth of
the Elegies, “aus Rom,” [vol. I. p. 48. Paris, 1836.]
————So hab’ ich von Herzen,
Rothstrumpf immer gehasst und violet-strumpf dazu.
It certainly deserves all the ridicule which Mezzofanti heaps on it, and
might well make
————the Muses, on their racks,
Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks.
The allusion to ‘red stocking’ and ‘violet stocking,’ is one of Goethe’s
habitual sneers at the Catholic prelacy.
[462] The idea which Mezzofanti throws out here as to the seeming
national unconsciousness of the metrical capabilities of the Magyar
language is very curiously developed by Mr. Watts, in a paper recently
read before the Philological Society. Transactions of Phil. Society,
1855, pp. 285-310.
[463] Steger’s Ergänzungs-Conversations-Lexicon. Vol. IX., pp. 395-7. The
work which is intended as a supplement to the existing Encyclopædias, is
a repertory of interesting and novel information.
[464] The only Maltese books in the Mezzofanti catalogue are the New
Testament; Panzavecchia’s Grammatica della Lingua Maltese, Malta, 1845,
and Vassalli’s Lexicon.
[465] Letter dated February 18, 1857.
[466] Letter dated February 20, 1857.
[467] See Biographie Universelle, art. _Vella_. Also Adelung’s
Mithridates, I. 416.
[468] Di Marco Polo, e degli altri Viaggiatori Veneziani, 2 vols., 4to,
Venice, 1818.
[469] Signor Drach is the author of an erudite Essay, “Du Divorce dans la
Synagogue,” and of several interesting dissertations on the Talmud.
[470] One of the victims in 1840, of the tyrannical church policy of the
late Czar in Poland and Polish Russia—He was exiled to Siberia.
[471] I have used the translation published in Mr. Watts’s paper,
restoring, however, a few sentences which were there omitted.
[472] Fleck’s Wissenschaftliche Reise, I. pp. 93-5.
[473] Miss Mitford’s Recollections of a Literary Life, II. p. 203.
[474] See Supra, pp. 143-4.
[475] The Catalogue (p. 33,) contains the complete edition, 5 vols.,
8vο., Stockholm, 1826; also the works of Kellgren, Leopold, and others.
It also comprises the Frithiofs-Saga, and other early Scandinavian
remains.
[476] Letter of M. D’Abbadie, May 6, 1855.
[477] The Abate Matranga is often mentioned with high praise by Cardinal
Mai in his prefaces. He is favourably known to Greek scholars besides
by his _Anecdota Græca_, 2 vols. 8vo., Rome, 1850, consisting of the
_Allegoriæ Homericæ_ of Tzetzes, and many other remains of ancient
scholiast commentators upon Homer, and of some unpublished Anacreontic
poems of the Byzantine period.
[478] Moore (Diary, III. p. 183,) mentions him as “the Abate Meli, a
Sicilian poet, of whom he had never heard before.” He is, nevertheless,
a voluminous writer of pastorals, sonnets, ballads, and odes, sacred and
profane. His largest poem, however, is an epic of twelve cantos on the
History of Don Quixote, in _ottava rima_. After a little trouble it may
be read without much difficulty by any one acquainted with the ordinary
Italian, and is highly amusing. Meli’s works are collected into one vol.
royal 8vo., Palermo, 1846.
[479] See account in _Civiltà Cattolica_ (by F. Bresciani) vii., p. 569.
[480] See Adelung’s _Mithridates_, vol. iii, part iii, p. 186.
[481] Ibid, p. 187.
[482] Since the above was written, a case somewhat similar has been
mentioned to me by the Rev Dr. Murray of Dublin, also a student of the
Propaganda. A young Mulatto of the Dutch West Indian Island of Curaçoa,
named Enrico Gomez, arrived about a fortnight before Epiphany, 1845.
He spoke no language except the “Nigger Dutch,” of his native island.
