CHAPTER I.

THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.

[Illustration: J. Card. Mezzofanti

Perugini, del. H. Adlard, sc.]

THE LIFE

OF

CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI;

WITH

AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

OF

EMINENT LINGUISTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

BY

C. W. RUSSELL, D.D.

PRESIDENT OF ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE, MAYNOOTH.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, AND CO.

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1858.

[_The Right of Translation is reserved._]

PREFACE.

The following Memoir had its origin in an article on Cardinal Mezzofanti,

contributed to the Edinburgh Review in the year 1855. The subject

appeared at that time to excite considerable interest. The article was

translated into French, and, in an abridged form, into Italian; and I

received through the editor, from persons entirely unknown to me, more

than one suggestion that I should complete the biography, accompanied by

offers of additional information for the purpose.

Nevertheless, the notices of the Cardinal on which that article was

founded, and which at that time comprised all the existing materials

for a biography, appeared to me, with all their interest, to want the

precision and the completeness which are essential to a just estimate of

his attainments. I felt that to judge satisfactorily his acquaintance

with a range of languages so vast as that which fame ascribed to

him, neither sweeping statements founded on popular reports, however

confident, nor general assertions from individuals, however distinguished

and trustworthy, could safely be regarded as sufficient. The proof of his

familiarity with any particular language, in order to be satisfactory,

ought to be specific, and ought to rest on the testimony either of

a native, or at least of one whose skill in the language was beyond

suspicion.

At the same time the interest with which the subject seemed to be

generally regarded, led me to hope that, by collecting, while they

were yet recent, the reminiscences of persons of various countries and

tongues, who had known and spoken with the Cardinal, it might be possible

to lay the foundation of a much more exact judgment regarding him than

had hitherto been attainable.

A short inquiry satisfied me that, although scattered over every part

of the globe, there were still to be found living representatives of

most of the languages ascribed to the Cardinal, who would be able, from

their own personal knowledge, to declare whether, and in what degree, he

was acquainted with each; and I resolved to try whether it might not be

possible to collect their opinions.

The experiment has involved an extensive and tedious correspondence;

many of the persons whom I have had to consult being ex-pupils of the

Propaganda, residing in very distant countries; more than one beyond the

range of regular postal communication, and only accessible by a chance

message transmitted through a consul, or through the friendly offices of

a brother missionary.

For the spirit in which my inquiries have been met, I am deeply grateful.

I have recorded in the course of the narrative the names of many to

whom I am indebted for valuable assistance and information. Other

valued friends whom I have not named, will kindly accept this general

acknowledgment.

There is one, however, to whom I owe a most special and grateful

expression of thanks—his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

From him, at the very outset of my task, I received a mass of anecdotes,

recollections, and suggestions, which, besides their great intrinsic

interest, most materially assisted me in my further inquiries; and

the grace of the contribution was enhanced by the fact, that it was

generously withdrawn from that delightful store of Personal Recollections

which his Eminence has since given to the public; and in which his

brilliant pen would have made it one of the most attractive episodes.

Several of the autographs, also, which appear in the sheet of

fac-similes, I owe to his Eminence. Others I have received from friends

who are named in the Memoir.

CONTENTS.

PREFACE, pp. v-vii.

INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.

ANCIENT PERIOD:—

History of Linguists little known—Legendary Linguists—The

Jews—The Asiatics—The Greeks—Mithridates—Cleopatra—The

Romans—Prevalence of Greek under the Empire—The Early

Christians—Decline of the Study—Separation of the two

Empires—The Crusaders—Frederic II—The Moorish Schools

in Spain—Council of Vienne—Roderigo Ximenes—Venetian

travellers—Fall of Constantinople—Greeks in

Italy—Complutensian Polyglot, pp. 5-18.

MODERN PERIOD:—

I. _Linguists of the East._ Dragomans—Genus Bey—Jonadab

Alhanar—Interpreters in the Levant—Ciceroni at Mecca—Syrian

Linguists—The Assemani—Greeks—Armenians—The Mechitarists, pp. 18-24.

II. _Italian Linguists._ Pico della Mirandola—Teseo

Ambrosio—Pigafetta—Linguistic Missionary

Colleges—The Propaganda—Schools of the Religious Orders—

Giggei—Galani—Ubicini—Maracci—Podestà—Piromalli—Giorgi—De

Magistris—Finetti—Valperga de Galuso—The De Rossis, pp. 25-34.

III. _Spanish and Portuguese Linguists._ Fernando di

Cordova—Covilham—Libertas Cominetus—Arias Montanus—Del

Rio—Lope de Vega—Missionaries—Antonio Fernandez—Carabantes—

Pedro Paez—Hervas-y-Pandura, pp. 34-41.

IV. _French Linguists._

Postel—Polyglot-Pater-Nosters—Scaliger—Le

Cluse—Peiresc—Chasteuil—Duret—Bochart—Picquet—Le Jay—De la

Croze—Renaudot—Fourmont—Deshauterayes—De Guignes—Diplomatic

affairs in the Levant—De Paradis, Langlés—Abel Remusat—Modern

School, Julien, Bournouf, Renan, Fresnel, the d’Abbadies, pp. 41-58.

V. _German, Dutch, Flemish, and Hungarian Linguists._

Müller—(Regiomontanus)—Bibliander—Gesner—Christmann—Drusius—

Schultens—Maes—Haecx—Gramaye—Erpen—The

Goliuses—Hottinger—Kircher—Ludolf—Rothenacker—Andrew

Müller—Witzen—Wilkins—Leibnitz—Gerard

Müller—Schlötzer—Buttner—Michaelis—Catholic

Missionaries—Richter, Fritz, Widmann, Grebmer, Dobritzhofer,

Werdin—Berchtold, Adelung, Vater, Pallas, Klaproth, Niebuhr,

Humboldt and his School—Castrén, Rask, Bunsen, Biblical

Linguists—Hungarian Linguists—Csoma de Körös, pp. 59-81.

VI. _British and Irish Linguists._ Crichton—Andrews—Gregory—

Castell, Walton, Pocock, Ockley, Sale, Clarke, Wilkins,

Toland, “Orator” Henley, Carteret, Jones, Marsden, Colebrooke,

Craufurd, Lumsden, Leyden, Vans Kennedy, Adam Clarke, Roberts

Jones, Young, Pritchard, Cardinal Wiseman, Browning, Lee,

Burritt, pp. 81-99.

VII. _Slavonian Linguists._ _Russians_—Scantiness of

Materials—Early Period—Jaroslav, Boris—The Romanoffs—Beründa

Pameva, Peter the Great, Catherine I., Mentschikoff,

Timkoffsky, Bitchourin, Igumnoff, Giganoff, Tchubinoff,

Goulianoff, Senkowsky, Gretsch, Kazem-Beg—_Poles_—Meninski,

Groddek, Bobrowski, Albertrandy, Rzewuski,

Italinski—_Bohemians_—Komnensky, Dobrowsky, Hanka, pp. 99-110.

Miraculous gift of tongues—Royal Linguists—

Lady-Linguists—Infant Phenomena—Uneducated Linguists, pp. 110-121.

LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.

CHAPTER I. (1774-98.)

Birth and family history—Legendary tales—Early

education—First masters—School friends—Ecclesiastical

studies—Illness and interruption of studies—Study of

languages—Anecdote—Ordination—Appointment as Professor of

Arabic—Deprivation of professorship, pp. 125-147.

CHAPTER II. (1798-1802.)

Straitened circumstances—Private tuition—The Marescalchi

family—The military hospitals—Manner of study—The Magyar,

Czechish, Polish, Russian, and Flemish languages—Foreigners—The

Confessional—Intense application—Examples of literary

labour, pp. 148-161.

CHAPTER III. (1803-1806.)

Appointed as Assistant Librarian of the _Istituto di

Bologna_—_Catalogue Raisonné_—Professorship of Oriental

Languages—Paper on Egyptian obelisks—De Rossi—Correspondence

with him—Polyglot translations—Caronni’s account of him—Visit

to Parma, Pezzana, Bodoni—Persian—Illness—Invitation to settle

at Paris—Domestic relations—Correspondence—Translations, pp. 162-190.

CHAPTER IV. (1807-14.)

Labour of compiling Catalogue—His skill as linguist tested by

the Russian Embassy—Deprivation of Professorship—Death of his

mother—Visit to Modena and Parma—Literary friends—Giordani’s

account—Greek scholarship—Bucheron’s trial of his

Latinity—Deputy Librarianship of University—Visitors—Lord

Guildford—Learned societies—Academy of Institute—Paper on

Mexican symbolic Paintings, pp. 191-204.

CHAPTER V. (1814-17.)

Restoration of the Papal Government—Pius VII. at

Bologna—Invites Mezzofanti to Rome—Re-appointment as

Professor of Oriental languages—Death of his father—Notices

of Mezzofanti by Tourists—Kephalides—Appointed head

librarian—Pupils—Angelelli—Papers read at Academy, pp. 205-18.

CHAPTER VI. (1817-20.)

Tourists’ Notices of Mezzofanti—Society in Bologna—Mr.

Harford—Stewart Rose—Byron—The Opuscoli Letterarj di

Bologna—Panegyric of F. Aponte—Emperor Francis I. at

Bologna—Clotilda Tambroni—Lady Morgan’s account of

Mezzofanti—Inaccuracies—The Bologna dialect—M. Molbech, pp. 219-40.

CHAPTER VII. (1820-28.)

Illness—Visit to Mantua, Modena, Pisa, and Leghorn—Solar

Eclipse—Baron Von Zach—Bohemian—Admiral Smyth—The Gipsy

language—Blume—Armenian—Georgian—Flemish—Pupils—Cavedoni,

Veggetti, Rosellini—Foreigners—Daily duties—Correspondence—

Death of Pius VII.—Appointment as member of Collegio dei

Consultori—Jacobs’ account of him—Personal appearance—Cardinal

Cappellari—Translation of Oriental Liturgy—Mezzofanti’s

disinterestedness—Birmese, pp. 241-70.

CHAPTER VIII. (1828-30.)

Visit of Crown Prince of Prussia—Trial of skill in

languages—Crown Prince of Sweden—M. Braunerhjelm—Countess of

Blessington—Irish Students—Lady Bellew—Dr. Tholuck—Persian

couplet—Swedish—Cornish Dialect—Frisian—Abate

Fabiani—Letters—Academy of the Filopieri, pp. 271-86.

CHAPTER IX. (1831.)

Political parties at Bologna—M. Libri’s account of

Mezzofanti—Hindoo Algebra—Indian literature and history—Indian

languages—Manner of study—Revolution of Bologna—Delegates to

Rome—Mezzofanti at Rome—Reception by Gregory XVI.—Visit to the

Propaganda—Dr. Cullen—Polyglot conversation—Renewed Invitation

to settle at Rome—Consents—Calumnies of revolutionary party—Dr.

Wordsworth—Mr. Milnes—Removal to Rome, pp. 287-300.

CHAPTER X. (1831-33.)

Rome a centre of many languages—Mezzofanti’s pretensions

fully tested—Appointments at Rome—Visit to the Chinese

College at Naples—History of the College—Study of

Chinese—Its difficulties—Illness—Return to Rome—Polyglot

society of Rome—The Propaganda—Amusing trials of

skill—Gregory XVI.—Library of Propaganda rich in rare

books on languages—Appointed First Keeper of the Vatican

Library—Letters, pp. 301-17.

CHAPTER XI. (1834.)

The Welsh language—Dr. Forster—Dr. Baines—Dr. Edwards—Mr.

Rhys Powell—Flemish—Mgr. Malou—Mgr. Wilde—Canon Aerts—Pere

van Calven—Pere Legrelle—Dutch—M. Leon—Dr. Wap—Mezzofanti’s

extempore Dutch verses—Bohemian—The poet Frankl—Conversations

on German and Magyar Poetry—Maltese—Padre Schembri—Canonico

Falzou—Portuguese—Count de Lavradio, pp. 318-37.

CHAPTER XII. (1834-36.)

The Vatican Library—Mezzofanti’s colleagues—College of St.

Peter’s—Mezzofanti made Rector—His literary friends in

Rome—Angelo Mai—Accademia della Cattolica Religione—He reads

papers in this Academy—Gregory XVI.’s kindness—Cardinal

Giustiniani—Albani—Pacca—Zurla—Polyglot party at Cardinal

Zurla’s in his honour—Opinions regarding him—Number of

his languages—Mr. Mazzinghi—Dr. Cox—Dr. Wiseman—Herr

Fleck—Greek Epigram—Herr Fleck’s criticisms—Mezzofanti’s

Latinity—His English—Dr. Baines—Cardinal Wiseman—Mr. Monckton

Milnes—Mezzofanti’s style formed on books—Lady Morgan’s opinion

of his English—Swedish Literature—Professor Carlson—Count

Oxenstjerna—Armenian Literature—Mgr. Hurmuz—Padre Angiarakian

Arabic of Syria—Greek Literature—Mgr. Missir—Romaic—Abate

Matranga—Polish Literature—Sicilian—The poet Meli, pp. 338-54.

CHAPTER XIII. (1836-38.)

Californian students in Propaganda—Californian

language—Mezzofanti’s success in it—Nigger Dutch of

Curaçoa—American Indians in Propaganda—Augustine

Hamelin—“The Blackbird”—Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Indian

languages—Dr. Kip—Algonquin—Chippewa Delaware—Father

Thavenet—His studies in the Propaganda—Arabic—Albanese—Mr.

Fernando’s notice of him—Cingalese—East Indian

languages—Hindostani—Mahratta—Guzarattee—Dr. M’Auliffe—Count

Lackersteen—M. Eyoob—Chinese, difficulty of—Chinese

students—Testimony of Abate Umpierres—Cardinal Wiseman—West

African languages—Father Brunner—Angolese—Oriental

languages—Paul Alkushi—“Shalom”—Letter, pp. 355-72.

CHAPTER XIV. (1838-41.)

Created Cardinal—The Cardinalate—Its history, duties,

emoluments, congregations, offices—Mezzofanti’s

poverty—Kindness of Gregory XVI.—Congratulations

of his Bolognese friends—The Filopieri—Polyglot

congratulations of the Propaganda—Friends among the

Cardinals—His life as Cardinal—Still continues to acquire

new languages—Abyssinian—M. d’Abbadie—His visit to

Mezzofanti—Basque—Amarinna—Arabic—Ilmorma—Mezzofanti’s

failure—Studies Amarinna—Abyssinian Embassy to Rome—Their

account of the Cardinal—The Basque language—M. d’Abbadie—Prince

L.L. Bonaparte—M. Dassance—Strictures on Mezzofanti—Mrs.

Paget—Baron Glucky de Stenitzer—Guido Görres—Modesty of

Mezzofanti—Mr. Kip—Görres—Cardinal Wiseman—Mezzofanti among

the pupils of the Propaganda, pp. 373-97.

CHAPTER XV. (1841-43.)

Author’s recollections of Mezzofanti in 1841—His personal

appearance and manner; his attractive simplicity—Languages

in which the author heard him speak—His English

conversation—Various opinions regarding it—Impressions of

the author—Anecdotes—Cardinal Wiseman—Rev. John Smyth—Father

Kelleher—His knowledge of English literature—Mr. Harford—Dr.

Cox—Cardinal Wiseman—Mr. Grattan—Mr. Badeley—Hudibras—Author’s

own conversation with the Cardinal—The Tractarian movement—Mr.

Grattan—Baron Bunsen—Author’s second visit to Rome—The

Polyglot Academy of the Propaganda—Playful trial of

Mezzofanti’s powers by the students—His wonderful versatility

of language—Analogous examples of this faculty—Description

of it by visitors—His own illustration—The Irish

language—Mezzofanti’s admission regarding it—The Etruria

Celtica—The Eugubian Tables—Amusing experiment suggested

by Mezzofanti—Dr. Murphy—The Gælic language—Mezzofanti’s

extempore Metrical compositions—Specimens—Rapidity with which

he wrote them—Power of accommodating his pronunciation of

Latin to that of the various countries—National interjectional

sounds—Playfulness—Puns, pp. 398-431.

CHAPTER XVI. (1843-49.)

Death of his nephew Mgr. Minarelli—His sister

Teresa—Letter—Visitors—Rev. Ingraham Kip—English

conversation—English literature—American literature—The

American Indian languages—Scottish dialect—Burns and Walter

Scott—Rev. John Gray—Mezzofanti as a philologer—Baron

Bunsen—The Abbé Gaume—French patois—Spanish—Father

Burrueco—Mexican—Peruvian—New Zealand language—Armenian

and Turkish—Father Trenz—Russian—M. Mouravieff—The

Emperor Nicholas—Polish—Klementyna z Tanskich

Hoffmanowa—Makrena, Abbess of Minsk—Her history—Her account

of Mezzofanti—His occupations—House of Catechumens—First

communion—_Fervorini_—The confessional—Death of Gregory

XVI.—Election of Pius IX.—Mezzofanti’s epigrams on the

occasion—His relations with the new Pope—Father Bresciani’s

account of him—The revolution of 1848—Its effect on Cardinal

Mezzofanti—His illness—Death and funeral, pp. 432-56.

CHAPTER XVII. (RECAPITULATION.)

Plan pursued in preparing this Biography—Points of

inquiry—Number of languages known to Mezzofanti—What is meant

by knowledge of a language—Popular notion of it—Mezzofanti’s

number of languages progressive—Dr. Minarelli’s list of

languages known by him—Classification of languages according

to the degrees of his knowledge—Languages spoken by him with

great perfection—Languages spoken less perfectly—Languages in

which he could initiate a conversation—Languages known from

books—Dialects—Southern and central American languages—Total

number known to him in various degrees—His speaking of

languages not literally faultless, but perfect to a degree

rare in foreigners—Comparison with other linguists—His plan

of studying languages—Various systems of study—Mezzofanti’s

method involved much labour—Habit of thinking in foreign

languages—His success a special gift of nature—In what this

consisted—Quickness of perception—Analysis—Memory—Peculiarity

of his memory—His enthusiasm and simplicity—Mezzofanti as a

philologer, as a critic, a historian, a man of science—Piety

and charity, liberal and tolerant spirit—Social virtues, pp. 457-493.

APPENDIX, pp. 495-502.

CORRIGENDA.

Page 35, Line 5, for “yards” read “feet.”

52, last, after “(1704),” supply “who.”

57, 21, for “Bourmouf,” read “Bournouf.”

59, 8, for “John and,” read “and John.”

76, 2nd last, for “Boehthingk,” read “Boehtlingk.”

117, 4th last, (and three other places,) for “marvelous,”

read “marvellous.”

119, 2nd last, for “months,” read “years.”

121, 2nd last, for “Hall,” read “Hill.”

281, 22, for “Grüner,” read “Grüder.”

283, 17, for “Rabinical,” read “Rabbinical.”

312, 10, for “unable,” read “able.”

426, 4th last, for “seneeta,” read “senecta;” also

interchange ; and !

Transcriber’s Note: The corrections have been made.

[Illustration: _Fac-similes in Sixteen Languages._]

MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LINGUISTS.

In the Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti I have attempted to ascertain, by

direct evidence, the exact number of languages with which that great

linguist was acquainted, and the degree of his familiarity with each.

Eminence in any pursuit, however, is necessarily relative. We are

easily deceived about a man’s stature until we have seen him by the

side of other men; nor shall we be able to form a just notion of the

linguistic accomplishments of Cardinal Mezzofanti, or at least to bring

them before our minds as a practical reality, until we shall have first

considered what had been effected before him by other men who attained to

distinction in the same department.

I have thought it desirable, therefore, to prefix to his Life a summary

history of the most eminent linguists of ancient and modern times. There

is no branch of scholarship which has left fewer traces in literature,

or has received a more scanty measure of justice from history. Viewed in

the light of a curious but unpractical pursuit, skill in languages is

admired for a time, perhaps indeed enjoys an exaggerated popularity; but

it passes away like a nine days’ wonder, and seldom finds an exact or

permanent record. Hence, while the literature of every country abounds

with memoirs of distinguished poets, philosophers, and historians, few,

even among professed antiquarians, have directed their attention to the

history of eminent linguists, whether in ancient or in modern times. In

all the ordinary repositories of curious learning—Pliny, Aulus Gellius,

and Athenæus, among the ancients; Bayle, Gibbon, Feyjoo, Disraeli,

and Vulpius, among the moderns—this interesting chapter is entirely

overlooked; nor does it appear to have engaged the attention even of

linguists or philologers themselves.

The following Memoir, therefore, must claim the indulgence due to a first

essay in a new and difficult subject. No one can be more sensible than

the writer of its many imperfections;—of the probable omission of names

which should have been recorded;—of the undue prominence of others with

inferior pretensions; and perhaps of still more serious inaccuracies of

a different kind. It is only offered in the absence of something better

and more complete; and with the hope of directing to what is certainly a

curious and interesting subject, the attention of others who enjoy more

leisure and opportunity for its investigation.

* * * * *

The diversity of languages which prevails among the various branches

of the human family, has proved, almost equally with their local

dispersion, a barrier to that free intercommunion which is one of

the main instruments of civilization. “The confusion of tongues, the

first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man,” says Bacon, in

the Introductory Book of his “Advancement of Learning,” “hath chiefly

imbarred the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge.”[1]

Perhaps it would be more correct to say that these two great impediments

to intercourse have mutually assisted each other. The divergency of

languages seems to keep pace with the dispersion of the population.

Adelung lays it down as the result of the most careful philological

investigations, that where the difficulties of intercourse are such as

existed among the ancients and as still prevail among the less civilized

populations, no language can maintain itself unchanged over a space of

more than one hundred and fifty thousand square miles.[2]

It might naturally be expected, therefore, that one of the earliest

efforts of the human intellect would have been directed towards the

removal of this barrier, and that one of the first sciences to invite

the attention of men would have been the knowledge of languages. Few

sciences, nevertheless, were more neglected by the ancients.

