Chapter 33

[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 wasBuchmann(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 theVocabularia 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 manycastles in the airthatyoucannot 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’sJashar.[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’sLiterarische Bilder aus Russland, p. 38, also Otto’sLehrbuch, p. 204, and Bowring’sRussian 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]TheThesaurus(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 actuallytranscribing with his own hand in each copythe 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 theBiographie 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 waveThe 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’sThresor, p. 963.[239]Paul IV. is mentioned by Cancellieri, as having known the entire Bible by heart. He names several other men, (one of themblind,) andsix 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 afacchino, (or porter,) being called simplyIl 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 advertisesto singin 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.”

[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 wasBuchmann(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 theVocabularia 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 manycastles in the airthatyoucannot 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’sJashar.

[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’sLiterarische Bilder aus Russland, p. 38, also Otto’sLehrbuch, p. 204, and Bowring’sRussian 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]TheThesaurus(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 actuallytranscribing with his own hand in each copythe 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 theBiographie 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 waveThe 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.

“A wizard of such dreaded fame,That when, in Salamanca’s cave,Him listed his magic wand to waveThe bells would ring in Notre Dame!”

“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’sThresor, p. 963.

[239]Paul IV. is mentioned by Cancellieri, as having known the entire Bible by heart. He names several other men, (one of themblind,) andsix 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 afacchino, (or porter,) being called simplyIl 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 advertisesto singin 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.”

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