Mezzofanti took him into his hands, and before the day of Academy
(the Sunday after Epiphany) he had not only established a mode of
communication with him, but had learned his language, and even composed
for him a short poetical piece, which Gomez recited at the Academy!
A third case, of three Albanian youths, is mentioned in the Civiltà
Cattolica, VII. p. 571.
[483] These youths are mentioned in “Shea’s Catholic Missions among the
Indian Tribes” (p. 387,) a work of exceeding interest and most carefully
executed.
[484] Sketches in Canada, pp. 214-15.
[485] See his Memoire sur le Systeme Grammaticale, p. 97, also p. 306,
and in the appendix _passim_.
[486] See Du Ponceau, Memoire, p. 294-5.
[487] Not only are the inflexions entirely different from those of the
languages to which we are accustomed, but the very use of inflexions is
altogether peculiar. For example, in the Chippewa language there is an
inflexion of nouns, similar to our conjugation of verbs, by which all the
states of the noun are expressed. Thus the word _man_ can be inflected
for person, to signify, ‘_I am_ a man,’ ‘_thou art_ a man,’ ‘_he is_ a
man;’ &c. So also the inflexions of the verb transitive vary according to
the gender of the object—See Mrs. Jameson, p. 196. Schoolcraft ascribes
the same character to the entire Algonquin family—See Du Ponceau, pp.
130-5.
[488] Letter of M. d’Abbadie, dated May 4, 1855.
[489] Letter of May 23rd, 1855.
[490] The Signor Churi mentioned by M. Fernando is the author of a
curious and interesting volume of travels—“The Sea Nile, the Desert
and Nigritia,” published in 1853. Being obliged by ill health to leave
the Propaganda, and unwilling for many reasons to return to his native
Lebanon, he settled in London as a teacher of oriental languages. One
of his pupils in Arabic, Captain Peel, engaged him in 1850, as his
interpreter in a tour of Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land, and afterwards,
in 1851, in an expedition to the interior of Africa, which forms the
subject of Signor Churi’s volume.
[491] I have been assured by M. Bauer, a student of the Propaganda in
1855, that he often conversed with the Cardinal in Hungarian, during the
years 1847 and 1848.
[492] A comparative Grammar of the Dravidian, or South-Indian Family of
Languages. By the Rev. R. Caldwell, B.A., London, 1856.
[493] In a letter dated Calcutta, September 20, 1855.
[494] Letter dated Calcutta, September 22, 1855.
[495] See a most amusing account by Père Bourgeois, in the Lettres
Edifiantes, of his first Chinese Sermon, which D’Israeli has translated.
An interesting exposition of the difficulties of the Chinese language is
found in Grüber’s Relazione di Cina, Florence, 1697.
[496] Dated Rome, May 23, 1855.
[497] What Europeans call the Mandarin language is by the Chinese
designated Houan-Hoa, or universal language. It is spoken by instructed
persons throughout the Empire, although with a marked difference of
pronunciation in the northern and the southern provinces. Besides this,
there are dialects peculiar to the provinces of Kouang-tong, and Fo-kien,
as well as several minor dialects. See Huc’s Chinese Empire, I. p. 319-20.
[498] See Adelung, Mithridates, III. part I. pp. 207-24.
[499] Letter of February 7, 1857. I had submitted these pieces to Dr.
Livingston; but as he, having been ill all the time he remained in
Angola, had never learned that language, he was good enough to send the
papers to Mr. Brande. The latter, besides kindly communicating to me his
own opinion regarding them, has taken the trouble to forward them to
a friend at Loando, to be submitted to an intelligent native in whose
judgment Mr. Brande has full confidence; but as yet (March 15, 1858,) no
reply has reached me.
[500] See an excellent article in Morone’s “Dizionario di Erudizione
Storico-ecclesiastica,” as also the Kirchen-Lexicon, vol. II. 344 and
foll.