It is true that the early literatures of many of the ancient nations

contain legends on this head which might almost throw into the shade the

greatest marvels related of Mezzofanti. In one of the Chinese stories

regarding the youth of Buddha, translated by Klaproth, it is related

that, when he was ten years old, he asked his preceptor, Babourenou, to

teach him all the languages of the earth, seeing that he was to be an

apostle to all men; and that when Babourenou confessed his ignorance

of all except the Indian dialects, the child himself taught his master

“fifty foreign tongues with their respective characters.”[3] A still

more marvellous tale is told by one of the Rabbinical historians, Rabbi

Eliezer, who relates that Mordechai, (one of the great heroes of Talmudic

legend), was acquainted with seventy languages; and that it was by means

of this gift he understood the conversation of the two eunuchs who were

plotting in a foreign tongue the death of the king.[4] Nor is the Koran

without its corresponding prodigy. When the Prophet was carried up to

Heaven, before the throne of the Most High, “God promised that he should

have the knowledge of all languages.”[5]

But when we turn to the genuine records of antiquity, we find no ground

for the belief that such legends as these have even that ordinary

substructure of truth which commonly underlies the fables of mythology.

Neither the Sacred Narratives, nor those of the early profane authors,

contain a single example of remarkable proficiency in languages.

It is true that in the later days of the Jewish people, interpreters

were appointed in the synagogues to explain the lessons read from the

Hebrew Scriptures for the benefit of their foreign brethren; that in

all the courts of the Eastern monarchs interpreters were found, through

whom they communicated with foreign envoys, or with the motley tribes of

their own empire; and that professional interpreters were at the service

of foreigners in the great centres of commerce or travel,[6] who, it

may be presumed, were masters of several languages. The philosophers,

too, who traversed remote countries in pursuit of wisdom, can hardly be

supposed to have returned without some acquaintance with the languages

of the nations among whom they had voyaged. Solon and Pythagoras are

known to have visited Egypt and the East; the latter also sojourned for

a considerable time in Italy and the islands; the wanderings of Plato

are said to have been even more extensive. Nay, in some instances these

pilgrims of knowledge extended their researches beyond the limits of

their own ethnographical region. Thus, on the one hand, the Scythian

sages, Anacharsis and Zamolxis, themselves most probably of the Mongol

or Tartar tongue, sojourned for a long time in countries where the

Indo-European family of languages alone prevailed; on the other, the

merchants of Tyre were in familiar and habitual intercourse with the

Italo-Pelasgic race; and the Phœnician explorers, in their well-known

circumnavigation of Africa described by Herodotus, must have come

in contact with still more numerous varieties both of race and of

tongue. Nevertheless it may fairly be doubted whether these or similar

opportunities among the ancients, resulted in any very remarkable

attainments in the department of languages. The absence of all record

furnishes a strong presumption to the contrary; and there is one example,

that of Herodotus, which would almost be in itself conclusive. This acute

and industrious explorer devoted many years to foreign travel. He visited

every city of note in Greece and Asia Minor, and every site of the

great battles between the Greeks and Barbarians. He explored the whole

line of the route of Xerxes in his disastrous expedition. He visited in

succession all the chief islands of the Egean, as well as those of the

western coast of Greece. His landward wanderings extended far into the

interior. He reached Babylon, Ecbatana, and Susa, and spent some time

among the Scythian tribes on the shores of the Black Sea. He resided

long in Egypt, from which he passed southwards as far as Elephantine,

eastwards into Arabia, and westwards through Lybia, at least as far as

Cyrene. And yet Dahlmann is of opinion that, with all his industry, and

all the spirit of inquiry which was his great characteristic, Herodotus

never became acquainted even with the language of Egypt, but contented

himself with the service of an interpreter.[7]

In like manner, it would be difficult to shew, either from the Cyropædia,

or the Expedition of Cyrus, that Xenophon, during his foreign travel,

became master of Persian or any kindred Eastern tongue. Nor am I aware

that there has ever been discovered in the writings of Plato any evidence

of familiarity with the language of those Eastern philosophers from whose

science he is believed to have drawn so largely.

It is strange that the two notable exceptions to this barrenness of

eminent linguists which characterizes the classic times, Mithridates

and Cleopatra, should both have been of royal rank. The former, the

celebrated king of Pontus, long one of the most formidable enemies of

the Roman name, is alleged to have spoken fluently the languages of all

the subjects of his empire; an empire so vast, and comprising so many

different nationalities as to throw an air of improbability over the

story. According to Aulus Gellius,[8] he “was thoroughly conversant”

(_percalluit_) with the languages of all the nations (_twenty-five in

number_) over which his rule extended.[9] The other writers who relate

the circumstance—Valerius Maximus,[10] Pliny,[11] and Solinus—make the

number only twenty-two. Some commentators have regarded the story as a

gross exaggeration; and others have sought to diminish its marvellousness

by explaining it of different dialects, rather than of distinct

languages. But there does not appear in the narrative of the original

writers any reason whether for the doubt or for the restriction. Pliny

declares that “it is quite certain;” and the matter-of-fact tone in which

they all relate it, makes it clear that they wished to be understood

literally. It was the king’s invariable practice, they tell us, to

communicate with all the subjects of his polyglot empire directly and in

person, and “never through an interpreter;” and Gellius roundly affirms

that he was able to converse in each and every one of these tongues

“with as much correctness as if it were his native dialect.”

The attainments of Cleopatra, although far short of what is reported

of Mithridates, are nevertheless described by Plutarch[12] as very

extraordinary. He says that she “spoke most languages, and that there

were but few of the foreign ambassadors to whom she gave audience through

an interpreter.” The languages which he specifies are those of the

Ethiopians, of the Troglodytes (probably a dialect of Coptic), of the

Hebrews, of the Arabs, the Syrians, the Medes, and the Persians; but

he adds that this list does not comprise all the languages which this

extraordinary woman understood.

Now the very prominence assigned to these examples, and the absence of

all allusion to any other which might be supposed to approximate to them,

may afford a presumption that they are almost solitary. Valerius Maximus,

in his well-known chapter _De Studio et Industria_, cites the case of

Mithridates as a very remarkable example “of study and industry.” It is

highly probable therefore, that, if he knew any other eminent linguists,

he would have added their names. Yet the only cases which he instances

are those of Cato learning Greek in his old age, of Themistocles

acquiring Persian during his exile, and of Publius mastering all the five

dialects of Greece during the time of his Prætorship. In like manner,

Aulus Gellius has no more notable linguist to produce, in contrast with

Mithridates, than the old poet Ennius, who used to boast that he had

three hearts,[13] because he could speak Greek, Latin, and his rude

native dialect, Oscan. And Pliny, with all his love of parallels, is even

more meagre:—he does not recite a single name in comparison with that of

Mithridates.

* * * * *

The Romans, especially under the early Republic, appear to have been

singularly indifferent or unsuccessful in cultivating languages; and

the bad Greek of the Roman ambassadors to Tarentum, for their ridicule

of which the Tarentines paid so dearly, is almost an average specimen

of the accomplishments of the earlier Romans as linguists. Nor can

this circumstance fail to appear strange, when it is remembered over

how many different races and tongues the wide domain of Rome extended.

The very multiplicity of languages submitted to her government would

seem to have imposed upon her public men the necessity of familiarizing

themselves, even for the discharge of their public office, with at least

the principal ones among them. But, on the contrary, for a long time they

steadily pursued the policy of imposing, as far as practicable, upon

the conquered nationalities the Latin language, at least in public and

official transactions.[14]

And, so far as regards the Eastern and Northern languages, this exclusion

was successfully and permanently enforced at Rome. The slave population

of the city comprised almost every variety of race within the limits of

the Empire. The very names of the slaves who are introduced in the plays

of Plautus and Terence—Syra, Phœnicium, Afer, Geta, Dorias, &c. (which

are but their respective gentile appellatives)—embrace a very large

circle of the languages of Asia, Africa, and Northern Europe. And yet,

with the exception of a single scene in the Pænulus of Plautus, in which

the well-known Punic speech of Hanno the Carthaginian is introduced,[15]

there is nothing in either of these dramatists from which we could

infer that any of the manifold languages of the slave population of

Rome effected an entrance among their haughty masters. They were all as

completely ignored by the Romans, as is the vernacular Celtic of the

Irish agricultural servant in the midland counties of England.

But it was not so for Greek. From the Augustan age onwards, this polished

language began to dispute the mastery with Latin, even in Rome itself.

“Græcia capta ferum cepit captorem, et artes

Intulit agresti Latio—”

applies to the language, even more than to the arts. In the days of the

Rhetorician, Molon, (Cicero’s master in eloquence,) Greek had obtained

the entrée of the Senate. In the time of Tiberius, its use was permitted

even in forensic pleadings. With the emperors who succeeded,[16] the

triumph of Greek was still more complete. From Pliny downwards, there is

hardly an author of eminence in the Roman Empire who did not write in

that language;—Pausanias, Dion, Galen, even the Emperor Marcus Aurelius

himself, with all the traditionary Roman associations of his name.

It was so also with the Christian population and the Christian literature

of Rome. Almost all the Christian writings of the first two centuries

are in Greek. The early Roman liturgy was Greek. The population of Rome

was in great part a Greek-speaking race. A large proportion of the

inscriptions in the Roman Catacombs are Greek, and some even of the Latin

ones are engraved in Greek characters. Nay, the early Christian churches

in Gaul, Vienne, Lyons, and Marseilles, and the few remains of their

literature which have reached us, are equally Greek.[17]

In a word, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, making

due allowance for the difference of the periods, Greek and Latin held

towards each other in Rome the same relation which we find between

Norman-French and Saxon in England after the Conquest; and we may safely

say that, during those centuries, a knowledge of both languages was the

ordinary accomplishment of all educated men, and was shared by many of

the lowest of the population.

Beyond this limit, however, we read of no remarkable linguists even among

the accomplished scholars of the Augustan age. No one will doubt that the

two Varros may fairly be taken as, in this respect, the most favourable

specimens of the class. Now neither of them seems to have gone further

than a knowledge of Greek. Out of the four hundred and ninety books which

Marcus Terentius Varro wrote, there is not one named which would indicate

familiarity with any other foreign language.

The Neo-Platonists of the second and third centuries, whose researches

in Oriental Philosophy must have brought them into contact with some of

the Eastern languages, may possibly form an exception to this general

statement; but, on the whole, in the absence of positive and exact

information on the subject, it may not unreasonably be conjectured that,

among the Christian scholars of the second, third, and fourth centuries,

we might find a wider range of linguistic attainments than among their

gentile contemporaries. The critical study of the Bible itself involved

the necessity of familiarity, not only with Greek and Hebrew, but with

more than one cognate oriental dialect besides. St. Jerome, besides

the classic languages and his native Illyrian, is known to have been

familiar with several of the Eastern tongues; and it is not improbable

that some of the earlier commentators and expositors of the Bible may be

taken as equally favourable specimens of the Christian linguists.[18]

Origen’s Hexapla is a monument of his scholarship in Hebrew, and probably

in Syriac and Samaritan. St. Clement of Alexandria was perhaps even a

more accomplished linguist; for he tells that of the masters under whom

he studied, one was from Greece, one from Magna Græcia, a third from

Cœle-Syria, a fourth from Egypt, a fifth an Assyrian, and a sixth a

Hebrew.[19] And St. Gregory Nazianzen expressly relates of his friend St.

Basil, that, even before he came to Athens to commence his rhetorical

studies, he was already well-versed in many languages.[20]

From the death of Constantine, however, the study began rapidly to

decline, even among ecclesiastics. The disruption of the Empire naturally

tended to diminish the intercourse between East and West, and by

consequence the interchange of their languages. It would appear, too, as

if the barbarian conquerors adopted, in favour of their own languages,

the same policy which the Romans had pursued for Latin. Attila is said

to have passed a law prohibiting the use of the Latin language in his

newly conquered kingdom,[21] and to have taken pains, by importing native

teachers, to procure the substitution of Gothic in its stead. At all

events, in whatever way the change was brought about, a knowledge of

both Greek and Latin, which in the classic times of the Empire had been

the ordinary accomplishment of every educated man, became uncommon and

almost exceptional. Pope Gregory the Great, who, bitterly as he has been

assailed as an enemy of letters, must be confessed to have been the

most eminent Western scholar of his day, spoke Greek very imperfectly;

he complains that it was difficult, even at Constantinople, to find any

one who could translate Greek satisfactorily into Latin;[22] and a still

earlier instance is recorded, in which a pope, in other respects a man

of undoubted ability, was unable to translate the letter of the Greek

patriarch, much less to communicate with the Greek ambassadors, except

through an interpreter.[23]

More than one, indeed, of the early theological controversies was

embittered through the misunderstandings caused between the East and

West by mutual ignorance of each other’s language. Pelagius succeeded

in obtaining a favourable decision from the Council of Jerusalem in

415, chiefly because, while his Western adversary, Orosius, was unable

to speak Greek, the fathers of the Council were ignorant of Latin. The

protracted controversy on the Three Chapters owed much of its inveteracy

to the ignorance of the Westerns[24] of the original language of the

works whose orthodoxy was impugned; and it is well known that the

condemnation of the decree of the sixth council on the use of sacred

images issued by the fathers of Francfort, was based exclusively on a

strangely erroneous Latin translation of the acts of the council, through

which translation alone they were known in Germany and Gaul.[25]

The foundation of the Empire of Charlemagne consummated the separation

between the Greek and Latin races and their languages. The venerated

names of Bede and of Alcuin in the Western Church, and the more

questionable celebrity of the Patriarch Photius in the Eastern,

constitute a passing exception. But it need hardly be added that they

stand almost entirely alone; and it will readily be believed that,

amid the Barbarian irruptions from without, and the fierce intestine

revolutions, of which Europe was the theatre during the rest of the

earlier mediæval period, even that familiarity with the Greek and

oriental languages which we have described, entirely disappeared in the

West.

The wars of the Crusades, and the reviving intellectual activity

in which this and other great events of the second mediæval period

originated, gave a new impulse to the study of languages. Frederic II.,

a remarkable example of the union of great intellectual gifts with deep

moral perversity, spoke fluently six languages, Latin, Greek, Italian,

German, Hebrew, and even Arabic.[26] The Moorish schools in Spain began

to be visited by Christian students. In this manner Arabic found its

way into the West; and the intermixture of learned Jews in the European

kingdoms afforded similar opportunities for the cultivation of Hebrew,

which were turned to account by many, especially among biblical scholars.

On the other hand, notwithstanding the contempt for profane learning

which breathes through the Koran, the Saracen scholars began to direct

their attention to the learning of other creeds, and the languages of

other races. Ibn Wasil, who came into Italy in 1250 as ambassador to

Manfred, the son of Frederic II., was reported to be familiar with the

Western tongues. The Spanish Moors, too, began sedulously to cultivate

Greek. The works of Aristotle, of Galen, of Dioscorides, and many other

Greek writers, chiefly philosophical, were translated into Arabic by

Averroes, Ibn Djoldjol and Avicenna. And the Jewish scholars of that age

were equally assiduous in the cultivation of Greek. The learned Rabbi

Maimonides, born in Cordova in the early part of the 12th century, was

not only master of many Eastern tongues, but was also thoroughly familiar

with the Greek language.

It would be a mistake, however, to imagine that it was among the Moors or

the Hebrews that the revival of the study of languages first commenced.

Alcuin, in addition to the modern languages with which his sojourn in

various kingdoms must have made him acquainted, was also familiar with

Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Hermann, the Dalmatian, the first translator

of the Koran, was well acquainted with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.

The celebrated Raymond Lully, who was a native of Majorca, was able to

lecture in Latin Greek, Arabic, and perhaps Hebrew;—an accomplishment

especially wonderful in one who was among the most laborious and

prolific writers of his age, and who left after him, according to some

authorities, (though this, no doubt, is a great exaggeration), not less

than a thousand[27] works on the most diversified subjects. At the

instance of this eminent orientalist, the council of Vienne directed that

professorships should be founded in all the great Universities, for the

Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic languages.[28]

An example of, for the period, very remarkable proficiency in modern

languages is recorded in the history of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.

Roderigo Ximenes,[29] Archbishop of Toledo in the early part of the

thirteenth century, a native of Navarre, but a scholar of the University

of Paris, was one of the representatives of the Spanish Church at that

Council. A controversy regarding the Primacy of Spain had arisen between

the Sees of Toledo and Compostella, which was referred for adjudication

to the bishops there assembled. Ximenes addressed to the council a long

Latin oration in defence of the claim of Toledo; and, as many of his

auditory, which consisted both of the clergy and the laity, were ignorant

of that language, he repeated the same argument in a series of discourses

addressed to the natives of each country in succession; to the Romans,

Germans, French, English, Navarrese, and Spaniards,[30] each in their

respective tongues. Thus the number of languages in which he spoke was

at least seven, and it is highly probable that he had others at his

disposal, if his auditory had been of such a nature as to render them

necessary.

The taste for the languages and literature of the East received a

further stimulus from the foundation of the Christian principalities

at Antioch and Jerusalem, from the establishment of the Latin Empire

at Constantinople, and in general from the long wars in the East, to

which the enthusiasm of the age attracted the most enterprising spirits

of European chivalry. The pious pilgrimages, too, contributed to the

same result. Many of the knights or palmers, on their return from the

East, brought with them the knowledge, not only of Greek, but of more

than one of the oriental languages besides. The long imprisonments to

which, during the holy wars, and the Latin campaigns against the Turks,

they were often subjected, supplied another occasion of familiarity with

Arabic, Syriac, Turkish, or Persian.

The commercial enterprise of the Western Nations, and especially of

the Venetians and Genoese, was a still more powerful instrument of the

interchange of languages. Few modern voyagers have possessed more of

that spirit of travel which is the best aid towards the acquisition of

foreign tongues, than the celebrated Marco Polo. It is hard to suppose

that he can have returned from his extensive wanderings in Persia, in

Tartary, in the Indian Archipelago, and in China and Tibet, without some

tincture of their languages. Still less can this be supposed of his

countryman, Josaphat Barbaro, who sojourned for sixteen years among the

Tartar tribes.[31] It was in the commercial settlements of the Venetians

in the Levant that the profession of interpreters, of which I shall have

to speak hereafter, and which has since become hereditary in certain

families, was originated or brought to perfection.[32]

* * * * *

It is only, however, from the revival of letters, properly so called,

that the history of linguistic studies can be truly said to commence.

The attention of Scholars, in the first instance, was chiefly directed

towards the classical languages and the languages of the Bible. The

Greek scholars who were driven to the West by the Moslem occupation of

Constantinople brought their language, in its best and most attractive

form, to the Universities of Italy. In the Council of Florence, in 1438,

more than one Italian divine, especially Ambrogio Traversari, was found

capable of holding discussions with the Greek representatives in their

native tongue. In like manner, the Jews and Moors, who were exiled from

Spain by the harsh and impolitic measures of Ferdinand and Isabella,

deposited through all the schools of Europe the seeds of a solid and

critical knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic and their cognate languages. The

fruits of their teaching may be discerned at a comparatively early period

in the biblical studies of the time. Antonio de Lebrixa published, in

1481, a grammar of the Latin, Castilian and Hebrew languages: and I need

only allude to the mature and various oriental learning which Cardinal

Ximenes found ready to his hand, in the very first years of the sixteenth

century, for the compilation of the Complutensian Polyglot. Although

some of the scholars whom he engaged, as for instance, Demetrius Ducas,

were Greeks; and others, as Alfonzo Zamora or Pablo Coronell,[33] were

converted Jews; yet, the names of Lopez de Zuniga, Nunez de Guzman, and

Vergara[34] are a sufficient evidence of the success with which the

co-operation of native scholars was enlisted in the undertaking.[35]

* * * * *

From this period the number of scholars eminent in the department

of languages becomes so great, and the history of many among them

presents so frequent points of resemblance, that it may conduce to the

greater distinctness of the narrative to classify separately the most

distinguished linguists of each among the principal nations.

§ I. LINGUISTS OF THE EAST.

Although the inquiry must of course commence with the East, the cradle

of human language, unfortunately the materials for this portion of the

subject are more meagre and imperfectly preserved than any other.

In the East indeed, the faculty of language appears, for the most part,

in a form quite different from what we shall find among the scholars of

the West. The Eastern linguists, with a few exceptions, have been eminent

as mere _speakers_ of languages, rather than scholars even in the loosest

sense of the word.

As it is in the East that the office of _Dragoman_ or “interpreter” first

rose to the dignity of a profession, so all the most notable Oriental

linguists have belonged to that profession.

A very remarkable specimen of this class occurs in the reign of Soliman

the Magnificent, and flourished in the early part of the sixteenth

century. A most interesting account is given of him, under his Turkish

name of Genus Bey, by Thevet, in that curious repertory—his _Cosmographie

Universelle_.[36] He was the son of a poor fisherman, of the Island of

Corfu; and while yet a boy, was carried away by pirates and sold as a

slave at Constantinople. Thence he was carried into Egypt, Syria, and

other Eastern countries; and he would also seem to have visited most of

the European kingdoms, or at least to have enjoyed the opportunity of

intercourse with natives of them all. His proficiency in the languages

both of the East and West, drew upon him the notice of the Sultan, who

appointed him his First Dragoman, with the rank of Pasha. Thevet (who

would seem to have known him personally during his wanderings,) describes

him in his quaint old French, as “the first man of his day for speaking

divers sorts of languages, and of the happiest memory under the Heavens.”

He adds, that this extraordinary man “knew perfectly no fewer than

sixteen languages, viz: Greek, both ancient and modern, Hebrew, Arabic,

Persian, Turkish, Moorish, Tartar, Armenian, Russian, Hungarian, Polish,

Italian, Spanish, German, and French.” Genus Bey, was, of course, a

renegade; but, from a circumstance related by Thevet, he appears to have

retained a reverence for his old faith, though not sufficiently strong to

be proof against temptation. He was solicited by some bigoted Moslems to

remove a bell, which the Christians had been permitted to erect in their

little church. For a time he refused to permit its removal; but at last

he was induced by a large bribe, to accede to the demand. Thevet relates

that, in punishment of his sacrilegious weakness, he was struck with that

loathsome disease which smote King Herod, and perished miserably in nine

days from the date of this inauspicious act.

In Naima’s “Annals of the Turkish Empire,” another renegade, a Hungarian

by birth, is mentioned, who spoke fourteen languages, and who, in

consequence of this accomplishment, was employed during a siege to carry

a message through the lines of the blockading army.[37]

A still more marvellous example of the gift of languages is mentioned by

Duret, in his _Trésor des Langues_ (p. 964)—that of Jonadab, a Jew of

Morocco, who lived about the same period. He was sold as a slave by the

Moors, and lived for twenty-six years in captivity in different parts

of the world. With more constancy to his creed, however, than the Corfu

Christian, he withstood every attempt to undermine his faith or to compel

its abjuration; and, from the obduracy of his resistance, received from

his masters the opprobrious name _Alhanar_, “the serpent” or “viper.”

