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 slightlyrounded, 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 redzucchetto, (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, withoutany 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-heartedcamerataof the Propaganda. No old man ever illustrated more clearly that

The heart—the heart, is the heritageWhich keepeth the old man young!

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 pronunciationwas 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 almosttoo 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 ascaricato. 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 himfor 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 stumblingblock 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 theZummersetshire 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 usevinstead ofw, andwinstead ofv: so that they say ‘vine’ instead of ‘wine;’ [he gave this example.] And then the Irishbrogue, 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! yourEminence, 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 ‘greet’—for that the diphthongeais so pronounced in almost all, if not ineveryword, 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.”

Here, F. Kelleher broke out into a horse-laugh, and, slapping his hand upon his thigh, cried out, ‘Oh! excèllent! yourEminence, 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 ‘greet’—for that the diphthongeais so pronounced in almost all, if not ineveryword, 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 theyear 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, andthat 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 givethemin 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 occurredat 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 theChurches. 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 ithappened 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 youmustchange,’ 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 earnestnessand 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 theAula 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.

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 withthe 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 hispale 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 includedmost 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 Italianterzineand 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 ofintonation,[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.

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 tohim. 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 insuccession;—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 ofthe evening, as especially harmonious and expressive in its sounds, theIrish 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, arewell 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 inthe 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 evertried 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 thecelebrated 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; andthey 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 astudent 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 sixteendifferent 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 himin Greek, he wrote:

Ἑλλάδος ἠρώτας ἐμε ῥήμασιν. Ἑλλάδος ἁυδήνἘκχὲω, οὐδ’ ἄλλην χρή ἀπαμειβόμενον.Οὐ φθόγγος φθόγγοισιν ἀμείβεται, εί μὴ ὁμοῖος,Ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ συμφώνων γίγνεται ἁρμονίη.Νῦν δέ τίνα Γνώμην δώσω ἀιτοῦντι; τιν ἄλληνἩ—— ’Θεὸν ἐν πάσῃ, δὲι φιλέειν κραδίῃ.’

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 writehis namein an album, he gave, instead, this pretty couplet.

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