[501] A friend of mine who chanced to pass as one of these carriages
(which had been dismantled preparatory to its being newly fitted up,)
was on its way to the Pontifical Factory for the purpose, overheard some
idle boys who were looking on, laughing at its heavy, lumbering look, and
saying to each other: “_Che barcaccia!_” (What a shocking old boat!). He
was greatly amused at the indignation with which the coachman resented
this impertinent criticism.
[502] A sample of Mezzofanti’s own performance as a Filopiero—his reply
to the verses of his friend, Count Marchesi—is given by Marchetti, in his
_Pagine Monumentali_, p. 150.
De tuoi versi il contento,
Cosi nell’ alma io sento,
Che versi rendo gratulando teco,
Ma oime’! ch’ io son qual eco,
Che molti suoni asconde,
E languida da lungi al fin responde.
[503] The title is “All’ Ementissimo Signor Cardinale Giuseppe
Mezzofanti, Bolognese, elevato all’ Onore della Porpora Romana, Applausi
dei Filopieri, 8vo., Bologna, 1838.” A similar tribute from the pen of
Doctor Veggetti, who had succeeded Mezzofanti as Librarian, appeared
a short time before, entitled “Tributo di Lode a Giuseppe Mezzofanti,
Bolognese, creato Cardinale il Giorno 12 Febbraro, 1838.” Bologna, 1838.
[504] Stolz, Biografia, p. 7.
[505] A bon-mot on occasion of Monsignor Mezzofanti’s elevation, which
I heard from Cardinal Wiseman, and which is ascribed to the good old
Cardinal Rivarola, is worth recording, although the point is not fully
appreciable, except in Italian.
Mezzofanti, from his childhood, had worn ear-rings, as a preventive,
according to the popular notion, against an affection of the eyes, to
which he had been subject. Some one observed that it was strange to see a
“Cardinal wearing ear-rings,” (_chi porta orecchini_.)
“Not at all,” rejoined Cardinal Rivarola, “Ci han da essere tanti uomini
in dignità che portano _orecchine_ (”long ears“—”asses ears,“) e perchè
non ci ha da essere uno almeno chi porti _orecchini_? (ear-rings.) There
are many dignitaries who have _orecchine_, (asses-ears), and why should
not there be at least one with _orecchini_—ear-rings?”
[506] Perhaps it is not generally known that the brothers Antoine and
Arnauld d’Abbadie, although French by name, fortune, and education, are
not only children of an Irish mother, but were born, and spent the first
years of childhood, in Dublin. M. Antoine d’Abbadie lived in Dublin till
his eighth year. See his letter to the Athenæum, (Cairo, Nov. 15, 1848,)
vol. for 1849, p. 93.
[507] The _Journal Asiatique_, passim; the Athenæum, 1839, 1845, 1849:
the Geographical Society of France, and of England, &c.
[508] M. d’Abbadie collected with great care, as opportunity offered,
vocabularies, more or less extensive, of a vast number of the languages
of this region of Africa. His collections, also, on the natural history
and geography, as well as on the religious and social condition of
the country, are most extensive and valuable. The work in which he is
understood to be engaged upon the subject, is looked for with much
interest.
[509] When M. d’Abbadie, in one of his letters to the Athenæum, first
alluded to the Ilmorma, its existence, as a distinct language, was
absolutely denied.
[510] One of the writers on the Basque Grammar, Manuel de Larramendi,
entitles his book, Impossible vencido, (“The Impossible Overcome,”) 8vo.
Salamanca, 1729. Some idea, though a faint one, of the difficulty of this
Grammar, may be formed from the number and names of the words of a Basque
verb. They are no less than eleven; and are denominated by grammarians,
the Indicative, the Consuetudinal, the Potential, the Voluntary,
the Necessary (coactive,) the Imperative, Subjunctive, Optative,
_Penitudinary_ (!) and Infinitive.—The variety of tenses in Basque also,
is very great. But it should be added that the structure of these moods
and tenses is described as singularly philosophical, and full of harmony
and of analogy.
[511] Letter of M. d’Abbadie, May 6, 1855.