Duret says that Jonadab spoke and wrote twenty-eight different languages.

He does not specify their names, however, nor have I been able to find

any other allusion to the man.

It would be interesting, if materials could be found for the inquiry,

to pursue this extremely curious subject through the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries, and especially in the military and commercial

establishments of the Venetians in the Morea and the islands. The race

of Dragomans has never ceased to flourish in the Levant. M. Antoine

d’Abbadie informed me that there are many families in which this office,

and sometimes the consular appointment for which it is an indispensable

qualification, have been hereditary for the last two or three centuries;

and that it is very common to find among them men and women who,

sufficiently for all the ordinary purposes of conversation, speak Arabic,

Turkish, Greek, Italian, Spanish, English, German, and French, with

little or no accent. This accomplishment is not confined to one single

nation. Mr. Burton, in his “Pilgrimage to Medinah and Meccah,” mentions

an Afghan who “spoke five or six languages.”[38] He speaks of another,

a Koord settled at Medinah, who “spoke five languages in perfection.”

The traveller, he assures us, “may hear the Cairene donkey-boys shouting

three or four European dialects with an accent as good as his own;” and

he “has frequently known Armenians (to whom, among all the Easterns, he

assigns the first place as linguists) speak, besides their mother tongue,

Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Hindostanee, and at the same time display

an equal aptitude for the Occidental languages.”[39]

But of all the Eastern linguists of the present day the most notable

seem to be the ciceroni who take charge of the pilgrims at Mecca, many

of whom speak fluently every one of the numerous languages which prevail

over the vast region of the Moslem. Mr. Burton fell in at Mecca with

a one-eyed Hadji, who spoke fluently and with good accent Turkish,

Persian, Hindostani, Pushtu, Armenian, English, French, and Italian.[40]

In the “Turkish Annals” of Naima, already cited, the learned Vankuli

Mohammed Effendi, a contemporary of Sultan Murad Khan, is described as

“a perfect linguist.”[41] Many similar instances might, without much

difficulty, be collected; nor can it be doubted that, among the numerous

generations which have thus flourished and passed away in the East, there

may have been rivals for Genus Bey, or even for “the Serpent” himself.

But unhappily their fame has been local and transitory. They were admired

during their brief day of success, but are long since forgotten; nor is

it possible any longer to recover a trace of their history. They are

unknown,

Carent quia vate sacro.[42]

It would be a great injustice, however, to represent this as the

universal character of the Eastern linguists. On the contrary, it has

only needed intercourse with the scholars of the West in order to draw

out what appears to be the very remarkable aptitude of the native

Orientals for the scientific study of languages. Thus the learned

Portuguese Jew, Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel (1604-1657), was not only a

thorough master of the Oriental languages, but was able to write with

ease and exactness several of the languages of the West, and published

almost indifferently in Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, and English.[43] I allude

more particularly, however, to those bodies of Eastern Christians, which,

from their community of creed with the Roman Church, have, for several

centuries, possessed ecclesiastical establishments in Rome and other

cities of Europe.

The Syrians had been remarkable, even from the classic times,[44] for

the patient industry with which they devoted themselves to the labour of

translation from foreign languages into their own. Many of the modern

Syrians, however, have deserved the still higher fame of original

scholarship.

The Maronite community of Syrian Christians has produced several scholars

of unquestioned eminence. Abraham Echellensis was one of the chief

assistants of Le Jay, at Paris, in the preparation of his Polyglot. His

services in a somewhat similar capacity at Rome are familiar to all

Oriental scholars. But it is to the name of Assemani that the Maronite

body owes most of its reputation. For a time, indeed, literature would

seem to have been almost an inheritance in the family of Assemani. It has

contributed to the catalogue of Oriental scholars no less than five of

its members—Joseph Simon, who died in 1768; his nephews, Stephen Evodius

and Joseph Lewis; Joseph Aloysius, who died at Rome in 1782; and Simon,

who died at Padua in 1821. The first of them is the well-known editor of

the works of St. Ephrem, and author of the great repertory of Oriental

ecclesiastical erudition, the _Bibliotheca Orientalis_.

The Greeks, with greater resources, and under circumstances more

favourable, are less distinguished as linguists. John Matthew

Caryophilos, a native of Corfu, who was archbishop of Iconium and

resided at Rome in the early part of the seventeenth century, was a

learned Orientalist, and, besides several literary works of higher

pretension, published some elementary books on the Chaldee, Syriac, and

Coptic languages. But he has few imitators among his countrymen. Leo

Allatius (Allazzi), although a profound scholar, and familiar with every

department of the literature of the West, whether sacred or profane,[45]

can hardly be considered a linguist in the ordinary sense of the word.

The same may be said of the many Greek students, as, for instance,

Metaxa, Meletius Syrius, and others, who, during the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries, repaired to the universities of Italy, France,

and even England.[46] It can hardly be doubted, of course, that many of

them acquired a certain familiarity with the languages of the countries

in which they sojourned, but no traces of this knowledge appear to be

now discoverable. By far the most notable of them, Cyrillus Lucaris,

the well-known Calvinistic Patriarch of Constantinople, spoke and

wrote fluently Arabic, Greek, Latin, and Italian; but, if his latinity

be a fair sample of his skill in the other languages, his place as a

linguist must be held low indeed.[47] It should be added, however,

that as polyglot speakers, the Greeks have long enjoyed a considerable

reputation. The celebrated Panagiotes Nicusius[48] (better known by his

Italianized name Panagiotti) obtained, despite all the prejudices of

race, the post of First Dragoman of the Porte, about the middle of the

seventeenth century; and, from his time forward, the office was commonly

held by a Greek, until the separation of Greece from the Ottoman Empire.

Mr. Burton’s observation that no natives of the East seem to possess the

faculty of language in a higher degree than the Armenians, is confirmed

by the experience of all other travellers; and the commercial activity

which has long distinguished them, and has led to their establishing

themselves in almost all the great European centres of commerce, has

tended very much to develope this national characteristic. A far higher

spirit of enterprise has led to the foundation of many religious

establishments of the Armenians in different parts of Europe, which have

rendered invaluable services, not only to their own native language

and literature, but to Oriental studies generally. Among these the

fathers of the celebrated Mechitarist order have earned for themselves,

by their manifold contributions to sacred literature, the title of

the Benedictines of the East. The publications of this learned order

(especially at their principal press in the convent of San Lazzaro,

Venice,) are too well known to require any particular notice. Most of

their publications regard historical or theological subjects; but many

also are on the subject of language,[49] as grammars, dictionaries,

and philological treatises. A little series of versions, the Prayers

of St. Nerses in twenty-four languages, printed at their press, is

one of the most beautiful specimens of polyglot typography with which

I am acquainted. Among the scholars of the order the names of Somal,

Rhedeston, Ingigean, Avedichian, Minaos, and, above all, of the two

Auchers, are the most prominent. One of the latter is best known to

English readers as the friend of Byron, his instructor in Armenian, and

his partner in the compilation of an Anglo-Armenian grammar. The fathers

of this order generally, however, both in Vienna and in Italy, have long

enjoyed the reputation of being excellent linguists. Visitors of the

Armenian convent of St. Lazzaro at Venice cannot fail to be struck by

this accomplishment among its inmates. Besides the ordinary Oriental

languages, most of them speak Italian, French, and often German. I have

heard from M. Antoine d’Abbadie that, in 1837, Dr. Pascal Aucher spoke no

less than twelve languages.

§ II. LINGUISTS OF ITALY.

The most prominent among the nations of the West at the period

immediately succeeding the Revival of Letters, is of course Italy.

* * * * *

The first in order, dating from this period, among the linguists of

Italy, is also in many respects the most remarkable of them all;—at least

as illustrating the possibility of uniting in a single individual the

most diversified intellectual attainments, each in the highest degree

of perfection;—the celebrated Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, son of the

Duke John Francis of that name.[50] He was born in 1463, and from his

childhood was regarded as one of the wonders of his age. Before he had

completed his tenth year, he delivered lectures in civil and canon law,

not less remarkable for eloquence than for learning. While yet a boy he

was familiar with all the principal Greek and Latin classics. He next

applied himself to Hebrew; and, while he was engaged in that study,

a large collection of cabalistic manuscripts, which were represented

to him as genuine works of Esdras, turned his attention to the other

Eastern languages, and especially the Chaldee, the Rabbinical dialect

of Hebrew, and the Arabic. Unfortunately, the strange and fantastic

learning with which he was thus thrown into contact gave a tinge to his

mind, which appears to have affected all his later studies. His progress

in languages, however, cannot but be regarded as prodigious, when we

consider the poverty of the linguistic resources of his age. At the age

of eighteen he had the reputation of knowing no fewer than twenty-two

languages, a considerable number of which he spoke with fluency. And

while he thus successfully cultivated the department of languages, he

was, at the same time, an extraordinary proficient in all the other

knowledge of his day. His memory was so wonderful as to be reckoned

among the marvellous examples of that gift which are enumerated by the

writers upon this faculty of the human mind. Cancellieri states that he

was able, after a single reading, not only to recite the contents of

any book which was offered to him, but to repeat the very words of the

author, and even in an inverted order.[51] In 1486 he maintained a thesis

in Rome, _De omni Re Scibili_. Much of the learning which it displayed

was certainly of a very idle and puerile character; much of it, too, was

the merest pedantry; but nevertheless it is undeniable that the nine

hundred propositions of which it consisted, comprised every department of

knowledge cultivated at that period. And it is impossible to doubt that,

if Pico’s career had been prolonged to the usual term of human life, his

reputation would have equalled that of the greatest scholars, whether of

the ancient or the contemporary world. He was cut off, however, at the

early age of thirty-one.

It is not unnatural to suppose that this circumstance, as well as the

rank of Pico, and the singular precocity of his talents, may have led to

a false or exaggerated estimate of his acquirements. But, even allowing

every reasonable deduction on this score, his claim must be freely

admitted to the character of one of the greatest wonders of his own or

any other age, whether he be considered as a linguist or as a general

scholar.

Marvellous, however, as is the reputation of Pico della Mirandola,

perhaps the science of language owes more to a less brilliant but more

practical scholar of the same period, Teseo Ambrosio, of the family of

the Albonesi. He was born at Pavia, in 1469. His admirers have not failed

to chronicle such precocious indications of genius as his composing

Italian, Latin, and even Greek poetry, before he was fifteen; but he

himself confesses that his proficiency in these studies dates from a

considerably later time. He entered the order of Canons Regular of St.

Augustine, and fixed his residence at Rome, where he devoted himself with

great assiduity to Oriental studies, and acquired such a reputation,

that when, in the Lateran Council of 1512, the united Ethiopic and

Maronite Christians solicited the privilege of using their own peculiar

liturgies while they maintained the communion of the Roman church, it was

to him the task of examining those liturgies, and of ascertaining how

far their teaching was in accordance with the doctrines of the Church,

was entrusted by the Holy See. Teseo assures us that, at the time when

he received this commission, he knew little more than the elements

of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic. He set to work with the assistance of

a native Syrian (who, however, was entirely ignorant of Latin); and,

carrying on their communication by mutual instruction, he was soon able

not only to master the difficulties of these languages, but to set on

foot what may be regarded as (at least conjointly with the Complutensian

Polyglot) one of the earliest systematic schemes for the promotion of

Oriental studies. He had types cast expressly for his projects; and he

himself prepared the Chaldee Psalter for the press, and repaired to his

native city of Pavia for the purpose of having it printed. He died (1539)

before it was completed;[52] but his types were turned to account by

other scholars. It was with Teseo’s types that William Postel printed two

out of the five Pater Nosters contained in his collection—the Chaldee

and the Armenian.[53] And to him we owe a still greater boon—the first

regular attempt at a Polyglot Grammar; which, however imperfectly,

comprises the elements of Chaldee, Syriac, Armenian, and ten other

languages.

The scholarship of Ambrogio was derived almost entirely from books.

His countryman, Antonio Pigafetta, enjoyed among his contemporaries a

different reputation, that of considerable skill as a speaker of foreign

languages, acquired during his extensive and protracted wanderings.

Pigafetta was born at Vicenza, towards the end of the fifteenth century.

In the expedition undertaken, under the patronage of Charles V., for the

conquest of the Moluccas, by the celebrated Fernando Magellan, the first

circumnavigator of the globe, one of the literary staff was Pigafetta,

who acted as historiographer of the expedition, and to whose narrative we

are indebted for all the particulars of it, which have been preserved.

Marzari describes Pigafetta as a prodigy of learning; and, although this

has been questioned by later inquirers,[54] there is no reason to doubt

his acquirements in modern languages at least, and particularly his

skill and success in obtaining information as to the languages of the

countries which he visited. It is to him[55] we are indebted for the

first vocabularies of the language of the Philippine and Molucca islands,

the merit of which is recognized even by recent philologers.[56]

It may be permitted to class with the linguists of Italy, a Corsican

scholar of the same period, Augustine, bishop of Nebia. It is difficult

to pronounce definitively as to the extent of his attainments; but his

skill in the ancient languages, at least, is sufficiently attested

by the polyglot Bible which he published, (containing the Hebrew,

Greek, Chaldee, and Arabic texts,) of which Sixtus of Sienna speaks

in the highest terms; and if we could receive without qualification

the statement of the same writer, we should conclude that Augustine’s

familiarity with modern languages was even more extensive. Sixtus of

Sienna describes him as “deeply versed in the languages of all the

nations which are scattered over the face of the earth.”

Towards the close of the sixteenth century the study of languages

in Italy assumed that practical character in relation to the actual

exigencies of missionary life by which it has ever since been mainly

characterized in that country. The Oriental press established at Florence

by the Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici, under the superintendence of the

great orientalist Giambattista Raimondi;[57] the opening at Rome of

the College _De Propaganda Fide_; the foundation of the College of San

Pancrazio, for the Carmelite Oriental Missions in 1662; the opening of

similar Oriental schools in the Dominican, the Franciscan, Augustinian,

and other orders, for the training of candidates for their respective

missions in the East; and above all, the constant intercourse with

the Eastern missions which began to be maintained, gave an impulse to

Oriental studies, the more powerful and the more permanent, because it

was founded on motives of religion; and although we do not meet among

the missionary linguists that marvellous variety of languages which

excites our wonder, yet we find in them abundant evidences of a solid and

practical scholarship, whose fruits, if less attractive, are more useful

and more enduring. Nearly all the linguists of Italy from the close of

the sixteenth century, appear to have been either actually missionaries,

or connected with the colleges of the foreign mission.

Thus, Antonio Giggei, one of the “Oblates of Mary,” taught Persian in

a missionary college, at Milan, and, at a later period, taught Arabic

in Florence. Giggei’s _Thesaurus Linguæ Arabicæ_,[58] is still much

esteemed. He wrote besides, a Grammar of Chaldee and of Rabbinical

Hebrew, which is still preserved in manuscript in the Ambrosian Library

at Milan; and his translation of a Rabbinical commentary on the

Proverbs of Solomon, published at Milan in 1620, is an evidence of his

familiarity, not only with Biblical Hebrew, but with the language of the

Talmud in all its successive phases.

In like manner, Clemente Galani, the eminent Armenian scholar, spent

no less than twelve years as a missionary in Armenia. On his return to

Rome, in 1650, he was such a proficient in the language that he was able,

not only to write both in Armenian and Latin his well-known work on the

conformity of the creeds of the Armenian and Roman Churches,[59] but also

to deliver theological lectures to the Armenian students in Rome in their

native tongue.[60]

Tommaso Ubicini was a Franciscan missionary in the Levant.[61] He was

born at Novara, and entered young into the order of Friar-minors. He

was named guardian of the Franciscan convent in Jerusalem; and, during

a residence of many years, made himself master, in addition to Hebrew

and Chaldee, of the Syriac, Arabic, and Coptic languages. The latter

years of his life were spent in the convent of San Pietro in Montorio

at Rome; where, besides publishing several works upon these languages,

be taught them to the students of his order. His great work, _Thesaurus

Arabico-Syro-Latinus_ was not published till 1636, several years after

his death.[62]

Ludovico Maracci, best known to English readers by the copious use to

which Gibbon has turned his translation and annotations of the Koran, was

one of the missionary “Clerks of the Mother of God.” He was born at Lucca

in 1612, and first obtained notice by the share which he had in the Roman

edition of the Arabic Bible, published in 1671. He taught Arabic for many

years with great distinction in the University of the Sapienza at Rome.

But his best celebrity is due to his critical edition of the Koran, and

the admirable translation which accompanies it.[63] From this repertory

of Arabic learning, Sale has borrowed, almost without acknowledgment, or

rather with occasional depreciatory allusions, all that is most valuable

in his translation and notes.

One of Maracci’s pupils, John Baptist Podestà, (born at Fazana early

in the 17th century), is another exception to the general rule. Having

perfected his Oriental studies in Constantinople, he was appointed

Oriental Secretary of the Emperor Leopold at Vienna, and attained

considerable reputation as Professor of Arabic in that university. He

published a Grammar of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish; which, however, was

severely, and, indeed, ferociously, criticised by his contemporary and

rival, Meninski.

But Podestà’s contemporary, Paolo Piromalli, was trained in the school

of the Mission. He was a native of Calabria, and became a member of the

Dominican order. Piromalli was for many years attached to the Mission

of his order in Armenia, and was eminently successful in reconciling

the separated Armenians to the Roman Church, having even the happiness

to number among his converts the schismatical patriarch himself. From

Armenia, Piromalli passed into the Missions of Georgia and Persia. He

afterwards went, in the capacity of Apostolic Nuncio, to Poland, with

a commission of much importance to the Emperor from the Pope, Urban

VIII. In the course of one of his voyages he was made prisoner by the

Algerine corsairs, and carried as a slave to Tunis; but he was soon after

redeemed and called to Rome, whence, after he had been entrusted with the

revision of an Armenian Bible, he was sent back to the East, as Bishop

of Nachkivan in 1655. He remained in this charge for nine years, and was

called home as Bishop of Bisignano, where he died in 1667. Piromalli

published two dictionaries, Persian and Armenian, and several other works

upon these languages.[64]

The Augustinian order in Italy, also, produced a linguist, not inferior

in solidity, and certainly superior in range of attainments, to any of

those hitherto enumerated—Antonio Agostino Giorgi.[65] He was born at

San Mauro, near Rimini, in 1711, and entered the Augustinian order at

Bologna; but Benedict XIV., who, during his occupancy of the see of

Bologna, had become acquainted with his merit, invited him to Rome after

his elevation to the Papacy, and appointed him to a professorship in

the Sapienza. Father Giorgi occupied this post with much distinction

for twenty-two years, till his death, in 1797. His acquirements as a

linguist were more various than those of any of the scholars hitherto

named. Besides modern languages, he knew not only Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee,

Samaritan, and Syriac, but also Coptic and (what was at that period a

much more rare accomplishment) Tibetan. On the last named language he

compiled an elementary work for the use of missionaries, which, although

it is not free from inaccuracies, deserves, nevertheless, the highest

praise as a first essay in that till then untried language.

Simon De Magistris, one of the priests of the Oratory, (born at Ferrara

in 1728) was for many years at the head of the Congregation of the

Oriental Liturgies in Rome. He was not only deeply versed in the written

languages of the East, but spoke the greater number of them with the same

ease and fluency as his native Italian.[66]

Of the learned Dominican, Finetti, I am unable to offer any particulars.

His treatise “On the Hebrew and its cognate Languages” is a sufficient

evidence of his ability as an Orientalist; but it contains no indication

of anything beyond the learning which is acquired from books.

The same may be said of the Oratorian, Valperga de Galuso. He was born at

Turin in 1737, but lived chiefly in the convents of his order at Naples,

Malta, and Rome. In addition, however, to his accomplishments as an

Orientalist, Padre de Galuso had the reputation of being one of the most

skilful mathematicians of his day. He died in 1815.

Our information regarding the two De Rossi’s, Ignazio, author of the

_Etymologicum Copticum_, and Giambernardo, of Parma, is more detailed and

more satisfactory.

Ignazio de Rossi was born at Viterbo in 1740, and entered the Jesuit

society at a very early age. In the schools of Macerata, Spoleto, and

Florence, he was employed in teaching the Humanities and Rhetoric until

the suppression of the order in 1773; after which event he repaired

to Rome, and received an appointment as professor of Hebrew in the

University, which he held for thirty years, rejoining his brethren,

however, at the first moment of their restoration under Pius VII.

As a general scholar, Father De Rossi was one of the first men of his

day. His memory may be ranked among the most prodigious of which any

record has been preserved. On one occasion, during the _villeggiatura_

at Frascati, it was tried by a test in some respects the most wonderful

which has ever been applied in such cases. A line being selected at

pleasure from any part of any one of the four great Italian classics,

Dante, Petrarca, Tasso, and Ariosto, De Rossi immediately repeated

the hundred lines _which followed next in order_ after that which had

been chosen; and, on his companions expressing their surprise at this

extraordinary feat (which he repeated several times), he placed the

climax to their amazement by reciting _in the reverse order_ the hundred

lines immediately _preceding_ any line taken at random from any one of

the above-named poets.[67] His reputation as an Orientalist was founded

chiefly upon his familiarity with Hebrew and the cognate languages. But

he was also a profound Coptic scholar; and it is a subject of regret to

many students of that language that his numerous MSS. connected therewith

have been suffered to remain so long unpublished. He died in 1824.

Giovanni Bernardo de Rossi was a linguist of wider range. He was born

at Castel Nuovo, in Piedmont, in 1742, and in his youth was destined

for the ecclesiastical state. He began his collegiate studies at Turin,

and manifested very early that taste for Oriental literature which

distinguished his after life. Within six months after he commenced his

Hebrew studies, he produced a long Hebrew poem. In addition to the

Biblical Hebrew, he was soon master of the Rabbinical language, of

Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic. He learned besides, by private study, most

of the languages of modern Europe;—his plan being to draw up in each a

compendious grammar for his own use. In this way he prepared grammars

of the German, English, and Russian languages. In 1769, he obtained an

appointment in the Royal Museum at Turin; but, being invited at the same

time to undertake the much more congenial office of Professor of Oriental

Languages in the new University of Parma, he gladly transferred himself

to that city, where he continued to reside, as Professor of Oriental

Literature, for more than forty years. During the latter half of this

period, De Rossi maintained a frequent correspondence with Mezzofanti,

upon the subject of their common studies.[68] From the terms in which

such a scholar as Mezzofanti speaks of De Rossi, and the deference with

which he appeals to his judgment, we may infer what his acquirements

must have been. On occasion of the marriage of the Infante of Parma,

Charles Emanuel, he published a polyglot epithalamium,[69]—a Collection

of Hymeneal Odes in various languages—which even still is regarded as

the most extraordinary of that class of compositions[70] ever produced

by a single individual. It does not belong to my present plan to allude

to the works of De Rossi, or to offer any estimate of his learning; but

without entering into any such particulars, or attempting to specify

the languages with which he was acquainted, it may safely be said that

no Italian linguist from the days of Pico della Mirandola can be

compared with him, either in the solidity or the extent of his linguistic

attainments. De Rossi died in 1831.[71]

The fame of the linguists of Italy during the nineteenth century has been

so completely eclipsed by that of Mezzofanti, that I shall not venture

upon any enumeration of them, though the list would embrace such names as

Rossellini, Luzatto, Molza, Laureani, &c. There are few of whom it can be

said with so much truth as of Mezzofanti:—

Prœgravat artes

Infra se positas.

