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 magnifyingcamera oscuraof 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 mendaxAudet in historiâ—
Velificatus Athos, et quidquid Græcia mendaxAudet in historiâ—
Velificatus Athos, et quidquid Græcia mendaxAudet in historiâ—
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 byknowledgeof 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 aninterpreter, 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 anynumber, 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 subjectwhich 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 believesthe 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.
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 accordingto 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]
II.—Stated to have been spoken fluently, but hardly sufficiently tested.
III.Spoken rarely, and less perfectly.
IV.Spoken imperfectly;—a few sentences and conversational forms.
V.Studied from books, but not known to have been spoken.
VI.—Dialects spoken, or their peculiarities understood.
1.—HEBREW.
2.—ARABIC.
3.—CHINESE.
4.—ITALIAN.
5.—SPANISH
6.—BASQUE.
7.—MAGYAR.
8.—GERMAN.
9.—FRENCH.
10.—ENGLISH.
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 ofthe 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 markedlin 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 theentirevocabulary 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 wasliterally faultlessin speaking these languages; nor that what I have said is literally true ofeach and every oneof 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 witnessesconsidered, 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 bystriking out of itall those words which were common to it with any of the languages already familiar to him, and then impressing on his memorythe 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 ofan intelligent child who knew no language but the one which he was studying;—because children best understand, and most readilyapprehend, 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, scrawlsWith desperate charcoal on his darkened walls.
Who, locked from ink and paper, scrawlsWith desperate charcoal on his darkened walls.
Who, locked from ink and paper, scrawlsWith desperate charcoal on his darkened walls.
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 ofthinking when alone, in each and all of his various languagesin 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, wasconstantly practising in his mind; and his fingers were actually observed to bealways 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, afterdippinghis 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. Somememories 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 itsextraordinary readiness. Sir W. Hamilton, in one of his notes on Reid, happily reviving an old view of Aristotle, distinguishes betweenmemory(μνημή) andreminiscence, (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 themdistinct 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 ofthe ceiling. It would almost seem as if the memory of Mezzofanti had some such local division into compartments, in which the several vocabulariescould, 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 (ofcourse 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 thematerial 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 thefirst 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