[512] Manavit, p. 109.
[513] Olaszhoni es Schweizi Vtazas Irta Paget Janosné Wesselenyi
Polyxena, 1842, vol. I., p. 180. Mr. Watts’s Memoir, p. 121.
[514] This book is in the Library Catalogue, p. 138.
[515] Letter of June 6, 1855.
[516] Volume X. (1842.) p. 227—279-80.
[517] Christmas Holidays at Rome. By the Rev. Ingraham Kip, edited by the
Rev. W. Sewell, p. 175.
[518] Letter of October 11, 1857.
[519] Letter of Feb. 23, 1847.
[520] Italy I. 292.
[521] I think it was the late Rev. John Smyth, a clergyman of Dublin,
who, while I myself was in Rome, conversed with Cardinal Mezzofanti under
the impression that he was speaking with the English Cardinal Acton.
[522] In 3 vols., 12mo., London, 1757. It contains the original and
the translation in parallel pages. The author was Sieur Townley the
well-known collector, and a member of the distinguished catholic family
of that name. The translation is certainly most curiously exact in letter
and in spirit, and fully deserves all that Mr. Badeley has said of it.
[523] The exhibition at present, and for some years back, is held in the
church of the Propaganda.
[524] Of the princely house of Massimo, which is said to claim descent
from the great _Cunctator_. The marked contrast between the diminutive
stature of the Cardinal, and the noble and commanding figure of the
Prince, his elder brother, gave occasion to one of those lively _mots_
for which Rome is celebrated. The brothers were called, “Il Principe
_Massimo_, ed il Cardinal _Menomo_.”
[525] These were (1,) Hebrew; (2,) Syriac; (3,) Samaritan; (4,) ancient
Chaldee; (5,) Modern Chaldee; (6,) Arabic; (7,) ancient Armenian; (8,)
modern Armenian; (9,) Turkish; (10,) Persian; (11,) Albanian; (12,)
Sabean;—a dialect of Syriac, which Adelung prefers to call Zabian;—(13,)
Maltese; (14,) Greek; (15,) Romaic; (16,) Ethiopic; (17,) Coptic; (18,)
Amariña; (19,) Tamul; (20,) Koordish; (21,) Kunkan,—one of the dialects
of the Bengal coast;—(22,) Georgian; (23,) Welsh; (24,) Irish; (25,)
Gælic; (26,) English; (27,) Illyrian; (28,) Bulgarian; (29,) Polish;
(30,) Peguan; (31,) Swedish; (32,) ancient German; (33,) modern German;
(34,) Swiss German; (35,) Dutch; (36,) Spanish; (37,) Catalan; (38,)
Portuguese; (39,) French; (40,) ancient Chinese; (41,) Chinese of
Tchang-si; (42,) Chinese of Canton.
I was somewhat surprised to miss Russian from the catalogue. In the
Academy of the present year, it appears in its proper place. See
“Academia Poliglotta nel Collegio Urbano de Prop. Fide, per l’Epifania
del 1858,” p. 38.
[526] This youth, as I afterwards learned, was called by the strange
name, Moses Ngnau. He was a native of Pegu, and returned to his own
mission in 1850; but unhappily his career was terminated by an early
death.
[527] The journals of this week, (March 18,) relate a most astonishing
feat of the great modern chess-player, Dr. Harwitz. He has just played
three games simultaneously, against three most eminent players, without
once seeing any of the boards, or even entering the room in which the
moves were made, during the entire time! He won two of the games—the
third being a drawn one.
[528] The most recent information regarding this curious subject is
contained in a report by Dr. Aufrecht, which Bunsen has printed in his
Christianity and Mankind, III., p. 87, and foll; See also Mommsen’s
Unter-italische Dialekten.
[529] Letter of January 15, 1857.