§ III. SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE LINGUISTS.

The catalogue of Spanish linguists opens with a name hardly less

marvellous than that which I have placed at the head of the linguists

of modern Italy—that of Fernando di Cordova;—one of those universal

geniuses, whom Nature, in the prodigal exercise of her creative powers,

occasionally produces, as if to display their extent and versatility. He

was born early in the fifteenth century, and was hardly less precocious

than his Italian rival, Pico della Mirandola. At ten years of age he

had completed his courses of grammar and rhetoric. He could recite

three or four pages of the Orations of Cicero after a single reading.

Before he attained his twenty-fifth year, he was installed Doctor in all

the faculties; and he is said by Feyjoo to have been thorough master

(supo con toda la perfeccion) of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, and

Arabic. Feyjoo adds, that he knew, besides, all the principal European

languages.[72] He could repeat the entire Bible from memory. He was

profoundly versed in theology, in civil and canon law, in mathematics,

and in medicine. He had at his perfect command all the works of St.

Thomas, of Scotus, of Alexander of Hales, of Galen, Avicenna, and the

other lights of the age in every department of science.[73] Like the

Admirable Crichton, too, he was one of the most accomplished gentlemen

and most distinguished cavaliers of his time. He could play on every

known variety of instrument; he sang exquisitely; he was a most graceful

dancer; an expert swordsman; and a bold and skilful rider; and he was

master of one particular art of fence by which he was able to defeat all

his adversaries, by springing upon them at a single bound of twenty-three

or twenty-four feet! In a word, to adopt the enthusiastic panegyric of

the old chronicler on whose simple narrative these statements rest, “if

you could live a hundred years without eating or drinking, and were to

give the whole time to study, you could not learn all that this young

man knew.”[74] The occasion to which this writer, quoting Monstrelet’s

Chronicle,[75] refers was the Royal Fête at Paris in 1445; so that

Fernando must have been born about 1425. Of his later history but little

is known. He was sent as ambassador to Rome in 1469, and died in 1480.

A Portuguese of the same period, Pedro de Covilham, is mentioned by

Damian a Goes in his curious book, _De Ethiopum Moribus_ in terms which,

if we could take them literally, should entitle him to a place among the

linguists. During the reign of John II. of Portugal (1481-95) Covilham,

who had already distinguished himself as an explorer under Alfonzo V.,

was sent, in company with Alfonzo de Payva, in search of the kingdom

of Prester John, which the traditional notions of the time placed in

Abyssinia. Payva died upon the expedition. Covilham, after visiting

India, the Persian Gulf, and exploring both the coasts of the Red Sea,

at length reached Abyssinia, where he was received with much distinction

by the King. He married in the country, and obtained large possessions;

but, in accordance with a law of Abyssinia[76] similar to that which

still exists in Japan, prohibiting any one who may have once settled in

the country ever again to leave it, he was compelled to adopt Abyssinia

as a second home. When, therefore, he was recalled by John II., the King

of Abyssinia refused to relinquish him, pleading “_that he was skilled

in almost all the languages of men_,”[77] and that he had made to him,

as his own adopted subject, large grants of land and other possessions.

Covilham, after a residence of thirty-three years, was still alive in

1525, when the embassy under Alvarez de Lima reached Abyssinia.

Very early in the sixteenth century, I find a notice of a Spanish convert

from Judaism, called in Latin “Libertas Cominetus” (_Libertas_ being,

in all probability, but the translation of his Hebrew patronymic,)

whose acquirements are more precisely defined. He was born at Cominedo,

towards the close of the fifteenth century, and renounced his creed

about 1525. His fellow-convert Galatinus, an Italian Jew, and himself

no mean linguist, describes Libertas in his work “_De Arcanis Catholicæ

Veritatis_,” as not only deeply versed in Holy Writ, but master of

fourteen languages.[78] The Biographical Dictionaries and other books of

reference are quite silent regarding him.

The name of Benedict Arias Montanus, editor of the so-called “King of

Spain’s Polyglot Bible,” is better known to Biblical students. He was

born at Frexenal[79] in Estremadura in 1527 and studied in the university

of Alcala, then in the first freshness of the reputation which it owed

to the magnificence of the great Cardinal Ximenes. Montanus entered the

order of St. James, and after accompanying the Bishop of Segovia to the

Council of Trent, where he appeared with great distinction, returned

to the Hermitage of Nuestra Señora de los Angelos near Aracena, with

the intention of devoting himself entirely to study and prayer. From

this retreat, however, he was drawn by Philip II., who employed him

to edit a new Polyglot Bible on a more comprehensive plan than the

Complutensian Polyglot. On the completion of this task, Philip sought to

reward the learned editor by naming him to a bishopric; but Montanus

had humility and self-denial enough to decline the honour, and died an

humble chaplain, in 1598. The estimate formed by his contemporaries of

Montanus’s attainments in languages falls little short of the marvellous.

Le Mire describes him as _omnium fere gentium linguis et literis raro

exemplo excultus_; but we may more safely take his own modest statement

in the preface of his Polyglot, that he knew ten languages.[80]

The celebrated Father Martin Del Rio, best known perhaps to English

readers, since Sir Walter Scott’s pleasant sketch, by his vast work on

Demonology, was also a very distinguished linguist. Del Rio, although of

Spanish parentage, was born at Antwerp in May 1551. His first university

studies were made at Paris; but he received the Doctor’s degree at

Salamanca, and has merited a place in Baillet’s _Enfans Celebres_, by

publishing an edition of Solinus, with a learned commentary, before he

was twenty years old.[81] Del Rio’s talents and reputation opened for him

a splendid career; but he abandoned all his offices and all his prospects

of preferment, in order to enter the Society of the Jesuits at Valladolid

in 1580. According to Feyjoo,[82] Del Rio knew ten languages; and Baillet

would appear to imply even more, when he says that he was master of _at

least_ that number. Del Rio died at Louvain in 1608.

One of Del Rio’s most distinguished contemporaries, the celebrated

dramatic poet, Lope de Vega, although his celebrity rests upon a very

different foundation, was also a very respectable linguist, so far, at

least, as regards the modern languages. The extraordinary fecundity of

this author, especially when we consider his extremely chequered and

busy career as a secretary, a soldier, and eventually a priest, would

seem to preclude the possibility of his having applied himself to any

other pursuit than that of dramatic literature. The mere physical labour

of committing to paper (putting composition out of view altogether)

his _fifteen hundred_ versified plays,[83] three hundred interludes

and sacred dramas[84], ten epic poems, and eight prose novels, besides

an infinity of essays, prefaces, dedications, and other miscellaneous

pieces, would appear more than enough to occupy the very busiest human

life. Yet notwithstanding all this prodigious labour, Lope de Vega

contrived to find time for the acquisition of Greek, Latin, Italian,

Portuguese, French, and probably English! Well might Cervantes call him

“a Prodigy of Nature!”

Although the missionaries of Spain and Portugal are, as a body, less

distinguished in the department of languages than those of Italy, yet

there are some among them not inferior to the most eminent of their

Italian brethren. The great Coptic and Abyssinian scholar, Antonio

Fernandez, was a Portuguese Jesuit. He was born at Lisbon in 1566, and

entered the Jesuit society as a member of the Portuguese province of

the order. After a long preparatory training, he was sent, in 1602,

to Goa, the great centre of the missionary activity of Portugal. His

ultimate destination, however, was Abyssinia, which country he reached

in 1604, in the disguise of an Armenian. He resided in Abyssinia for

nearly thirty years, and was charged with a mission to the Pope Paul

III. and Philip IV. of Spain, from the king, who, under the influence of

the missionaries, had embraced the Catholic religion. Fernandez set out

with some native companions in 1615; but they were all made prisoners

at Alaba, and narrowly escaped being put to death; nor was he released

in the end, except on condition of relinquishing this intended mission,

and returning to Abyssinia. On the death of the king, who had so long

protected them, the whole body of Catholic missionaries were expelled

from Abyssinia by the new monarch in 1632; and Fernandez returned,

after a most chequered and eventful career, to Goa, where he died, ten

years later, in 1642. Of his acquirements in the Western languages, I

am unable to discover any particulars, but he was thoroughly versed in

Armenian, Coptic, and Amharic or Abyssinian, in both of which last named

languages he has left several ritual and ascetic works for the use of the

missionaries and native children.

The Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in America, too, (especially

those of the Jesuit order) rendered good service to the study of the

numerous native languages of both continents.[85] Most of the modern

learning on the subject is derived from their treatises, chiefly

manuscript, preserved by the Society.

Nor were the other orders less efficient. Padre Josef Carabantes, a

Capuchin of the province of Aragon, (born in 1648) wrote a most valuable

practical treatise for the use of missionaries, which was long a text

book in their hands.

One of the Portuguese missionaries in Abyssinia, Father Pedro Paez, who

succeeded Fernandez, and whose memory still lingers among the native

traditions of the people,[86] not only became thorough master of the

popular dialects of the various races of the Valley of the Nile, but

attained a proficiency in Gheez, the learned language of Abyssinia, not

equalled even by the natives themselves.[87] A Franciscan missionary

at Constantinople about the same time, mentioned by Cyril Lucaris, is

described by him as “acquainted with many languages;”[88] but I have not

been able to discover his name.

By far the most eminent linguist of the Peninsula, however, is the

learned Jesuit, Father Lorenzo Hervas-y-Pandura. He was born in 1735,

of a noble family, at Horcajo, in la Mancha. Having entered the Jesuit

society, he taught philosophy for some years in Madrid, and afterwards in

a convent in Murcia; but at length, happily for the interests of science

as well as of religion, he embraced a missionary career, and remained

attached to the Jesuit mission of America, until 1767. On the suppression

of the order, Father Hervas settled at Cesena, and devoted himself to

his early philosophical studies, which, however, he ultimately, in a

great measure, relinquished in order to apply himself to literature and

especially to philology. When the members of the society were permitted

to re-establish themselves in Spain, Hervas went to Catalonia; but he was

obliged to return to Italy, and settled at Rome, where he was named by

Pius VII. keeper of the Vatican Library. In this honourable charge he

remained till his death in 1809.

Father Hervas may with truth be pronounced one of the most meritorious

scholars of modern times. His works are exceedingly numerous; and, beside

his favourite pursuit, philology, embrace almost every other conceivable

subject, theology, mathematics, history, general and local, palæography;

not to speak of an extensive collection of works connected with the

order, which he edited, and a translation of Bercastel’s History of the

Church, (with a continuation), executed, if not by himself, at least

under his superintendence. Besides all the stupendous labour implied

in these diversified undertakings, Father Hervas has the still further

merit of having devoted himself to the subject of the instruction of the

deaf-mute, for whose use he devised a little series of publications, and

published a very valuable essay on the principles to be followed in their

instruction.[89]

Our only present concern, however, is with his philological and

linguistic publications, especially in so far as they evince a knowledge

of languages. They form part of a great work in twenty-one 4to. volumes,

entitled _Idea dell’ Universo_; and were printed at intervals, at Cesena,

in Italian, from which language they were translated into Spanish by

his friends and associates, and republished in Spain. It will only be

necessary to particularize one or two of them—the _Saggio Prattico delle

Lingue_, which consists of a collection of the Lord’s Prayer in three

hundred and seven languages, together with other specimens of twenty-two

additional languages, in which the author was unable to obtain a version

of the Lord’s Prayer, all illustrated by grammatical analyses and

annotations; and the _Catalogo delle Lingue conosciute, e Notizia delle

loro Affinità e Diversità_.[90] In the compilation of these, and his

other collections, it is true, Hervas had the advantage, not alone of

his own extensive travel, and of his own laborious research, but also of

the aid of his brethren; and this in an Order which numbered among its

members, men to whose adventurous spirit every corner of the world had

been familiar:—

“In Greenland’s icy mountains,

On India’s coral strand,

Where Afric’s sunny fountains

Roll down their golden sand.”

But he, himself, compiled grammars of no less than eighteen of the

languages of America; which, with the liberality of true science, he

freely communicated to William von Humboldt for publication in the

_Mithridates_ of Adelung. He was a most refined classical scholar and a

profound Orientalist. He was perfectly familiar, besides, with almost

all the European languages; and, wide as is the range of tongues which

his published works embrace, his critical and grammatical notes and

observations, even upon the most obscure and least known of the languages

which they contain, although in many cases they have of course all the

imperfections of a first essay, exhibit, even in their occasional errors,

a vigorous and original mind.

The name of Father Hervas-y-Pandura is a fitting close to the

distinguished line of linguistic “Glorias de España.”

§ IV. FRENCH LINGUISTS.

The University of Paris did not enter into the study of languages so

early, or with so much zeal as the rival schools of Spain and Italy.

* * * * *

The first[91] great name in this department which we meet in the history

of French letters, is that of the celebrated Rabbinical scholar, William

Postel. This extraordinary man was born at Dolerie in 1510. Having lost

both his parents at a very early age, he was left entirely dependent

upon his own exertions for support; and, with that indomitable energy

which often accompanies the love of knowledge, he began, from his very

boyhood, a systematic course of self-denial, by which he hoped to realize

the means of prosecuting the studies for which he had conceived an early

predilection. Having scraped together, in the laborious and irksome

occupation of a school-master, what he regarded as a sufficient sum for

his modest wants, he repaired to Paris; but he had scarcely reached

that city, when he was robbed by some designing sharpers, of the fruits

of all his years of self-denial; and a long illness into which he was

thrown by the chagrin and privation which ensued, reduced him to the

last extremity. Even still, however, his spirit was unbroken. He went to

Beauce, where, by working as a daily labourer, he earned the means of

returning to Paris as a poor scholar. Presenting himself at the College

of Saint Barbara, he obtained a place as a servant, with permission to

attend the lectures; and having in some way got possession of a Hebrew

grammar, he contrived, in his stolen half hours of leisure, to master

the language so thoroughly, that in a short time his preceptors found

themselves outstripped by their singular dependent.

His reputation as an Oriental scholar spread rapidly. When La Fôret’s

memorable embassy to the Sultan was being organized by Francis I., the

king was recommended to entrust to Postel a literary mission, somewhat

similar to that undertaken during the reign of Louis Philippe, at the

instance of M. de Villemain, one of the objects of which was to collect

Greek and Oriental MSS. It was on his return from this expedition, (in

which he visited Constantinople, Greece, Asia Minor, and part of Syria,)

that Postel met Teseo Ambrosio at Venice, and published what may be

said to have been the first systematic attempt as yet made to bring

together materials for the philosophical investigation of the science of

language—being a collection of the alphabets of twelve languages, with a

slight account of each among the number.[92] He was soon after appointed

Professor of Mathematics, and also of Oriental Languages, in the College

de France; but the wild and visionary character of his mind appears to

have been quite unsuited to any settled pursuit. He had conceived the

idea that he was divinely called to the mission of uniting all Christians

into one community, the head of which he recognized in Francis I. of

France, whom he maintained to be the lineal descendant of Sem, the eldest

of the sons of Noah. Under the notion that this was his pre-ordained

vocation, he refused to accompany La Fôret on a second mission to the

East, although he was pressed to do so by the king himself, and a sum

of four thousand crowns was placed at his disposal for the purchase of

manuscripts. He offered himself, in preference, to the newly founded

society of the Jesuits; but his unsuitableness for that state soon became

so apparent, that St. Ignatius of Loyola, then superior of the society,

refused to receive him. After many wanderings in France, Italy, and

Germany, and an imprisonment in Venice, (where his fanaticism reached its

greatest height,) he undertook a second expedition to the East, in 1549,

whence he returned in 1551, with a large number of valuable MSS. obtained

through the French ambassador, D’Aramont, but wilder and more visionary

than ever. He resumed his lectures in the College des Lombards, now the

property of the Irish College in Paris. The crowds who flocked to hear

him were so great, that they were obliged to assemble in the court, where

he addressed them from one of the windows. His subsequent career was a

strange alternation of successes and embroilments. The Emperor Ferdinand

invited him to Vienna, as Professor of Mathematics. While there, he

assisted Widmandstadt in the preparation of his Syriac New Testament.

He left Vienna, however, after a short residence, and betook himself to

Italy, in 1554 or 1555. He was put into prison in Rome, but liberated in

1557. In 1562 he returned to Paris. The extravagancies of his conduct

and his teaching led to his being placed under a kind of honourable

surveillance, in 1564, in the monastery of St. Martin des Champs, near

Paris. Yet so interesting was his conversation that crowds of the most

distinguished of all orders continued to visit him in this retreat till

his death in 1581. Postel’s attainments in languages living or dead, were

undoubtedly most extensive. Not reckoning the modern languages, which

he may be presumed to have known, his Introduction exhibits a certain

familiarity with not less than twelve languages, chiefly eastern; and he

is said to have been able to converse in most of the living languages

known in his time. Duret states, as a matter notorious to all the

learned, that he “knew, understood, and spoke fifteen languages;”[93] and

it was his own favourite boast, that he could traverse the entire world

without once calling in the aid of an interpreter. In addition to his

labours as a linguist, Postel was a most prolific writer. Fifty-seven of

his works are enumerated by his biographer.

It is to this learned but eccentric scholar that we owe the idea

of the well-known polyglot collections of the Lord’s Prayer. These

compilations as carried out by later collectors, have rendered such

service to philology, that, although many of their authors were little

more than mere compilers, and have but slender claims to be considered

as linguists, in the higher sense of the word, it would be unpardonable

to pass them over without notice in a Memoir like the present. Towards

the close of the fourteenth century, a Hungarian soldier named John

Schildberger, while serving in a campaign against the Turks in Hungary,

was made prisoner by the enemy; and on his return home, after a captivity

of thirty-two years, published (in 1428) an account of his adventures. He

appended to his travels, as a specimen of the languages of the countries

in which he had sojourned, the Lord’s Prayer in Armenian, and also in

the Tartar tongue. This, however, was a mere traveller’s curiosity:

but Postel’s publication (Paris, 1558) is more scientific. It contains

specimens of the characters of twelve different languages, in five of

which—Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Armenian, the Pater Noster is

printed both in Roman characters and in those of the several languages.

This infant essay of Postel was followed, ten years after, by the

collection of Theodore Bibliander, (the classicized form of the German

name _Buchmann_,) which contains fourteen different Pater Nosters. Conrad

Gesner, in 1555, increased the number to twenty-two, to which Angelo

Rocea, an Augustinian Bishop, added three more (one of them Chinese) in

1591. Jerome Megiser, in 1592, extended the catalogue to forty. John

Baptist Gramaye, a professor in Louvain, made a still more considerable

stride in advance. He was taken prisoner by the Algerine corsairs, in the

beginning of the next century, and after his return to Europe, collected

no fewer than a hundred different versions of the Pater Noster, which he

published in 1622. But his work seems to have attracted little notice;

for more than forty years later, (1668) a collection made by Bishop

Wilkins, the learned linguist, to whom I shall hereafter return, contains

no more than fifty.

In all these, however, the only object appears to have been to collect

as large a number of languages as possible, without any attention to

critical arrangement. But, in the latter part of the same century,

the collection of Andrew Müller (which comprises eighty-three Pater

Nosters) exhibits a considerable advance in this particular. Men began,

too, to arrange and classify the various families. Francis Junius

(Van der Yonghe) published the Lord’s Prayer in nineteen different

languages of the German family; and Nicholas Witsen devoted himself to

the languages of Northern Asia—the great Siberian family,—in eleven

of which he published the Lord’s Prayer in 1692. This improvement in

scientific arrangement, however, was not universal; for although the

great collection of John Chamberlayne and David Wilkins, printed at

Amsterdam in 1715, contains the Lord’s Prayer in a hundred and fifty-two

languages, and that of Christian Frederic Gesner—the well-known

_Orientalischer und Occidentalischer Sprachmeister_ (Leipzic 1748)—in

two hundred, they are both equally compiled upon the old plan, and have

little value except as mere specimens of the various languages which they

contain.[94]

It is not so with a collection already described, which was published

near the close of the same century, by a learned Spanish Jesuit,

Don Lorenzo Hervas y Pandura. It is but one of that vast variety of

philological works from the same prolific pen which, as I have stated,

appeared, year after year, in Cesena, originally in Italian, though they

were all afterwards published in a Spanish translation, in the author’s

native country. Father Hervas’s collection, it will be remembered,

contains the Lord’s Prayer in no less than _three hundred and seven_

languages, besides hymns and other prayers in twenty-two additional

dialects, in which the author was not able to find the Pater Noster.

Almost at the very same time with this important publication of Hervas,

a more extensive philological work made its appearance in the extreme

north, under the patronage and indeed the direct inspiration, of the

Empress Catherine II. of Russia. The plan of this compilation was more

comprehensive than that of the collections of the Lord’s Prayer. It

consisted of a Vocabulary of two hundred and seventy-three familiar and

ordinary words, in part selected by the Empress herself, and drawn up

in her own hand. This Vocabulary, which is very judiciously chosen, is

translated into two hundred and one languages. The compilation of this

vast comparative catalogue of words was entrusted to the celebrated

philologer, Pallas, assisted by all the eminent scholars of the northern

capital; among whom the most efficient seems to have been Bakmeister, the

Librarian of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg. The opportunities

afforded by the patronage of a sovereign who held at her disposition the

services of the functionaries of a vast, and, in the literal sense of

the word, a polyglot empire like Russia, were turned to the best account.

Languages entirely beyond the reach of private research, were unlocked

at her command; and the rude and hitherto almost unnamed dialects of

Siberia, of Northern Asia, of the Halieutian islanders, and the nomadic

tribes of the Arctic shores, find a place in this monster vocabulary,

beside the more polished tongues of Europe and the East. Nevertheless,

the Vocabulary of Pallas (probably from the circumstance of its being

printed altogether in the Russian character)[95] is but little familiar

to our philologers, and is chiefly known from the valuable materials

which it supplied to Adelung and his colleagues in the compilation of the

well-known _Mithridates_.

The _Mithridates_ of Adelung closes this long series of philological

collections; but although in its general plan, it is only an expansion

of the original idea of the first simple traveller who presented to his

countrymen, as specimens of the languages of the countries which he had

visited, versions in each language of the Prayer which is most familiar

to every Christian, yet it is not only far more extensive in its range

than any of its predecessors, but also infinitely more philosophical

in its method. There can be no doubt that the selection of a prayer so

idiomatical, and so constrained in its form as the Lord’s Prayer, was far

from judicious. As a specimen of the structure of the various languages,

the choice of it was singularly infelicitous; and the utter disregard of

the principles of criticism (and in truth of everything beyond the mere

multiplication of specimens), which marks all the early collections, is

an additional aggravation of its original defect. But it is not so in the

_Mithridates_ of Adelung. It retains the Lord’s Prayer, it is true, like

the rest, as the specimen (although not the only one) of each language;

but it abandons the unscientific arrangement of the older collections,

the languages being distributed into groups according to their

ethnographical affinities. The versions, too, are much more carefully

made; they are accompanied by notes and critical illustrations; and in

general, each language or dialect, with the literature bearing upon it,

is minutely and elaborately described. In a word, the _Mithridates_,

although, as might be expected, still falling far short of perfection, is

a strictly philosophical contribution to the study of ethnography; and

has formed the basis, as well as the text, of the researches of all the

masters in the modern schools of comparative philology.[96]

To return, however, to the personal history of linguists, from which we

have been called aside by the mention of the work of Postel.

A celebrity as a linguist equally distinguished, and even more unamiable,

than Postel’s, is that of his countryman and contemporary, the younger of

the two Scaligers.

Joseph Justus Scaliger was born at Agen in 1544, and made his school

studies at Bordeaux, where he was only remarkable for his exceeding

dulness, having spent three years in a fruitless, though painfully

laborious, attempt to master the first rudiments of the Latin language.

These clouds of the morning, however, were but the prelude of a brilliant

day. His after successes were proportionately rapid and complete. The

stories which are told of him seem almost legendary. He is said to have

read the entire Iliad and Odyssey in twenty-one days, and to have run

through the Greek dramatists and lyric poets in four months. He was but

seventeen years old when he produced his Œdipus. At the same age he was

able to speak Hebrew with all the fluency of a Rabbi. His application

to study was unremitting, and his powers of endurance are described as

beyond all example. He himself tells, that even in the darkness of the

night, when he awoke from his brief slumbers, he was able to read without

lighting his lamp![97] So powerful, according to his own account, was

his eye-sight, that like the knight of Deloraine:—

“Alike to him was tide and time,

Moonless midnight, and matin prime!”

After a brilliant career at Paris, he was invited to occupy the chair

of Belles Lettres at Leyden, where the best part of his life was spent.

Like most eminent linguists, Scaliger possessed the faculty of memory in

an extraordinary degree. He could repeat eighty couplets of poetry after

a single reading: he knew by heart every line of his own compositions,

and it was said of him that he never forgot anything which he had learnt

once. But with all his gifts and all his accomplishments, he contrived

to render himself an object of general dislike, or at least of general

dis-esteem. His vanity was insufferable; and it was of that peculiarly

offensive kind which is only gratified at the expense of the depreciation

of others. His life was a series of literary quarrels; and in the whole

annals of literary polemics, there are none with which, for acrimony,

virulence, and ferocity of vituperation, these quarrels may not compete.

And hence, although there is hardly a subject, literary, antiquarian,

philological, or critical, on which he has not written, and (for his

age) written well, there are few, nevertheless, who have exercised less

influence upon contemporary opinion. Scaliger spoke thirteen languages,

in the study of which Baillet[98] says he never used either a dictionary

or a grammar. He himself declares the same. The languages ascribed to him

are strangely jumbled together in the following lines of Du Bartas:—

—————“Scaliger, merveille de notre age,

Soleil des savants, qui parle elegamment

Hebreu, Greçois, Romain, Espagnol, Allemand,

François, Italien, Nubien, Arabique,

Syriaque, Persian, Anglois, Chaldaique.”[99]

In his case it is difficult, as in most others, to ascertain the degree

of his familiarity with each of these. To Du Bartas’s poetical epithet,

_elegamment_, of course, no importance is to be attached; and it would

perhaps be equally unsafe to rely on the depreciatory representations

of his literary antagonists. One thing, at least, is certain, that he

himself made the most of his accomplishment. He was not the man to hide

his light from any overweening delicacy. He was one of the greatest

boasters of his own or any other time. In one place he boasts that there

is no language in which he could write with such elegance as Arabic.[100]

In another he professes to write Syriac as well as the Syrians

themselves.[101] And it is curiously significant of the reputation which

he commonly enjoyed, that the wits of his own day used to say that there

was one particular department of each language in which there could be no

doubt of his powers—its Billingsgate vocabulary! There was not one, they

confessed, of the thirteen languages to which he laid claim, in which he

was not fully qualified to scold![102]

The eminent botanist, Charles Le Cluse, (Clusius), a contemporary of

Scaliger, can hardly be called a great linguist, as his studies were

chiefly confined to the modern European languages, with several of which

he was thoroughly conversant; but he is remarkable as having contributed,

by a familiarity with modern languages very rare among the naturalists of

his day, to settle the comparative popular nomenclature of his science.

He is even still a high authority on this curious branch of botanical

study.

The reader who remembers the extraordinary reputation enjoyed among his

contemporaries by the learned Nicholas Peiresc, may be disappointed at

finding him overlooked in this enumeration: but, as of his extraordinary

erudition he has left no permanent fruit in literature, so of his

acquirements as a linguist no authentic record has been preserved. The

same is true of his friend, Galaup de Chasteuil, a less showy, perhaps,

but better read orientalist. Through devotion to these studies, quite

as much as under the influence of religious feeling, Chasteuil made a

pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, in 1631, permanently fixed his abode

in Palestine; and so thoroughly conversant did he become, not only with

the language and literature, but also with the manners, usages and

feelings of the Maronites of the Lebanon, that, on the death of their

patriarch, despite the national predilections by which all Easterns are

characterized, they desired to elect him, a Western as he was, head of

their national church.[103] Lewis de Dieu, the two Morins—Stephen, the

Calvinist minister, and John, the learned Oratorian convert—the two

Cappels, Lewis and James, and even the celebrated D’Herbelot, author of

the _Bibliothèque Orientale_, all belong rather to the class of oriental

scholars than of linguists in the popular acceptation of the word. The

two Cappels, as well as their adversaries, the Buxtorfs, are best known

in connexion with the controversy about the Masoretic Points.

One of the writers named in a previous page, Claude Duret, although

Adelung[104] could not discover any particulars regarding him, beyond

those which are detailed in the title of his book, (where he is merely

described as “Bourbonnais, President a Moulins,”) nevertheless deserves

very special mention on account of the extensive and curious learning,

not alone in languages, but also in general literature, history and

science, which characterize his rare work, _Thresor de l’Histoire des

Langues de cet Univers_.[105] This work is undoubtedly far from being

exempt from grave inaccuracies; but it is nevertheless, for its age,

a marvel, as well of curious learning and extensive research, as of

acquaintance with a great many (according to one account, seventeen,)

languages, both of the East and of the West.[106] How much of this,

however, is mere book-scholarship, and how much is real familiarity, it

is impossible, in the absence of all details of the writer’s personal

history, to decide.

Although far from being so universal a linguist as Duret, the great

biblical scholar, Samuel Bochart (born at Rouen in 1599) was much

superior to him in his knowledge of Hebrew and the cognate languages,

Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and even Coptic. His _Hierozoicon_ and

_Geographia Sacra_, as monuments of philological as well as antiquarian

knowledge, have maintained a high reputation even to the present time,

notwithstanding the advantages enjoyed by modern students of biblical

antiquities and history.[107]

Bochart’s pupil and his friend in early life, (although they were

bitterly alienated from each other at a later period, and although

Bochart’s death is painfully associated with their literary quarrel[108])

the celebrated Peter Daniel Huet, can hardly deserve a place in the

catalogue of French linguists; but he was at least a liberal and

enlightened patron of the study.

Many of the French missionaries of the seventeenth century would deserve

a place in this series, and among them especially Francis Picquet, who,

after serving for several years as French consul at Aleppo, embraced a

missionary life, and at last was consecrated Archbishop of Bagdad in

1674. Le Jay, the projector and editor of the well-known polyglot Bible

which appeared in France a few years before the rival publication of

Brian Walton, though he is often spoken of as the mere patron of the

undertaking, was in reality a very profound and accomplished Orientalist.

The same may be said of Rapheleng, the son-in-law of Plantin, and often

described as his mere assistant in the publication of the King of

Spain’s Polyglot Bible. Matthew Veysiere de la Croze, too, the apostate

Benedictine, although a superficial scholar and a hasty and inaccurate

historian, was a very able linguist.

But, as we descend lower in the history of this generation of French

linguists, we find comparatively few names which, for variety of

attainments, can be compared with those of Italy or Germany. Beyond the

cultivation of the Biblical languages, little was done in France for this

department of study during the rest of the seventeenth century. There

seems but too much reason to believe that the reputation of the learned

but pedantic Menage as a linguist, is extravagantly exaggerated. He was

an accomplished classicist, and his acquaintance with modern languages

was tolerably extensive. He was a good etymologist, too, according

to the servile and unscientific system of the age. But his claims to

Oriental scholarship appear very questionable. And in truth during this

entire period, if it were not for the interest of the controversy above

referred to, on the antiquity and authority of the Masoretic Points,

it might almost be said that Oriental studies had fallen entirely into

disuse in France. Even of those who took a part in that discussion, the

name of Masclef (who knew Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, and Arabic,

with perhaps some of the modern languages) is the only one which can

approach the rank of the higher masters of the study. The three Buxtorfs

(father, son, and grandson), Guarin, and even Girandeau, were mere

Hebraists; patient and accurate scholars, it is true, but with few of the

characteristics of an eminent linguist. La Bletterie can hardly claim

even this qualified reputation.

There is one brilliant exception—the eminent historian and

controversialist, Eusebius Renaudot. He was born at Paris in 1646. Having

made his classical studies under the Jesuits, and those of Philosophy in

the College d’Harcourt, he entered the congregation of the Oratory. But

he very soon quitted that society; and, although he continued to wear the

ecclesiastical dress, he never took holy orders. His life, however, was

a model of piety and of every Christian virtue; and it was his peculiar

merit that, while many of his closest friends and most intimate literary

allies were members of the Jansenist party, Renaudot was inflexible

in his devotion to the judgment of the Holy See. His first linguistic

studies lay among the Oriental languages, the rich fruit of which we

still possess in his invaluable Collection of Oriental Liturgies, and in

the last two volumes of the _Perpetuitè de la Foi sur l’Eucharistie_,

which are also from his prolific pen. But he soon extended his researches

into other fields; and he is said to have been master of seventeen

languages,[109] the major part of which he spoke with ease and fluency.

But Renaudot stands almost alone.[110] The only names which may claim to

be placed in comparison with his, are those of the two Petis, François

Petis, and François Petis de la Croix. The latter especially, who

succeeded his father as royal Oriental interpreter, under Lewis XIV., and

made several expeditions to the East in this capacity, was well versed,

not only in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Tartar, but also in Coptic and

Armenian. His translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments is the

work by which he is best known; but his dissertations and collections on

Oriental history are full of valuable learning. The eighteenth century

in France was a period of greater activity. Etienne Fourmont, although

born in 1683, belongs properly to the eighteenth century. He is often

cited as an example of extraordinary powers of memory, having, when a

mere boy, learnt by rote the whole list of Greek Roots in the Port Royal

Treatise, so as to repeat them in every conceivable order. He soon after

published in French verse all the roots of the Latin language. But it is

as an Orientalist that he is chiefly remarkable. He was appointed to the

chair of Arabic in the College Royal, and also to the office of Oriental

interpreter in the Bibliothèque du Roi; and soon established such a

reputation as an Orientalist, that he was consulted on philological

questions by the learned of every country in Europe. He was thoroughly

master of Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian, and was one of the

first French scholars who, without having visited China,[111] attained to

any notable proficiency in Chinese.

His nephew, Michael Angelo Deshauterayes, born at Conflans Ste. Honorine,

near Pontoise, 1724, was even more precocious. At the age of ten, he

commenced his studies under Fourmont’s superintendence. He thus became

familiar at an early age with Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and Chinese; so

that in his twenty-second year he was appointed to succeed his uncle as

Oriental Interpreter to the Royal Library, to which post, a few years

later, was added the Arabic professorship in the College de France. In

these employments he devoted himself to Oriental studies for above thirty

years.

Another pupil of Fourmont, Joseph de Guignes, born at Pontoise in 1721,

attained equal eminence as an Orientalist. At Fourmont’s death, he

was associated with the last named linguist on the staff of the Royal

Library. But De Guignes’ merit in the department of Oriental history and

antiquities, has almost overshadowed his reputation as a mere linguist,

although he was a proficient in all the principal Eastern languages, and

in many of those of Europe. His History of the Huns, Turks, Moguls, and

other Tartar nations, notwithstanding that many of its views are now

discarded, is still regarded as a repertory of Oriental learning; and,

while both in this and also in some others of his works, De Guignes is

often visionary and even paradoxical,[112] he is acknowledged to have

done more for Chinese literature in France, than any linguist before Abel

Remusat; nor is there one of the scholars of the eighteenth century, who

in the spirit, if not in the letter, of the views which he put forward,

comes so near to the more enlarged and more judicious theories of the

scholars of our own day, on the general questions of philology.

From the days of De Guignes the higher departments of linguistic science

fell for a time into disrepute in France; but a powerful impulse

was given to the practical cultivation of Oriental languages by the

diplomatic relations of that kingdom with Constantinople and the Levant.

The official appointments connected with that service served to supply

at once a stimulus to the study and an opportunity for its practice.

Cardonne, Ruffin,[113] Legrand, Kieffer, Venture de Paradis, and Langlés,

were all either trained in that school, or devoted themselves to the

study as a preparation for it.

Of these, perhaps John Michael Venture De Paradis is the most remarkable.

His father had been French Consul in the Crimea, and in various cities

of the Levant, and appears to have educated the boy with a special

view to the Oriental diplomatic service. From the College de Louis le

Grand, he was transferred, at the age of fifteen, to Constantinople,

and, before he had completed his twenty-second year, he was appointed

interpreter of the French embassy in Syria. Thence he passed into

Egypt in the same capacity, and, in 1777, accompanied Baron de Tott in

his tour of inspection of the French establishments in the Levant. He

was sent afterwards to Tunis, to Constantinople, and to Algiers; and

eventually was attached to the ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, with

the Professorship of Oriental Languages. His last service was in the

memorable Egyptian expedition under Bonaparte, in which he fell a victim

to fatigue, and the evil effects of the climate, in 1799.[114]

Lewis Matthew Langlés[115] was a Picard, born at Peronne, in 1763. From

his boyhood he too was destined for the diplomatic service; and studied

first at Montdidier, and afterwards in Paris, where he obtained an

employment which afforded him considerable leisure for the pursuit of

his favourite studies. He learned Arabic under Caussin de Perceval, and

Persian under Ruffin. Soon afterwards, however, he engaged in the study

of Mantchu, and in some time became such a proficient in that language,

that he was entrusted with the task of editing the Mantchu Dictionary

of Pere Amiot. From that time his reputation was established, at least

with the general public. His subsequent publications in every department

of languages are numerous beyond all precedent. He had the reputation

of knowing, besides the learned languages, Chinese, Tartar, Japanese,

Sanscrit, Malay, Armenian, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. But it must be

added that the solidity of these attainments has been gravely impeached,

and that by many he is regarded more as a charlatan than as a scholar.

No such cloud hangs over the fame of, after De Guignes, the true reviver

of Chinese literature, Abel Remusat.[116] He was born at Paris in 1788,

and brought up to the medical profession; and it may almost be said that

the only time devoted by him to his early linguistic studies was stolen

from the laborious preparation for the less congenial career to which

he was destined by his father. By a very unusual preference, he applied

himself, almost from the first, to the Chinese and Tartar languages. Too

poor to afford the expensive luxury of a Chinese dictionary, he compiled,

with incredible labour, a vocabulary for his own use; and the interest

created at once by the success of his studies, and by the unexampled

devotedness with which they were pursued, were so great as to procure

for him, at the unanimous instance of the Academy of Inscriptions, the

favour, at that period rare and difficult, of exemption from the chances

of military conscription. From that time forward he applied himself

unremittingly to philological pursuits; and, although he was admitted

doctor of the faculty of medicine, at Paris in 1813, he never appears to

have practised actively in the profession. On the creation of the two

new chairs of Chinese and Sanscrit, in the College de France, after the

Restoration, Remusat was appointed to the former, in November, 1814;

from which period he gave himself up entirely to literature. He was

speedily admitted into all the learned societies both of Paris and of

other countries; and in 1818 he became one of the editors of the _Journal

des Savans_. On the establishment (in which he had a chief part,) of the

Société Asiatique, in 1822, he was named its perpetual secretary; and,

on the death of Langlés, in 1824, he succeeded to the charge of keeper

of Oriental MSS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi. This office he continued to

hold till his early and universally lamented death in 1832. Remusat’s

eminence lay more in the depth and accuracy of his scholarship in

the one great branch of Oriental languages, which he selected as his

own—those of Eastern Asia—and in the profoundly philosophical spirit

which he brought to the investigation of the relations of these languages

to each other, and to the other great families of the earth, than in the

numerical extent of his acquaintance with particular languages. But this,

too, was such as to place him in the very first rank of linguists.

A few words must suffice for the French school since Remusat, although it

has held a very distinguished place in philological science. The Société

Asiatique, founded at Remusat’s instance, and for many years directed

by him as secretary, has not only produced many eminent individual

philologers, as De Sacy, Quatremere, Champollion, Renan, Fresnel, and

De Merian; but, what is far more important, it has successfully carried

out a systematic scheme of investigation, by which alone it is possible,

in so vast a subject, to arrive at satisfactory results. M. Stanislas

Julien’s researches in Chinese; M. Dulaurier’s in the Malay languages;

Father Marcoux’s in the American Indian; Eugene Bournouf’s in those of

Persia; the brothers Antoine and Arnauld d’Abbadie in the languages of

East Africa, and especially in the hitherto almost unknown Abyssinian

and Ethiopian families; Eugene Borè in Armenian;[117] M. Fresnel’s

explorations among the tribes of the western shores of the Red Sea; and

many similar successful investigations of particular departments, are

contributing to lay up such a body of facts, as cannot fail to afford

sure and reliable data for the scientific solution by the philologers

of the coming generation, of those great problems in the science of

language, on which their fathers could only speculate as a theory, and

at the best could but address themselves in conjecture. Although I have

no intention of entering into the subject of living French linguists,

yet there is one of the gentlemen whom I have mentioned, M. Fulgence

Fresnel, whom I cannot refrain from alluding to before I pass from

the subject of French philology. His name is probably familiar to the

public at large, in connexion with the explorations of the French at

Nineveh; but he is long known to the readers of the Journal Asiatique

as a linguist not unworthy of the very highest rank in that branch of

scholarship. M. d’Abbadie,[118] himself a most accomplished linguist,

informed me that M. Fresnel, although exceedingly modest on the subject

of his attainments, has the reputation of knowing twenty languages. The

facility with which he has acquired some of these languages almost rivals

the fame of Mezzofanti. M. Arago having suggested on one occasion the

desirableness of a French translation of Berzelius’s Swedish Treatise

“On the Blow-pipe,” Fresnel at once set about learning Swedish, and in

three months had completed the desired translation! He reads fluently

Hebrew, Greek, Romaic, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and

what little is known of the Hieroglyphical language. He is second only

to Lane as an Arabic scholar. Among the less known languages of which M.

Fresnel is master, M. d’Abbadie heard him speak a few sentences of one,

of which he may be said to have himself been the discoverer, and which

is, in some respects, completely anomalous. M. Fresnel describes this

curious language in the Journal Asiatique, July, 1838. It is spoken by

the savages of Mahrak; and as it is not reducible to any of the three

families, the Aramaic, the Canaanitic, or the Arabic, of which, according

to Gesenius, the Ethiopic is an elder branch, M. Fresnel believes it to

be the very language spoken by the Queen of Saba! Its present seat is in

the mountainous district of Hhacik, Mirbât, and Zhafâr. Its most singular

characteristic consists in its articulations, which are exceedingly

difficult and most peculiar. Besides all the nasal sounds of the French

and Portuguese, and that described as the “sputtered sound” of the

Amharic, this strange tongue has three articulations, which can only be

enunciated with _the right side of the mouth_; and the act of uttering

them produces a contortion which destroys the symmetry of the features!

M. Fresnel describes it as “horrible, both to hear and to see spoken.”

Endeavouring to represent the force of one of these sounds by the letters

_hh_, he calls the language _Ehhkili_.[119]

§ V. LINGUISTS OF THE TEUTONIC RACE.[120]

If we abstract from the Sacred Languages, the German scholars were slow

in turning themselves to Oriental studies.

John Müller, of Königsberg, commonly known as Regiomontanus, although he

had the highest repute for learning of all the German scholars of the

fifteenth century, does not appear to have gone beyond the classical

languages. Martin Luther, Reuchlin,[121] Ulrich Van Hutten, Hoogenstraet,

were Hebraists and no more; and John Widmanstadt, when he wished to study

Arabic, was forced to make a voyage to Spain expressly for the purpose.