[530] Cardinal Wiseman told me of a priest who, after having lived for
twenty years in France, was mortified to find himself discovered as
an Englishman, by the way in which he said “ah!” in expression of his
acknowledgment of an answer given to him by a person to whom he addressed
a question in a crowd. This may explain an anecdote in Moore’s Diary,
which he could not himself understand. A lady was coming in to dinner,
and, on her passing through the ante-room, where Talleyrand was standing,
he looked up and exclaimed insignificantly “ah!” In the course of the
dinner, the lady, having asked him across the table why he had uttered
the exclamation of “oh”! on her entrance, Talleyrand, with a grave
self-vindicatory look, answered; _Madame, je n’ai pas dit_ oh! _j’ai dit_
ah, (_Memoirs VII., p. 5_).
One of the standing jokes against the capuchins in Italy is about an
“alphabet” which they are supposed to learn during the noviciate, and
which consists exclusively of the interjection _O!_—which single sound,
by the varieties of look, gesture, air, and expression which accompany
it, is made to embody almost every conceivable meaning.
Much light is thrown on more than one obscure passage in the Latin
classics by the gesticulations which still prevail in modern Italy,
especially in Naples. See the Canon De Jorio’s extremely curious and
learned book, “Mimica degli Antichi investigata nel Gestire Napolitano.”
[531] Supra, p. 379.
[532] The pun is less observable in writing than in speaking; the words
_weiss-haar_ and _weiser_ resemble each other more closely in sound, than
in appearance. It might be rendered:
“Would to God, that, as I have become _whiter_, so I had also grown
_wiser_!”
[533] This is a mistake. The work published at Philadelphia is not
a general treatise on the Indian Languages, but a Grammar of the
Lenni-Lennape Language nor is it an original work of Du Ponceau: but a
translation by him, with notes, from the German MS. of David Zeisberger.
It is in 4to. and was published at Philadelphia in 1827. Du Ponceau’s own
work on the Indian languages, was published in Paris, 8vo. 1838.
[534] Christmas holidays in Rome, by the Rev. Ingraham Kip.
[535] Gaume, Les Trois Rome, II. 413-4.
[536] Letter of November 9, 1855.
[537] Letter of July 14, 1856.
[538] Remskiya Pisma—(by M. Mouravieff.) vol. I., p. 144.
[539] See the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, for 1846. No. 4, p. 27. See also the
Kirchen-Lexicon. B. IV., p. 729. This interview forms the subject of one
of the most brilliant sketches in Cardinal Wiseman’s “Recollections of
the Last Four Popes,” pp. 409, and foll.
[540] Manavit, p. 113.
[541] Translated by Mr. Watts.
“The fire that burns within that breast of thine,
Mother of God! O kindle it in mine.”
_Trans. of Philological Society, 1854, p. 148._
[542] See an article in “Household Words,” May 13, 1854 (No. 216). See
also Rohrbacher’s Histoire de l’Eglise, T. XXVIII. pp. 431-42.
[543] Manavit, p. 95.
[544] Quoted by Manavit, p. 98.
[545] Another impromptu epigram composed by the Cardinal, while the
memorable procession of the 8th of September following, was returning
from the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, amid the universal jubilation
of Rome, and of representatives of all the Papal provinces, has been
communicated to me.
Te Patre, Teque Pio, junguntur Principe corda:—
Ecce Tibi unum cor, Felsina, Roma, sumus!
[546] Civiltà Cattolica VII, p. 877. This brilliant account of the
Cardinal is given in the “Appendix” of Father Bresciani’s _Ebreo di
Verona_, and is full of most curious and interesting details.
[547] Civiltà Cattolica, VII. p. 577.
[548] His _zucchetto_, the red skull-cap worn by Cardinals, is preserved
in the collection at Abbotsford.
[549] Civiltà Cattolica, VII. 596.
[550] _Civiltà Cattolica_, VII., p. 578.
[551] I do not know what language is here meant. Perhaps it is a mistake
for _Bavara_—the Bavarian dialect of German: or possibly it may mean the
Dutch of the _Boors_ at the Cape of Good Hope.
[552] Possibly _Berberica_—the Barbary dialect of Arabic.