* * * * *

The first student of German race at all distinguished by scholarship in

languages, was Theodore Bibliander,[122] who, besides Greek and Hebrew,

was also well versed in Arabic, and probably in many other Oriental

tongues.[123] The celebrated naturalist, Conrad Gesner, though perhaps

not so solidly versed as Bibliander, in any one language, appears to have

possessed a certain acquaintance with a greater number. His _Mithridates;

de Differentiis Linguarum_,[124] resembles in plan as well as in name,

the great work of Adelung. The number and variety of the languages which

it comprises is extraordinary for the period. It contains the Pater

Noster in twenty-two of these; and, although the observations on many of

the specimens are exceedingly brief and unsatisfactory, yet they often

exhibit much curious learning, and no mean familiarity with the language

to which they belong.[125] Gesner’s success as a linguist is the more

remarkable, inasmuch as that study by no means formed his principal

pursuit. Botany and Natural History might much better be called the real

business of his literary life. Accordingly, Beza says of him, that he

united in his person the very opposite genius of Varro and Pliny; and,

although he died at the comparatively early age of forty-nine, his works

on Natural History fill nearly a dozen folio volumes. Both Gesner and

Bibliander fell victims, one in 1564, the other in 1565, to the great

plague of the sixteenth century.

Jerome Megiser, who, towards the close of the same century compiled the

more extensive polyglot collection of Pater Nosters already referred to,

need scarcely be noticed. He is described by Adelung,[126] as a man of

various, but trivial and superficial learning.

Not so another German scholar of the same age, Jacob Christmann, of

Maintz. Christmann was no less distinguished as a philosopher than as a

linguist. He held for many years at Heidelberg the seemingly incompatible

professorships of Hebrew, Arabic, and Logic, and is described as

deeply versed in all the ancient and modern languages, as well as in

mathematical and astronomical science.[127]

It would be unjust to overlook the scholars of the Low Countries during

the same period. Some of these, as for example, Drusius, and the three

Schultens, father, son, and grandson, were chiefly remarkable as

Hebraists. But there are many others, both of the Belgian and the Dutch

schools, whose scholarship was of a very high order. Among the former,

Andrew Maes (Masius,) deserves a very special notice. He was born in

1536, at Linnich in the diocese of Courtrai. In 1553 he was sent to

Rome as chargé d’affaires. During his residence there, in addition to

Greek, Latin, Spanish, and other European languages, with which he was

already familiar, he made himself master, not only of Italian, but also

of Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. He is said[128] to have assisted Arias

Montanus in the compilation of his Polyglot Bible; but of this no mention

is made by Montanus in the preface. No doubt, however, can be entertained

of his great capacity as an Orientalist; and Sebastian Munster used to

say of him that he seemed to have been brought up among the Hebrews, and

to have lived in the classic days of the Roman Empire. About the same

period, or a few years later, David Haecx published his dictionary of the

Malay languages, one of the earliest contributions to the study of that

curious family. Haecx, though he spent his life in Rome, was a native of

Antwerp.

John Baptist Gramaye, already named as a collector of Pater Nosters,

acquired some reputation as one of the first contributors to the history

of the languages of Africa, although his work is described by Adelung as

very inaccurate. Gramaye was a native of Antwerp, and became provost of

Arnheim and historiographer of the Low Countries. On a voyage from Italy

to Spain, he fell into the hands of Algerine corsairs, who carried him to

Algiers. There he was sold as a slave, and was detained a considerable

time in Barbary. Having at length obtained his liberty, he published,

after his return, a diary of his captivity, a descriptive history of

Africa, and a polyglot collection of Pater Nosters, among which are

several African languages not previously known in Europe.[129] Very

little, however, is known of his own personal acquirements, which are

noticeable, perhaps, rather on account of their unusual character, than

of their great extent or variety.

Some of the linguists of Holland may claim a higher rank. The well-known

Arabic scholar, Erpenius, (Thomas Van Erpen,) was also acquainted with

several other Oriental languages, Hebrew, Chaldee, Persian, Turkish, and

Ethiopic. His countryman and successor in the chair of Oriental languages

at Leyden, James Golius, was hardly less distinguished. Peter Golius,

brother of James, who entered the Carmelite Order and spent many years

as a missionary in Syria and other parts of the East, became equally

celebrated in Rome for his Oriental scholarship. In all these three cases

the knowledge of the languages was not a mere knowledge of books, but had

been acquired by actual travel and research in the various countries of

the East.

John Henry Hottinger, too, a pupil of James Golius at Leyden, and the

learned Jesuit, Father Athanasius Kircher, belong also to this period.

The latter, who is well known for his varied and extensive attainments

in every department of science, was moreover a linguist of no ordinary

merit.[130] He was born at Geyzen, near Fulda, in 1602, and entered the

Jesuit society in 1618, when only sixteen years old. No detailed account

is given by his biographers (with whom languages were of minor interest,)

of the exact extent of his attainments in the department of languages;

but they were both diversified and respectable, and in some things he was

far beyond the men of his own time. His _Lingua Egyptiaca Restituta_ may

still be consulted with advantage by the student of Coptic.

Most of these men, however, confined themselves chiefly to one particular

department. The first really universal linguist of Germany is the great

Ethiopic scholar, Job Ludolf, who was born at Erfurt, in 1624. Early in

life he devoted himself to the study of languages; and his extensive

travels—first as preceptor to the sons of the Duke of Saxe-Gotha,

and afterwards as tutor to the children of the Swedish ambassador in

Paris—coupled with his unexampled industry,[131] enabled him, not only to

hold a high rank in history and general literature, but also to attain to

a success as a linguist which had rarely been equalled before his time.

He is said to have been master of twenty-five languages,[132] but as I

have never seen any exact enumeration of them, I am inclined to allow for

considerable exaggeration.

There is even more reason to suspect of exaggeration the popular accounts

which have come down to us of a self-educated linguist of the same

period—a Saxon peasant called Nicholas Schmid, more commonly known as

Cüntzel of Rothenacker, from the name of the village where he was born,

in 1606. This extraordinary man was the son of a peasant. His youth

was entirely neglected. He worked as a common labourer on his father’s

farm, and, until his sixteenth year, never had learned even the letters

of the alphabet. At this age one of the farm-servants taught him to

read, greatly to the dissatisfaction of his father, who feared that such

studies would withdraw him from his work. Soon afterwards, a relative who

was a notary, gave him a few lessons in Latin; and, under the direction

of the same relative, he learned the rudiments of Greek, Hebrew, and

other languages. During all this time, he continued his daily occupation

as a farm-labourer, and had no time for his studies but what he was able

to steal from the hours allotted for sleep and for meals; the latter of

which he snatched in the most hurried manner, and always with an open

book by his side. In this strange way, amid the toils of the field and

of the farm-yard, Schmid is said to have acquired a store of knowledge

the details of which border upon the marvelous, one of his recorded

performances being a translation of the Lord’s Prayer into fifty-one

languages![133]

One of the scholars engaged in the compilation of Walton’s Polyglot,

Andrew Müller, has left a reputation less marvellous, but more solid.

He was born about 1630, at Greiffenhagen in Pomerania. Müller, like

Crichton, was a precocious genius. At eighteen he wrote verses freely in

Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. On the completion of his studies, he became

pastor of Königsberg on the Warta; but the duties of that charge soon

became distasteful to him, and, after a short trial, he resolved, at

the invitation of Castell, to settle in England, and devote himself to

literature. He arrived just as Brian Walton was making arrangements for

the publication of his celebrated Polyglot Bible, and at once entered

earnestly into the scheme. He took up his residence in the house of

John Castell in the Strand, where, for ten years, he applied himself

unremittingly to study. It is told of him that, in the ardour of study

or the indifference of scholastic seclusion, he would not raise his

head from his books to look out of the window, on occasion of Charles

II.’s triumphal progress at the Restoration! Having received from Bishop

Wilkins some information on the subject of Chinese, he conceived a

most enthusiastic passion for that language. He obtained some types at

Antwerp, and, through the instructions of the celebrated Jesuit, Father

Kircher, and other members of the society, he was perhaps the first

European scholar who, without actually visiting China, acquired a mastery

of its language; as he is certainly one of the first who deserted the

track of the old philologers, and attempted the comparative study of

languages on principles approaching to those which modern science has

made familiar. Soon after the completion of Walton’s Polyglot Müller

returned to Germany. He was named successively Pastor of Bernau and

Provost of Berlin in 1667, but resigned both livings in 1685, and lived

thenceforth in retirement at Stettin. He died in 1694. Although a most

laborious man and a voluminous writer, Müller’s views were visionary

and unpractical. He professed to have devised a plan of teaching, so

complete, that, by adopting it, a perfect knowledge of Chinese could be

acquired in half a year, and so simple, that it could be applied to the

instruction of persons of the most ordinary capacity. Haller states that

he spoke no less than twenty languages.

A Burgomaster-linguist is a more singular literary phenomenon. We are

so little accustomed to connect that title with any thing above the

plodding details of the commerce with which it is inseparably associated,

that the name of Nicholas Witzen, Burgomaster of Amsterdam, deserves to

be specially commemorated, as an exception to an unliterary class. It

was in the pursuit of his vocation as a merchant that Witzen acquired

the chief part of the languages with which he was acquainted. He made

repeated expeditions to Russia between the years 1666 and 1677, in

several of which he penetrated far into the interior of the country,

and had opportunities of associating with many of the motley races of

that vast empire; Slavonians, Tartars, Cossacks, Samoiedes, and the

various Siberian tribes; as well as with natives of Eastern kingdoms not

subject to Russia.[134] Besides inquiries into the geography and natural

history of those countries which lie upon the north-eastern frontier of

Europe and the contiguous provinces of Asia, Witzen used every effort

to glean information regarding their languages. He obtained, in most

of these languages, not only versions of the Lord’s Prayer, but also

vocabularies comprising a considerable number of words; both of which

he supplied to his friend and correspondent, Leibnitz, for publication

in his _Collectanea Etymologica_.[135] How far Witzen himself was

acquainted with these languages it is difficult to determine; but he is

at least entitled to notice as the first collector of materials for this

particular branch of the study.

David Wilkins, Chamberlayne’s fellow-labourer in the compilation of

the Collection of Pater Nosters referred to in a former page, may also

deserve a passing notice. The place of his birth, which occurred about

1685, is a matter of some uncertainty. Adelung[136] thinks he was a

native of Dantzig; by others he is believed to have been a native of

Holland. The best part of his life, however, was spent in England; where,

at Cambridge, he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity, in 1717. He was

afterwards appointed Librarian of Lambeth and Archdeacon of Suffolk.

His qualifications as Polyglot editor, at the time when he undertook

to assist Chamberlayne, appear to have consisted rather in patient

industry and general scholarship, than in any extraordinary familiarity

with languages; though he afterwards obtained considerable reputation,

especially by an edition of the New Testament in Coptic, in 1716.

With the illustrious name of Leibnitz we commence a new era in the

science of languages. This extraordinary man, who united in himself all

the most varied, and it might seem incompatible, excellencies of other

men—a jurist and a divine, a mathematician and a poet, a historian and

a philosopher—added to all his other prodigious attainments a most

extensive and profound knowledge of languages. It is not, however, on the

actual extent of his acquaintance with particular languages (although

this too was most remarkable), that his fame as a scientific linguist

rests. He was the first to recognize the true nature and objects of

linguistic science, and to direct its studies to an object at once

eminently practical and profoundly philosophical. It is not alone that,

deserting the trivialities of the old etymologists, he laid down the

true principles of the great science of comparative philology, and

detected its full importance; Leibnitz may claim the further merit of

having himself almost created that science, and given it forth, a new

Minerva, in its full and perfect development. There is hardly a principle

of modern philology the germ of which may not be discovered in his

singularly pregnant and suggestive essays and letters; and, what is far

more remarkable, he has often, with the instinctive sagacity of original

genius, anticipated sometimes by conjecture, sometimes by positive

prediction, analogies and results which the investigations of actual

explorers have since realized.[137]

One of the most important practical services rendered by Leibnitz to

science, was the organization of academies and other scientific bodies,

by which the efforts of individuals might be systematically guided to one

common end, and the results of their researches, whether in collecting

facts or in developing theories, might, through the collision of many

minds, be submitted to the ordeal of careful examination and judicious

discussion. It is chiefly to him that science is indebted for the Royal

Society of Berlin and the Academy of St. Petersburg. Both of these

bodies, although embracing the whole circle of science, have proved most

eminent schools of languages; and it is a curious illustration of that

profound policy, in pursuance of which we see Russia still availing

herself of the service of genius wherever it is to be found, that many

of the ablest German linguists of the eighteenth century were, either

directly or indirectly, connected with the latter institution.

Gerard Frederic Müller is an early example. He was born, at Herforden

in Westphalia, in 1705, and was a pupil of the celebrated Otto Mencken.

Mencken, having been invited to become a member of the new academy of St.

Petersburg, declined the honour for himself, but recommended his scholar

Müller in his stead.[138] Müller accordingly accompanied the scientific

expedition which was sent to Siberia under the elder Gmelin, (also a

German,) from 1733 to 1741. On his return, he was appointed keeper of

the Imperial Archives, and Historiographer of Russia. Müller does not

appear to have given much attention to Oriental languages; but he was

more generally familiar with modern languages than most of the scholars

of that period.[139]

Augustus Lewis Schlötzer, another German literary adventurer in the

Russian service, and for a time secretary of Müller, was a more generally

accomplished linguist. Unlike Müller, he was a skilful Orientalist;

and he was versed, moreover, in several of the Slavonic languages with

which Müller had neglected to make himself acquainted, before engaging

in the compilation of his great collection of Russian Historians. For

this he availed himself of the assistance of his secretary Schlötzer.

Gottlieb Bayer of Königsberg, one of the earliest among the scholars of

Germany, author of the _Museum Sinicum_, also occupied for some years

a chair at St. Petersburg; but he is better known by his ferocious

controversial writings, than by his philological works. A much more

distinguished scholar of modern Germany, almost entirely unknown in

England, is Christian William Buttner. He was born at Wolfenbüttel in

1716, and was destined by his father (an apothecary) for the medical

profession; but, although he gave his attention in the first instance to

the sciences preparatory to that profession, the real pursuit of his life

became philology, and especially in its relation to the great science

of ethnography. It was a saying of Cuvier’s, that Linnæus and Buttner

realised by their united studies the title of Grotius’s celebrated work,

“De Jure _Naturæ_ et _Gentium_;”—Linnæus by his pursuit of _Natural_

History assuming the first, and Buttner, by his _ethnological_ studies,

appropriating the second—as the respective spheres of their operations.

In every country which Buttner visited, he acquired not only the

general language, but the most minute peculiarities of its provincial

dialects. Few literary lives are recorded in history which present such

a picture of self-denial and privation voluntarily endured in the cause

of learning, as that of Buttner. His library and museum, accumulated

from the hoardings of his paltry income, were exceedingly extensive and

most valuable. In order to scrape together the means for their gradual

purchase, he contented himself during the greater part of his later

life with a single meal per day, the cost of which never exceeded a

silber-groschen, or somewhat less than three half-pence![140] It may be

inferred, however, from what has been said, that Buttner’s attainments

were mainly those of a book-man. In the scanty notices of him which we

have gleaned, we do not find that his power of speaking foreign languages

was at all what might have been expected from the extent and variety

of his book-knowledge. But his services as a scientific philologer

were infinitely more important, as well as more permanent, than any

such ephemeral faculty. He was the first to observe and to cultivate

the true relations of the monosyllabic languages of southern Asia, and

to place them at the head of his scheme of the Asiatic and European

languages. He was the first to conceive, or at least to carry out, the

theory of the geographical distribution of languages; and he may be

looked on as the true founder of the science of glossography. He was

the first to systematise and to trace the origin and affiliations of

the various alphabetical characters; and his researches in the history

of the palæography of the Semitic family may be said to have exhausted

the subject. Nevertheless, he has himself written very little; but he

communicated freely to others the fruits of his researches; and there

are few of the philologers of his time who have not confessed their

obligations to him. Michaelis, Schlötzer, Gatterer, and almost every

other contemporary German scholar of note, have freely acknowledged both

the value of his communications and the generous and liberal spirit in

which they were imparted.[141]

John David Michaelis[142] (1717-91) is so well known in these countries

by his contributions to Biblical literature[143] that little can be

necessary beyond the mention of his name. His grammar of the Hebrew,

Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic languages, sufficiently attest his abilities

as an Orientalist; and, as regards that particular family of languages,

his philological views are generally solid and judicious. But I am

unable to discover what were his attainments in modern languages; and to

the general science of comparative philology he cannot be said to have

rendered any important original contribution.

The Catholic Missionaries of Germany, although of course less numerous

than their brethren of Italy and the Spanish Peninsula, have contributed

their share to the common stock of linguistic science. Many of the Jesuit

Missionaries of Central and Southern America;—for example, Fathers

Richter, Fritz, Grebmer, and Widmann—whose papers are the foundation of

Humboldt’s Essay in the _Mithridates_, were of German origin. Father

Dobritzhofer, whose interesting account of the Abipones has been

translated into English[144], under Southey’s advice and superintendence,

was a native of Austria; and the learned Sanscrit scholar, Father

Paulinus de Sancto Bartholomeo, (although less known under his German

name, John Philip Werdin) was an Austrian Carmelite, and served for above

fourteen years in the Indian missions of his order.

A German philanthropist of a different class, Count Leopold von Berchtold

(1738-1809) the Howard of Germany, deserves to be named, not merely for

his devoted services to the cause of humanity throughout the world, but

for his remarkable acquirements as a linguist. He spoke fluently eight

European languages;[145] and, what is more rare, wrote and published in

the greater number of them, tracts upon the great subject to which he

dedicated his life. He died, at a very advanced age, of the plague, and

has long been honoured as a martyr in the cause of philanthropy; but he

has left no notable work behind him.

Very different the career of the great author of the _Mithridates_, John

Christopher Adelung, who lived almost exclusively for learning. He was

born in 1734, at Spantekow in Pomerania. In 1759, he was appointed to

a professorship at Erfurt; but he exchanged it, after a few years, for

a place at Leipsic, where he continued to reside for a long series of

years. Although habitually of a gay and cheerful disposition, and a most

agreeable member of society, he was one of the most assiduous students

upon record, devoting as a rule no less than fourteen hours a day to his

literary occupations.[146] His services to his native language are still

gratefully acknowledged by every German etymologist, and his Dictionary,

(although since much improved by Voss and Campe,) has been declared as

great a boon to Germany, as the united labours of the Academy had been

able to offer to France. Adelung’s personal reputation as a linguist was

exceedingly high, but his fame with posterity must rest on his great

work, the _Mithridates_, which I have already briefly described. The very

origination of such a work, or at least the undertaking it upon the scale

on which he has carried it out, would have made the reputation of an

ordinary man. In the touching preface of the first volume, (the only one

which Adelung lived to see published,) he describes it as “the youngest

and probably the last child of his muse;” and confesses that “he has

nurtured, dressed, and cherished it, with all the tenderness which it

is commonly the lot of the youngest child to enjoy.”[147] It is indeed

a work of extraordinary labour, and, although from the manner in which

its materials were supplied, necessarily incomplete and even inaccurate

in its details, a work of extraordinary ability. The first volume alone

(containing the languages of Asia, and published in 1806,) is exclusively

Adelung’s. Of the second, only a hundred and fifty pages had been printed

when the venerable author died in his seventy-third year. These printed

sheets, and the papers which he had collected for the subsequent

volumes, he bequeathed to Dr. Severinus Vater, professor of theology at

Königsberg, under whose editorship, with assistance from several friends,

(and especially from the lamented William von Humboldt and Frederic

Adelung,) the second volume, which comprises the languages of Europe with

all their ramifications, appeared in 1809. The third, on the languages

of Africa, and of America, (for which last the work is indebted to

Humboldt,) appeared, in parts, between 1812 and 1816; and a supplementary

volume, containing additions to the earlier portions of the work, by

Humboldt, Frederic Adelung, and Vater himself, was published in 1817.

It is impossible to overstate the importance and value of this great

linguistic repertory. The arrangement of the work is strictly scientific,

according to the views then current. The geographical distribution, the

origin and history, and the general structural peculiarities of each,

not only of the great families, but of the individual languages, and in

many cases even of the local dialects, are carefully, though briefly

described. The specimen Pater Noster in each language and dialect, is

critically examined, and its vocabulary explained. To each language,

too, is prefixed a catalogue of the chief philological or etymological

works which treat of its peculiarities; and thus abundant suggestions

are supplied for the prosecution of more minute researches into its

nature and history. And for the most part, all this is executed with so

much simplicity and clearness, with so true a perception of the real

points of difficulty in each language, and with so almost instinctive

a power of discriminating between those peculiarities in each which

require special explanation, and those less abnormal qualities which a

philosophical linguist will easily infer from the principles of general

grammar, or from a consideration of the common characteristics of the

family to which it belongs, that one may learn as much of the real

character of a language, in a few hours, from the few suggestive pages

the _Mithridates_, as from the tedious and complicated details of its

professional grammarians.

Adelung’s associate in the _Mithridates_ and its continuator, Dr.

Severinus Vater, was born at Altenburg, in 1771; he studied at Jena and

Halle, in both of which universities he afterwards held appointments

as professor; at Jena, as extraordinary Professor of Theology in 1796,

and at Halle, as Professor of Oriental Languages in 1800. Thence he

was transferred, in 1809, to Königsberg in the capacity of Professor

of Theology and Librarian; but he returned, in 1820, to Halle, where

he continued to reside till his death, in 1826. Although Vater was

by no means a very scientific linguist,[148] the importance of his

contributions to the study of languages cannot be too highly estimated.

Besides the large share which he had in the preparation of the

_Mithridates_ (the last three volumes of which were edited by him,) he

also wrote well on the grammar of the Hebrew, Polish, Russian, and German

languages. Nevertheless, his reputation is rather that of a scholar than

of a linguist.

A few years after the author of the _Mithridates_ appears the celebrated

Peter Simon Pallas, to whom we are indebted for the great “Comparative

Vocabulary” already described. He was born at Berlin in 1741, and his

early studies were mainly directed to natural philosophy, which he seems

to have cultivated in all its branches. His reputation as a naturalist

procured for him, in 1767, an invitation from Catherine II. of Russia,

to exchange a distinguished position which he had obtained at the Hague

for a professorship in the Academy of St. Petersburg. His arrival in that

capital occurred just at the time of the departure of the celebrated

scientific expedition to Siberia for the purpose of observing the transit

of Venus; and, as their mission also embraced the geography and natural

history of Siberia, Pallas gladly accepted an invitation to accompany

them. They set out in June, 1768, and after exploring the vast plains of

European Russia, the borders of Calmuck Tartary, and the shores of the

Caspian, they crossed the Ural Mountains, examined the celebrated mines

of Catherinenberg, proceeded to Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, and

penetrated across the mountains to the Chinese frontier, whence Pallas

returned by the route of Astrakan and the Caucasus to St. Petersburg. He

reached that city in July, 1774, with broken health, and hair prematurely

whitened by sickness and fatigue. He resumed his place in the Academy;

and was rewarded by the Empress with many distinctions and lucrative

employments, one of which was the charge of instructing the young

grand-dukes, Alexander and Constantine. It was during these years that

he devoted himself to the compilation of the _Vocabularia Comparativa_,

which comprises two hundred and one languages; but, in 1795, he returned

to the Crimea, (where he had obtained an extensive gift of territory

from the Empress) for the purpose of recruiting his health and pursuing

his researches. After a residence there of fifteen years, he returned

to Berlin in 1810, where he died in the following year. It will be

seen, therefore, that, prodigious as were his acquirements in that

department, the study of languages was but a subordinate pursuit of this

extraordinary man. His fame is mainly due to his researches in science.

It is to him that we owe the reduction of the astronomical observations

of the expedition of 1768; and Cuvier gives him the credit of completely

renewing the science of geology, and of almost entirely re-constructing

that of natural history. It is difficult, nevertheless,[149] to arrive

at an exact conclusion as to the share which he personally took in the

compilation of the Vocabulary; and still more so, as to his powers as a

speaker of foreign languages; although it is clear that his habits of

life as a traveller and scientific explorer, not only facilitated, but

even directly necessitated for him, the exercise of that faculty, to a

far greater degree than can be supposed in the case of most of the older

philologers.

The career of Pallas bears a very remarkable resemblance to that of a

more modern scholar, also a native of Berlin, Julius Henry Klaproth.

He was the son of the celebrated chemist of that name, and was born in

1783. Although destined by his father to follow his own profession, a

chance sight of the collection of Chinese books in the Royal Library at

Berlin, irrevocably decided the direction of his studies. With the aid

of the imperfect dictionary of Mentzel and Pere Diaz, he succeeded in

learning without a master that most difficult language; and, though he

complied with his father’s desire, so far as to pursue with success the

preparatory studies of the medical profession, he never formally embraced

it. After a time he gave his undivided attention to Oriental studies;

and, in 1802, established, at Dresden, the _Asiatisches Magazin_. Like so

many of his countrymen, he accepted service in Russia, at the invitation

of Count Potocki, who knew him at Berlin; and he was a member of the

half-scientific, half-political, mission to Pekin, in 1805, under that

eminent scholar and diplomatist. He withdrew, however, from the main

body of this expedition, in order to be able to pursue his scientific

researches more unrestrainedly; and, after traversing eighteen hundred

leagues in the space of twenty months, in the course of which he passed

in review all the motley races of that inhospitable region, Samoiedes,

Finns, Tartars, Monguls, Paskirs, Dzoungars, Tungooses, &c., he returned

to St. Petersburg, in 1806, with a vast collection of notes on the

Chinese, Mantchu, Mongul, and Japanese[150] languages. With a similar

object, he was soon afterwards sent by the Academy, in September, 1807,

to collect information on the languages of the Caucasus, a journey of

exceeding difficulty and privation, in which he spent nearly three years.

On his return to St. Petersburg, he obtained permission to go to Berlin

for the purpose of completing the necessary engravings for his work;

and he availed himself of this opportunity to withdraw altogether from

the Russian service, although with the forfeiture of all his titles

and honours. After a brief sojourn in Italy, he fixed his residence in

Paris. To him the _Société Asiatique_ may be said to owe its origin; and

he acted, almost up to his death in 1835, as the chief editor of its

journal—the well-known _Journal Asiatique_. In Paris, also, he published

his _Asia Polyglotta_, and “New Mithridates.” Klaproth, perhaps, does not

deserve, in any one of the languages which he cultivated, the character

of a very deep scholar; but he was acquainted with a large number: with

Chinese, Mongol, Mantchu, and Japanese, also with Sanscrit, Armenian,

Persian, and Georgian;[151] he was of course perfectly familiar with

German, Russian, French, and probably with others of the European

languages.

The eminent historical successes of Berthold George Niebuhr, (born at

Copenhagen in 1776), have so completely eclipsed the memory of all his

other great qualities, that perhaps the reader will not be prepared

to find that in the department of languages his attainments were of

the highest rank. His father, Carsten Niebuhr, the learned Eastern

traveller, had destined him to pursue his own career; but the delicacy

of the youth’s constitution, and other circumstances, forced his father

to abandon the idea, and saved young Niebuhr for the far more important

studies to which his own tastes attracted him. His history, both literary

and political, is too recent and too well known to require any formal

notice. It will be enough for our purpose to transcribe from his life

an extremely interesting letter from his father, which bears upon the

particular subject of the present inquiry. It is dated December, 1807,

when Niebuhr was little more than thirty years of age. “My son has

gone to Memel,” writes the elder Niebuhr, “with the commissariat of the

army. When he found he should probably have to go to Riga, he began

forthwith to learn Russian. Let us just reckon how many languages he

knows already. He was only two years old when we came to Meldorf, so

that we must consider, 1st, German, as his mother tongue. He learned at

school, 2nd, Latin; 3rd, Greek; 4th, Hebrew; and, besides in Meldorf he

learned, 5th, Danish; 6th, English; 7th, French; 8th, Italian; but only

so far as to be able to read a book in these languages; some books from a

vessel wrecked on the coast induced him to learn, 9th, Portuguese; 10th,

Spanish; of Arabic he did not know much at home, because I had lost my

lexicon and could not quickly replace it; in Kiel and Copenhagen he had

opportunities of practice in speaking and writing French, English, and

Danish; in Copenhagen he learned, 11th, Persian, of Count Ludolph, the

Austrian minister, who was born at Constantinople, and whose father was

an acquaintance of mine; and 12th, Arabic, he taught himself; in Holland

he learned, 13th, Dutch; and again, in Copenhagen, 14th, Swedish, and a

little Icelandic; at Memel, 15th, Russian; 16th, Slavonic; 17th, Polish;

18th, Bohemian; and, 19th, Illyrian. With the addition of Low German,

this makes in all twenty languages.”[152]

As this letter does not enter into the history of Niebuhr’s later

studies, I inquired of his friend, the Chevalier Bunsen, whether he had

continued to cultivate the faculty thus early developed. I received from

him the following interesting statement:—“Niebuhr,” he says, “ought not

to be ranked among _Linguists_, in contradistinction with _Philologers_.

Language had no special interest for him, beyond what it affords in

connection with history and literature. His proficiency in languages

was, however, very great, in consequence of his early and constant

application to history, and his _matchless memory_. I have spoken of

both in my _Memoir on Niebuhr_, in the German and English edition of

Niebuhr’s Letters and Life; it is appended to the 2nd volume of both

editions. I think it is somewhere stated how many languages he knew

at an early age. What I know is, that besides _Greek_ and _Latin_, he

learned early to read and write _Arabic_; _Hebrew_ he had also learned,

but neglected afterwards; _Russian_ and _Slavonic_ he learned (to read

only,) in the years 1808, 1810. He wrote well _English_, _French_, and

_Italian_; and read _Spanish_, and _Portuguese_. _Danish_ he wrote as

well as his mother tongue, _German_, and he understood _Swedish_. In

short, he would learn with the greatest ease _any language_ which led him

to the knowledge of historical truth, when occupied with the subject; but

language, as such, had no charm for him.”

Among the scholars who assisted Adelung and Vater in the compilation of

the _Mithridates_, by far the most distinguished was the illustrious

Charles William von Humboldt. He was born at Potsdam, in 1767, and

received his preliminary education at Berlin. His university studies

were made partly at Göttingen, partly at Jena, where he formed the

acquaintance and friendship of Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, and, above

all, of Herder, from whose well-known tastes it is highly probable that

Humboldt’s mind received the strong philological bias which it exhibited

during his life. Unlike most of the scholars who preceded him in this

career, however, Humboldt’s life was spent amid the bustle and intrigue

of diplomatical pursuits. He was sent to Rome as Prussian Minister in

1802, and, from that period until 1819, he was almost uniformly employed

in this and similar public services. From his return to Berlin, in 1819,

he lived almost entirely for science, till his death, which occurred

at Tegel, near Berlin, in 1835. Humboldt is, in truth, the author of

that portion of the third volume of the _Mithridates_ which treats of

the languages of the two continents of America; and, although a great

part of its materials were derived from the labours of others—from the

memoirs, published and unpublished, of the missionaries, from the works

and MSS. of Padre Hervaz, and other similar sources—yet no one can read

any single article in the volume without perceiving that Humboldt had

made himself thoroughly master of the subject; and that, especially in

its bearings upon the general science of philology, or the great question

of the unity of languages and its kindred ethnological problems, he

had not only exhausted all the learning of his predecessors, but had

successfully applied to it all the powers of his own comprehensive and

original genius. To the consideration, too, of this numerous family of

languages he brought a mind stored with the knowledge of all the other

great families both of the East and of the West; and although it is not

easy to say what his success in speaking languages may have been, it is

impossible to doubt either the variety or the solidity of his attainments

both as a scientific and as a practical linguist. But Humboldt’s place

with posterity must be that of a philologer rather than of a linguist.

His Essay on the “Diversity of the Formation of Human Language, and

its Influence on the Intellectual Development of Mankind,” published

posthumously in 1836, as an Introduction to his Analysis of the Kawi

Language, is a work of extraordinary learning and research, as well as of

profound and original thought; analysing all the successive varieties of

grammatical structure which characterize the several classes of language

in their various stages of structural development, from the naked

simplicity of Chinese up to the minute and elaborate inflexional variety

of the Sanscritic family. M. Bunsen describes this wonderful work as “the

_Calculus Sublimis_ of linguistic theory,” and declares that “it places

William von Humboldt’s name by the side of that of Leibnitz in universal

comparative ethnological philology.”[153]

The school of Humboldt in Germany has supplied a long series of

distinguished names to philological literature, beginning with Frederic

von Schlegel, (whose Essay “On the Language and Literature of the

Hindoos, 1808,” opened an entirely new view of the science of comparative

philology), and continued, through Schlegel’s brother Augustus, Rask,

Bopp, Grimm, Lepsius, Pott, Pfizmaier, Hammer-Purgstall (the so-called

“Lily of Ten Tongues”), Sauerwein, Diez, Boehtlingk, and the lamented

Castrén, down to Bunsen, and his learned fellow-labourers, Max Müller,

Paul Boetticher, Aufrecht, and others.[154] For most of those, as for

Schlegel, the Sanscrit family of languages has been the great centre

of exploration, or at least the chief standard of comparison; and

Bopp, in his wonderful work, the “Comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit,

Zend, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, old Slavonic, Gothic, and German

Languages,”[155] has almost exhausted this part of the inquiry. Others

(still, however, with the same general view) have devoted themselves

to other families, as Lepsius to the Egyptian, Rask to the Scythian,

Boehtlingk to the Tartar,[156] Grimm to the Teutonic, Diez to the

Romanic, and Castrén to the Finnic. Others, in fine, as Bunsen in

his most comprehensive work, “Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal

History applied to Language,” (the third volume of his “Christianity and

Mankind”) have digested the entire subject, and applied the researches

of all to the solution of the great problem of the science. Some of

those whom I have named rather resembled the ancient heroes of romance

and adventure, than the common race of quiet everyday scholars. The

journeys of Rask, Klaproth, and Lepsius, were not only full of danger,

but often attended with exceeding privation; and Alexander Castrén of

Helsingfors was literally a martyr of the science. This enthusiastic

student,[157] although a man of extremely delicate constitution, “left

his study, travelled for years alone in his sledge through the snowy

deserts of Siberia; coasted along the borders of the Polar Sea; lived for

whole winters in caves of ice, or in the smoky huts of greasy Samoiedes;

then braved the sand-clouds of Mongolia; passed the Baikal; and returned

from the frontiers of China to his duties as Professor at Helsingfors,

to die after he had given to the world but a few specimens of his

treasures.”[158]

Rask and M. Bunsen, even as linguists, deserve to be more specially

commemorated.

The former, who was born in 1787 at Brennekilde, in the island of Funen,

traversed, in the course of the adventurous journey already alluded

to, the Eastern provinces of Russia, Persia, India, Malacca, and the

island of Ceylon, and penetrated into the interior of Africa. In all

the countries which he visited he made himself acquainted with the

various languages which prevailed; so that besides the many languages

of his native Teutonic family, those of the Scandinavian, Finnic, and

Sclavonic stock, the principal cultivated European languages, and the

learned languages (including those of the Bible), he was also familiar

with Sanscrit in all its branches; and is justly described as the first

who opened the way to “a real grammatical knowledge of Zend.”[159] M.

Bunsen’s great work exhibits a knowledge of the structural analysis of

a prodigious number of languages, from almost every family. As a master

of the learned languages, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, and (though he has

cultivated these less), Arabic and Persian, he has few superiors. He

speaks and writes with equal facility Latin, German, English, French,

and Italian, all with singular elegance and purify; he speaks besides

Dutch and Danish; he reads Swedish, Icelandic, and the other old German

languages, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romaic; and he has also studied many

of the less known languages, as Chinese, Basque, Finnic, and Welsh,

together with several of the African and North American languages, but

chiefly with a view to their grammatical structure, and without any idea

of learning to read them.

Nevertheless, with all the linguistic learning which they undoubtedly

possess, neither Humboldt nor the other members of his distinguished

school fall properly within the scope of this Memoir. With all of them,

even those who were themselves accomplished linguists, the knowledge

of languages, (and especially of their vocabularies), is a subordinate

object. They have never proposed the study to themselves, for its own

sake, but only as an instrument of philosophical inquiry. It might almost

be said, indeed, that by the reaction which this school has created

against the old system of etymological, and in favour of the structural,

comparison of languages, a positive discouragement has been given to the

exact or extensive study of their vocabularies. Philologers, as a class,

have a decided disposition to look down upon, and even to depreciate, the

pursuit of linguists. With the former, the knowledge of the words of a

language is a very minor consideration in comparison with its inflexions,

and still more its laws of transposition (Lautverschiebung); Professor

Schott of Berlin plainly avows that “a limited knowledge of languages

is sufficient for settling the general questions as to their common

origin;”[160] and beyond a catalogue of a certain number of words for the

purpose of a comparative vocabulary, there is a manifest tendency on the

part of many, to regard all further concern about the words of a language

as old-fashioned and puerile. It it some consolation to the admirers of

the old school to know, that, from time to time, learned philologers

have been roughly taken to task for the presumption with which they have

theorized about languages of whose vocabulary they are ignorant; and it

is difficult not to regard the unsparing and often very amusing exposures

of Professor Schott’s blunders which occur in the long controversy that

he has had with Boehtlingk, Mr. Caldwell’s recent strictures[161] upon

the Indian learning of Professor Max Müller, or Stanislaus Julien’s

still fiercer onslaught on M. Panthier, in the _Journal Asiatique_,[162]

as a sort of retributive offering to the offended Genius of neglected

Etymology.

* * * * *

I shall not delay upon the Biblical linguists of Germany as Hug, Jahn,

Schott, Windischmann, Vullers, &c., among Catholics, or the rival

schools of Rosenmüller, Tholuck, Ewald, Gesenius, Fürst, Beer, De

Lagarde, &c. Extensive[163] as is the range of the attainments of these

distinguished men in the languages of the Bible, and their literature,

this accomplishment has now become so universal among German Biblical

scholars, that it has almost ceased to be regarded as a title to

distinction. Its very masters are lost in the crowd of eminent men who

have grown up on all sides around him.

* * * * *

Among the scholars of modern Hungary there are a few names which deserve

to be mentioned. Sajnovitz’s work on the common origin of the Magyar

and Lapp languages, though written in 1770, long before the science

of Comparative Philology had been reduced to its present form, has

obtained the praise of much learning and ingenuity. Gyarmathi, who wrote

somewhat later on the affinity of the Magyar and Finnic languages (1799)

is admitted by M. Bunsen[164] to “deserve a very high rank among the

founders of that science.” But neither of these authors can be considered

as a linguist. Father Dubrowsky, of whom I shall speak elsewhere,

although born in Hungary, cannot properly be considered as a Hungarian.

Kazinczy, Kisfaludy, and their followers, have confined themselves almost

entirely to the cultivation of their own native language, or at least to

the ethnological affinities which it involves.

I have only discovered one linguist of modern Hungary whom I can consider

entitled to a special notice, but the singular and almost mysterious

interest which attaches to his name may in some measure compensate for

the comparative solitude in which it is found.

I allude to the celebrated Magyar pilgrim and philologer, Csoma de Körös.

His name is written in his own language, Körösi Csoma Sandor; but in the

works which he has published (all of which are in English), it is given

in the above form. He was born of a poor, but noble family, about 1790,

at Körös, in Transylvania; and, received a gratuitous education at the

College of Nagy-Enyed. The leading idea which engrossed this enthusiastic

scholar during life, was the discovery of the original of the Magyar

race; in search of which (after preparing himself for about five years,

at Göttingen, by the study of medicine and of the Oriental languages,)

he set out in 1820, on a pilgrimage to the East, “lightly clad, with a

little stick in his hand, as if meditating a country walk, and with but

a hundred florins, (about £10), in his pocket.” The only report of his

progress which was received for years afterwards, informed his friends

that he had crossed the Balkan, visited Constantinople, Alexandria, and

the Arabic libraries at Cairo; and, after traversing Egypt and Syria,

had arrived at Teheran. Here, on hearing a few words of the Tibetan

language, he was struck by their resemblance to Magyar; and, in the hope

of thus resolving his cherished problem, he crossed Little Bucharia

to the desert of Gobi; traversed many of the valleys of the Himalaya;

and finally buried himself for four years (1827-1830), in the Buddhist

Monastery of Kanam, deeply engaged in the study of Tibetan; four months

of which time he spent in a room nine feet square, (without once quitting

it), and in a temperature below zero! He quickly discovered his mistake

as to the affinity of Tibetan with Magyar; but he pursued his Tibetan

studies in the hope of obtaining in the sacred books of Tibet some light

upon the origin of his nation; and before his arrival at Calcutta, in

1830, he had written down no less than 40,000 words in that language. He

had hardly reached Calcutta when he was struck down by the mortifying

discovery that the Tibetan books to which he had devoted so many precious

years were but translations from the Sanscrit! From 1830 he resided for

several years chiefly at Calcutta, engaged in the study of Sanscrit

and other languages, and employed in various literary services by the

Asiatic Society of Bengal. He published in 1834 a Tibetan and English

Dictionary, and contributed many interesting papers to the Asiatic

Journal, and the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society. In 1842, he set

out afresh upon the great pilgrimage which he had made the object of his

life; and, having reached Dharjeeling on his way to Sikam in Tibet, he

was seized by a sudden illness, which, as he refused to take medicine,

rapidly carried him off. This strange, though highly gifted man, had

studied in the course of his adventurous life, seventeen or eighteen

languages, in several of which he was a proficient.[165]

The career of this enthusiastic Magyar resembles in many respects that

of Castrén, the Danish philologer; and in nothing more than in the

devotedness with which each of them applied himself to the investigation

of the origin of his native language and to the discovery of the

ethnological affinities of his race.

§ VI. LINGUISTS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

The names with which the catalogue of Italian and that of Spanish

linguists open, find a worthy companion in the first name among the

linguists of Britain.

* * * * *

With others the study of languages, or of kindred sciences, formed almost

the business of life. But it was not so with the wonder of his own and of

all succeeding generations—the “Admirable Crichton”; who, notwithstanding

the universality of his reputation, became almost equally eminent in each

particular study, as any of those who devoted all their powers to that

single pursuit.

James Crichton was born in 1561, in Scotland. The precise place of his

birth is uncertain, but he was the son of Robert Crichton of Eliock,

Lord Advocate of James VI. He was educated at St. Andrew’s. The chief

theatres of his attainments, however, were France and Italy. There

is not an accomplishment which he did not possess in its greatest

perfection—from the most abstruse departments of scholarship, philosophy,

and divinity, down to the mere physical gifts and graces of the musician,

the athlete, the swordsman, and the cavalier. His memory was a prodigy

both of quickness and of tenacity. He could repeat verbatim, after a

single hearing, the longest and most involved discourse.[166] Many

of the details which are told of him are doubtless exaggerated and

perhaps legendary; but Mr. Patrick Frazer Tytler[167] has shown that the

substance of his history, prodigious as it seems, is perfectly reliable.

As regards the particular subject of our present inquiry, one account

states that, when he was but sixteen years old, he spoke ten languages.

Another informs us that, at the age of twenty, the number of languages

of which he was master exactly equalled the number of his years. But the

most tangible data which we possess are drawn from his celebrated thesis

in the University of Paris, in which he undertook to dispute in any of

twelve languages—Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian,

French, English, German, Flemish, and Slavonic. I am inclined to believe

that Crichton’s acquirements extended at least so far as this. It might

seem that a vague challenge to dispute in any one of a number of foreign

tongues was an empty and unsubstantial boast, and a mere exhibition of

vanity, perfectly safe from the danger of exposure. But it is clear

that Crichton’s challenge was not so unpractical as this. He not only

specified the languages of his challenge, but there is hardly one of

those that he selected which was not represented in the University of

Paris at the time, not only sufficiently to test the proficiency of the

daring disputant, but to secure his ignominious exposure, if there were

grounds to suspect him of charlatanism or imposture. Unhappily, however,

the promise of a youth so brilliant was cut short by an early death, in

1583, at the age of twenty-two years. Nor did Crichton leave behind him

any work by which posterity might test the reality of his acquirements,

except a few Latin verses printed by his friend, Aldus Manutius, on whose

generous patronage, with all his accomplishments, he had been dependent

for the means of subsistence during one of the most brilliant periods of

his career.

A few years Crichton’s senior in point of time, although, from the

precociousness of Crichton’s genius, his junior in reputation, was

Lancelot Andrews, Bishop of Winchester. He was born in London in 1555,

and, after a distinguished career in the university, rose, through a long

course of ecclesiastical preferments, to the see of Winchester. Beyond

the general praises of his scholarship in which all his biographers

indulge, few particulars are preserved respecting his attainments. Among

his contemporaries he was regarded as a prodigy. Wanley says[168] that

“some thought he might almost have served as interpreter-general at the

confusion of tongues;” and even the more prosaic Chalmers attributes to

him a profound knowledge of the “chief Oriental tongues, Greek, Latin,

and many modern languages.”[169]

John Gregory, who was born at Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, in the year

1607, would probably have far surpassed Andrews as a linguist, had he

not been cut off prematurely before he had completed his thirtieth year.