[553] This is probably meant for _Concanico_—an Indian language which
often appeared in the programme of the Propaganda Academy, while
Mezzofanti was in Rome. It is the dialect of Kunka, in the province of
Orissa.
[554] This is certainly meant for _Tepehuana_, one of the Central
American point of languages.
[555] Probably by these names are meant the two _spoken_ dialects of
the orthodox Christians of modern Egypt. The Coptic (No. 23.) is the
_learned_ language of the Liturgy.
[556] This item, as well as Nos. 47 and 53, may be ascribed to the
writer’s desire to swell the total of his uncle’s languages—I need hardly
say that they have no practical bearing on the question.
[557] I am unable to conjecture the meaning of this name.
[558] This is either a repetition of No. 56., or it designates the whole
class of languages called Iberian, and not an individual language.
[559] Perhaps Misteco—the Mistek; one of the Mexican group of languages.
Many interesting particulars regarding them will be found in Squier’s
Nicaragua.
[560] This probably means the old Celtic of Brittany. No. 50 is the
modern patois of the province.
[561] If this be meant for Gælic, as seems likely, No. 73 can only be the
Lowland Scotch.
[562] I need hardly observe on the vagueness of this name. Mezzofanti
learned from more than one missionary something of the languages of
Oceanica; but how much I have no means of determining.
[563] For Pampanga, one of the languages of the Philippine Islands—an
offshoot of the Malay family.
[564] The old language of Peru. It is fast recovering the ground from
which it had been driven by the Spanish. See Markham’s “Cuzco and Lima.”
[565] I cannot guess what is meant by this name.
[566] A language of the New Hebrides. See Adelung, I. p. 626.
[567] There can be no doubt that much light on this point may be derived
from a thorough examination of these books and manuscripts; and I trust
that some of the Cardinal’s friends at Rome, (where his library is now
deposited, having been purchased for the Vatican,) will undertake the
task. I have endeavoured in some degree to supply the want by a careful
examination of the catalogue published in Rome in 1851, and often cited
in this volume. But it is so full of the grossest and most ludicrous
inaccuracies, so utterly unscientific, and so constantly confounds one
language with another, that it can only be used with the utmost caution,
and at best affords but little assistance for the purposes of the Memoir.
[568] I should observe that I do not think it necessary to adopt the
nomenclature of languages recently introduced. I will for the most part
follow that of Adelung.
[569] I shall refer for the several languages, to the pages which contain
the notices of the Cardinal’s proficiency in each. There are two or three
cases in which the proof may not appear quite decisive: but I have much
understated, even in these, the common opinion of his friends.
[570] In this and the few other instances in which I have referred to
Cavaliere Minarelli’s list of the Cardinal’s languages, it is amply
supported by the printed catalogue of his library, which contains several
works in each language, evidently provided with a view to the study of it.
[571] I once travelled through the entire length of France with a friend,
who was an excellent book-scholar in the French language, but who, from
the feeling which I describe, never could prevail on himself to attempt
to speak French in my presence. During a journey of several days, I only
heard him utter one solitary _oui_; and even this was at a time when he
was not aware that I was within hearing.
[572] p. 290.
[573] p. 78.
[574] P. 391.
[575] P. 291
[576] There is little originality in this piece, the words and forms
being closely scriptural. It is without points, but he occasionally,
also, employed them in writing Hebrew.
[577] Eumetes was the name under which, by ancient usage of the _Arcadi_,
Gregory XVI., before his elevation, had been enrolled in their Academy.
[578] Domenichino’s Communion of St. Jerome.
[579] Communion of St. Sebastian, also by Domenichino.
[580] Guercino’s St. Petronilla.
[581] Algardi’s bas-relief group of Attila and St. Leo.
[582] As I have no knowledge of this or the Grisons language, I fear the
orthography will be found inaccurate.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The life of Cardinal Mezzofanti: With an introductory memoir of eminent linguists, ancient and modern" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.