He was a youth of unexampled industry and perseverance, devoting sixteen

hours of the twenty-four to his favourite studies. Even at the early age

at which he died he had mastered not only the Oriental and classical

languages, but also French, Italian, and Spanish, and, what was far more

remarkable in his day, his ancestral Anglo-Saxon. But he died in the very

blossom of his promise, in 1646.

These, however, must be regarded as exceptional cases. The study of

languages, it must be confessed, occupied at this period but little

of public attention in England. It holds a very subordinate place in

the great scheme of Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning.” In the model

Republic of his “New Atlantis” only four languages appear, “ancient

Hebrew, ancient Greek, good Latin of the School, and Spanish.”[170]

Gregory’s contemporaries, the brothers John and Thomas Greaves, though

both distinguished Persian and Arabic scholars, never made a name in

other languages. Notwithstanding the praise which Clarendon bestows on

Selden’s “stupendous learning in all kinds and _in all languages_,”[171]

it is certain that the range of his languages was very limited. So,

also, what Hallam says of Hugh Broughton as a man “deep in Jewish

erudition,”[172] must be understood rather of the literature than of the

languages of the East; and although Hugh Broughton’s namesake, Richard,

(one of the missionary priests in England in the beginning of the

seventeenth century, and an antiquarian of considerable merit, mentioned

by Dodd[173]) was a learned Hebraist, there is no evidence of his having

gone farther in these studies.

Indeed, strange as it may at first sight appear, the first epoch in

English history really prolific in eminent scholars is the stormy period

of the great Civil War. It is not a little remarkable that the most

creditable fruit of English scholarship, Walton’s Polyglot Bible, was

matured, if not brought to light, under the Republic.

The men who were engaged in this work, however, were, for the most part,

merely book-scholars. Edmund Castell, born at Halley, in Cambridgeshire,

in 1606, author of the Heptaglot Lexicon, which formed the companion or

supplement of Walton’s Bible, is admitted to have been one of the most

profound Orientalists of his day. This Lexicon comprises seven Oriental

languages, Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and

Persian; and, if we add to these the classical languages, we shall

find Castell’s attainments to have been little inferior to those of

any linguist before his time; even without reckoning whatever modern

languages he may be supposed to have known. Castell, nevertheless, is one

of the most painful examples of neglected scholarship in all literary

history. Disraeli truly says that he more than devoted his life to his

Lexicon Heptaglotton.[174] His own Appeal to Charles the Second, if less

noble and dignified than Johnson’s celebrated preface to the Dictionary,

is yet one of the most touching documents on record. He laments the

“seventeen years during which he devoted sixteen or eighteen hours a day

to his labour. He declares that he had expended his whole inheritance

(above twelve thousand pounds), upon the work; and that he spent his

health and eyesight as well as his fortune, upon a thankless task.” The

copies of his Lexicon remained unsold upon his hands; and, out of the

whole five hundred copies which he left at his death, hardly one complete

copy escaped destruction by damp and vermin. “The whole load of learned

rags sold for seven pounds!”[175]

I cannot find that either Castell or his friend (though by no means his

equal as a linguist), Brian Walton possessed any remarkable faculty in

speaking even the languages with which they were most familiar.

Another of Walton’s associates in the compilation of the Polyglot, as

well as in other learned undertakings, Edward Pocock (born at Oxford in

1604,) appears to have given more attention to the accomplishment of

speaking foreign languages. In addition to Latin, Greek, French, and

probably Italian, he was well versed in Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, and

Arabic. During a residence of six years at Aleppo, as British chaplain,

(1600-6), he had the advantage of receiving instructions from a native

doctor, in the language and literature of Arabia; and he engaged an Arab

servant for the sole purpose of enjoying the opportunity of speaking the

language.[176] In a second journey to the East, undertaken a few years

later, under the patronage of Laud, he extended his acquaintance with

these languages. Two of Pocock’s sons, Edward and Thomas, attained a

certain eminence in the same pursuit; but neither of them can be said to

have approached the fame of their father.

The mention of Arabian literature suggests the distinguished names of

Simon Ockley, the earliest English historian of Mahometanism, and of

George Sale, the first English translator of its sacred book. Both were

in their time Orientalists of high character; but both of them appear

to have applied chiefly to Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, rather than

to the Biblical languages. Both, too, may be cited among the examples

of unsuccessful scholarship. It was in a debtor’s prison at Cambridge

that Ockley found leisure for the completion of his great History of the

Saracens; and it is told of the learned translator of the Koran, that

too often, when he quitted his studies, he wanted a change of linen, and

frequently wandered in the streets in search of some compassionate friend

who might supply him with the meal of the day![177]

Another scholar of high repute at the same period, is Samuel Clarke. He

was born at Brackley, in Northamptonshire, in 1623, and was a student at

Merton College, Oxford, when the parliamentary commission undertook the

reform of the University. The general report of the period represents

him as a very profound and accomplished linguist; but the only direct

evidence which remains of the extent of his powers, is the fact that

he assisted Walton in the preparation of his Polyglot Bible, and also

Castell in the composition of his Heptaglot Lexicon. He died in 1669.

Early in the same century was born John Wilkins, another linguist of some

pretensions. Perhaps, however, he is better known by the efforts which

he made to recommend that ideal project for a Universal Language which

has occupied the thoughts of so many learned enthusiasts since his time,

than by his own positive and practical attainments; although he published

a Collection of Pater Nosters which possesses no inconsiderable

philological merit. He was born in 1614, at Fawsley, in Northamptonshire;

and at the early age of thirteen, he was admitted a scholar of Magdalen

College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1634. In the contest

between the Crown and the Parliament, Wilkins became a warm partisan

of the latter. He was named Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, by the

parliamentary commission in 1648. Some years later, in 1656, he married

Robina, sister of the Protector, and widow of Peter French; the Protector

having granted him a dispensation from the statute which requires

celibacy, as one of the conditions of the tenure of his Wardenship. In

1659, Richard Cromwell promoted him to the Mastership of Trinity College,

Cambridge; from which, however, he was dispossessed at the Restoration.

But his reputation for scholarship, seemingly through the influence of

Buckingham,[178] outweighed his political demerits; and he was named

successively Dean of Ripon and Bishop of Chester, in which latter dignity

he died in 1670.

The unhappy deistical writer, John Toland, born in the County Donegal,

in Ireland, in 1669, was one of the most skilful linguists of his day.

His birth was probably illegitimate, and he was baptized by the strange

name of James Junius,[179] which the ridicule of his schoolfellows caused

him to change for that by which he is now known. During his early youth,

he was a member of the Catholic religion; but his daring and sceptical

mind early threw off the salutary restraints which that creed imposes,

although, like Gibbon, only to abandon Christianity itself in abandoning

Catholicity. His eventful and erratic career does not fall within the

scope of this notice, and I will only mention that in the singular

epitaph, which he composed for his own tomb, he speaks of himself as

“_linguarum plus decem sciens_.” In several of these ten languages, as

he states in his memorial to the Earl of Oxford,[180] he spoke and wrote

with as much fluency as in English. Toland died at Putney, in 1722.

From this period the same great blank occurs in the history of English

scholarship, which we have observed in almost all the contemporary

literatures of Europe. Still a few names may be gleaned from the general

obscurity.[181] It is true that what many persons may deem the most

notable publication of the time, Chamberlayne’s Collection of Pater

Nosters, (1715), was rather a literary curiosity than a work of genuine

scholarship. But there are other higher, though less known, names.

The once notorious “Orator Henley,” whom the Dunciad has immortalized as

the

“Preacher at once, and Zany of his age,”

was unquestionably a linguist of great acquirements. His “Complete

Linguist,” consisting of grammars of ten languages, was published when

he was but twenty-five years old; and throughout his entire career,

eccentric as it was, he appears to have persevered in the same studies.

John Henley was born at Melton Mowbray, in 1692, and graduated in the

University of Cambridge. He took orders, and obtained some notoriety as a

preacher; but his great theatre of display was his so-called “Oratory,”

where he delivered orations or lectures on a variety of topics,

religious, political, humorous, and even profane. It was on one of these

occasions that he drew together a large congregation of shoemakers, by

the promise of showing them “the best, newest, and most expeditious way

of making shoes,” which he proceeded to illustrate by holding out a boot

and _cutting off the leg part_! Henley died in 1756.[182]

What Henley was in the learned languages, the distinguished statesman

Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville, was in the modern. With all

his brilliant qualities as a debater, and all his great capacity for

public affairs, Carteret combined the learning and the accomplishments of

a finished scholar. Swift said of him that “he carried away from Oxford

more Greek, Latin, and philosophy, than became a person of his rank.” He

spoke and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and even

Swedish; and one of the first causes of the jealousy with which Walpole

regarded him, was the volubility with which he was able to hold converse

in German with their common master, George the First.

But Henley and Carteret stand almost alone among the English scholars of

the early half of the seventeenth century; and the first steady impulse

which the study of languages received in England, may be chiefly traced

to the attractions of the honourable and emolumentary service of the

East India Company. What the diplomatic ambition of France in the Levant

effected among the scholars of that country, the commercial enterprise

of the merchant princess of England achieved in her Indian territory;

and the splendid rewards held out to practical Oriental scholarship,

gave an impulse to the study of Eastern languages on a more liberal

and comprehensive scale.[183] It is in great part to this, that we are

indebted for the splendid successes of Sir William Jones, of Marsden, of

Colebrooke, of Craufurd, of Lumsden, of Leyden, and still more recently,

of Colonel Vans Kennedy.

The first of these, William Jones, was the son of a school-master,

and was born in London, in 1741. He was educated at Harrow, where

he exhibited an early taste for languages,[184] and was especially

distinguished in Greek and Latin metrical composition. In 1764, he

entered the University of Oxford, where he learned Arabic from a Syrian

whose acquaintance he chanced to form. To this he soon after added

Persian; and in 1770, he performed the very unusual feat of translating

the history of Nadir Shah into French. In the following year he

published his Persian Grammar, which took the general public as much by

surprise, by the beauty and eloquence of the poetical translations which

accompanied the copious examples that illustrated it, as it excited the

admiration of scholars by the simplicity and practical good sense of its

technical details. He soon afterwards applied himself to the language

and literature of China; which, however, he never made a profound study,

as about this time (1770), feeling the precariousness of a purely

literary profession, he took steps to have himself called to the English

bar, and for the following twelve years devoted himself with all his

characteristic energy, and with marked success, to its laborious and

engrossing duties. During the same period he endeavoured unsuccessfully

to obtain a seat in Parliament; but in 1783, he accepted the appointment

of Judge in the supreme court at Calcutta, and repaired to India in

the same year. His attention to the duties of his office, is said to

have been most earnest and exemplary. But, in the intervals of duty, he

travelled over a great part of India; mixed eagerly in native society;

and had acquired a familiarity with the history, antiquities, religions,

science, and laws of India, such as had never before been attained by

any European scholar, when, unhappily for the science to which he was

so thoroughly devoted, he was cut off prematurely in the year 1794, at

the early age of forty-seven. During a life thus laborious, and in great

part spent in pursuits utterly uncongenial with linguistic studies, Sir

William Jones had nevertheless amassed a store of languages which had

seldom, perhaps never, been equalled before his time. Fortunately too,

unlike most of the linguists whom we have been enumerating, he himself

left an autograph record of these studies, which Lord Teignmouth has

preserved in his interesting Biography. In this paper, he describes the

total number of languages with which he was in any degree acquainted to

have been twenty-eight; but he further distributes these into classes

according to the degree of his familiarity with each. From this curious

memorandum, it appears that he had studied critically _eight_ languages,

viz:—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit;

_eight_ others he had studied less perfectly, but all were intelligible

to him with the aid of a Dictionary, viz:—Spanish, Portuguese, German,

Runick, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; _twelve_ others, in fine, he

had studied least perfectly; but he considered all these attainable;

namely Tibetan, Pali, Palavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic,

Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese.[185]

Now, as Lord Teignmouth[186] describes him as perfectly familiar

with Spanish, Portuguese, and German, three languages which he has

himself placed on the list of languages, “less critically studied, but

intelligible with the aid of a dictionary,” it may fairly be believed

that this estimate is, to say the least, a sufficiently modest one; and

that his acquaintance even with the languages of the third class was by

no means superficial, we may infer from another memorandum preserved by

Lord Teignmouth from which we find that he had studied the grammars of

two at least of the number, namely: Russian and Welsh. His biographer,

however, unfortunately enters into no details as to his power of speaking

languages; but he is said by the writer of the notice in the _Biographie

Universelle_ to have spoken eight languages as perfectly as his native

English.

In contrast with successes so brilliant as these, the comparatively

humble career of the other British Orientalists named in conjunction with

Sir William Jones, will appear tame and uninteresting. William Marsden

was born in Dublin, 1754; and, after having completed the ordinary

classical studies, was sent out to Bencoolen in the island of Sumatra, at

the early age of sixteen. The extraordinary facility which he exhibited

for acquiring the Malay languages led to his rapid advancement. He was

named first under-secretary, and afterwards chief secretary of the

Island; and, before his return in 1779, he had accumulated the materials

for the exceedingly valuable work on Sumatra which he published in 1782.

Marsden held several important appointments after his return,[187] and

he employed every interval of his official duties in literary pursuits.

He was a thorough master of Sanscrit, and all its kindred languages;

but he must be described, nevertheless, rather as a book-learned, than

a practical linguist. His Essay on the Polynesian or East Insular

languages, tracing their connexion with each other, and their common

relations with Sanscrit, is still a standard source of information on

this interesting ethnological question.

Henry Thomas Colebrooke,[188] well known by his numerous contributions

to Oriental literature, especially in the Asiatic Journal, was also an

official of the East India Company, whose employment he entered, while

still very young, as a civil servant. Colebrooke was well versed, not

only in the Indian languages, but also in those of the Hebrew and cognate

races; and his early education in France gave him a greater familiarity

with French and other modern tongues than is often found to accompany the

more profound linguistic studies.

Matthew Lumsden was born in Aberdeenshire in 1777, and went as a mere

boy to India, where his brother had an appointment in the service of the

Company. Lumsden’s knowledge of Hindostani and of Persian led to his

being employed first as translator in the criminal court, and afterwards

as professor in Fortwilliam College, where he remained till 1820. His

skill in Persian and Arabic is attested by several publications upon

both, chiefly elementary; but he can hardly be classed with the higher

Orientalists, much less with linguists of more universal pretensions.

Lord Cockburn, in the lively section of his amusing “Memorials of his

Own Time” which he devotes to the singular and unsteady career of John

Leyden, says that M’Intosh, to whom “his wild friend” was clearly a

source of great amusement, used to laugh at the affected modesty with

which Leyden “professed to know _but seventy_ languages.”[189] It is

plain that M’Intosh considered this an extreme exaggeration; but there

can be no doubt, nevertheless, that Leyden was a very extraordinary

linguist. This strange man, whose name will perhaps be remembered by

the frequent allusions to it in the early correspondence of Sir Walter

Scott, was born of a very humble family at Denholm in 1775. Though his

education was of the very lowest order, yet Scott relates that “before he

had attained his nineteenth year, he confounded the doctors of Edinburgh

by the portentous mass of his acquisitions in almost every department of

knowledge.”[190] Having failed very signally in the clerical profession,

to which he was brought up by his parents, he embraced that of medicine;

and, after undergoing a more than ordinary share of the privations

and vicissitudes of literary life such as it then existed, he went to

Madras in 1803 in the capacity of assistant surgeon in the East India

Company’s service. The adoption of this career decided the course of his

after studies. He had learned, while yet a mere youth, preparing for the

university, Hebrew and Arabic. He afterwards extended his researches

into all the chief languages of the East, Sanscrit, Hindustani, and

many other minor varieties of the Indian tongues. He was also thorough

master of Persian. His career as Professor of Hindustani at Calcutta

was more successful than that of any European scholar since Sir William

Jones. Having also studied the Malay language, from which he made

several translations, he was induced to accompany Lord Minto on the Java

expedition in 1811, where he was cut off after a short illness in the

same year, too soon, unhappily, to allow of his turning to full account

the important materials which he had collected for the comparative study

of the Indo-Chinese languages.

The well-known evangelical commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, born in 1760,

of very humble parentage, at Magherafelt, in the County of Londonderry,

in the north of Ireland, and for a long course of years the most

distinguished preacher of the Methodist communion, enjoyed a high

reputation among his followers as a linguist; but his studies had been

confined almost entirely to the Biblical languages. The same may be said

of the Rev. Dr. Barrett, vice-provost of Trinity College, Dublin, who is

known to Biblical students as the editor of the Palimpsest MS. of the

Gospels, and of the celebrated Codex Montfortianus.

But there is more of curious interest in the career of a very

extraordinary individual, Richard Roberts Jones, of Aberdarvan, in

Carnarvonshire, who, if not for the extent of his attainments, at least

for the exceedingly unfavourable circumstances under which they were

acquired, deserves a place among examples of the “pursuit of knowledge

under difficulties.” A privately printed memoir of this singular

character, by Mr. Roscoe, who took much interest in him, and exerted

himself warmly in his behalf, contains several most curious particulars

regarding his studies and acquirements, as well as his personal habits

and appearance. Mr. Roscoe first met him in 1806, and described him to

Dr. Parr as “a poor Welsh fisher-lad, as ragged as a colt, and as uncouth

as any being that has a semblance of humanity. But beneath such an

exterior,” he adds, “is a mind cultivated, not only beyond all reasonable

expectation, but beyond all probable conception. In his fishing boat on

the coast of Wales, at an age little more than twenty, he has acquired

Greek, Hebrew, and Latin; has read the Iliad, Hesiod, Theocritus,

&c.; studied the refinements of Greek pronunciation; and examined the

connection of that language with Hebrew.” An attempt was made to raise

him to a position more befitting his acquirements. But his habits were

of the rudest and most uncleanly. “He loved to lie on his back in the

bottom of a ditch. His uncouth appearance, solitary habits, and perhaps

weak intellect, made him an object of ridicule and persecution to the

children of the district; and, he often _carried an iron pot on his

head_ to screen him from the stones and clods which they threw at him.

He wore a large filthy wrapper, in the pockets and folds of which he

stowed his library; and his face, covered with hair, gave him a strangely

uncouth appearance; although the mild and abstracted expression of his

features took from it much of its otherwise repulsive character.” Mr.

Roscoe gives a very curious account of an interview between Dr. Parr and

this strange genius, in 1815, in the course of which Jones “exhibited a

familiarity with French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee.”

He described too, for Dr. Parr, his mode of acquiring a new language,

which consisted in carefully examining its vocabulary, ascertaining

what words in it corresponded with those of any language which he had

previously learned, and _having struck such words out of the vocabulary_,

proceeding to impress the _remaining_ words upon his memory, as being

the only ones which were peculiar to the new language which he sought to

acquire. It may easily be believed that Jones’s irreclaimably uncouth and

eccentric habits defeated the efforts made by his friends to place him

in a condition more befitting his acquirements. Clothes with which their

thoughtfulness might replace his habitual rags, in a few days were sure

to present the same filthy and dilapidated appearance. When a bed was

provided for him, he chose to sleep not _upon_, but _under_ it; and all

his habits bespoke at once weakness of mind and indisposition, or perhaps

incapacity, to accommodate himself to the ordinary usages of other men.

Dr. Thomas Young, although his fame must rest chiefly upon his brilliant

philosophical discoveries, (especially in the Theory of Light), and on

his success in deciphering and systematizing the hieroglyphical writing

of the Egyptians, as exhibited in the inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone

and in the funereal papyri, cannot be passed over in a history of

eminent British linguists. Young was born at Milverton in Somersetshire,

in 1773. His mind was remarkably precocious. He had read the whole

Bible twice through, besides other books, before he was four years

old. In his seventh year he learnt Latin; and before he left school

in his thirteenth year, he added to this Greek, French, and Italian.

Soon after his return from school, he mastered Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac,

and Persian; and, in all those languages, as well as in his own, his

reading (of which his journals have preserved a most minute and accurate

record), was so various and so vast, as almost to exceed belief. Having

embraced the medical profession, he passed two years in different German

Universities, during which time he not only extended his knowledge of

learned languages, but also became perfect master of German;—not to speak

of various other acquisitions, some of them of a class which are seldom

found to accompany scholastic eminence, such as riding two horses at

the same time, walking or dancing on the tight rope, and various other

feats of harlequinade! Of his skill in the ancient Egyptian language, as

well as its more modern forms, in which he rivalled, and as his English

biographer, Dr. Peacock, seeks to show,[191] surpassed, Champollion and

Lepsius, it is unnecessary to speak: and it is highly probable that,

having learned Italian while a mere youth,[192] he also made himself

acquainted with Spanish, and perhaps Portuguese.

Dr. Pritchard, who may be regarded as the founder of the English

school of ethnography, can hardly, notwithstanding, be strictly called

a linguist. If we except the Celtic languages, and Greek, Latin, and

German, most of his learning regarding the rest is taken at second-hand

from Adelung and others. Nevertheless, the linguistic section of his

“Researches into the Physical History of Mankind,” is a work of very

great value. M. Bunsen pronounces it “the best of its kind; infinitely

superior, as a whole, to Adelung’s _Mithridates_”;[193] and Cardinal

Wiseman, in his masterly lecture “On the Natural History of the Human

race,” not only gives Pritchard the credit of being “almost the first who

attempted to connect ethnography with philology,” but even goes so far

as to say that it will henceforth “be difficult for any one to treat of

this theme without being indebted to Dr. Pritchard for a great portion of

his materials.”[194]

Of the school of living British linguists I shall not be expected to

speak at much length; but there are a few names so familiar to the

scholars of every country that it would be unpardonable to pass them over

entirely without notice.

The work just quoted, from the very time of its publication in 1836,

established the reputation of Dr. (now Cardinal) Wiseman, still a very

young writer, as a philologist of the first rank. His latest writings

show that, through all the engrossing duties in which he has since been

engaged, he has continued to cultivate the science of philology.[195]

The Cardinal is, moreover, a most accomplished linguist. Besides the

ordinary learned languages, he is master not only of Hebrew and Chaldee,

but also of Syriac (of his scholarship in which his _Horæ Syriacæ_ is

a most honourable testimony), Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit. In modern

languages he has few superiors. He speaks with fluency and elegance

French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese; and in most of these

languages he has frequently preached or lectured extempore, or with

little preparation.

The interesting discoveries of Colonel Rawlinson and of Dr. Hincks, and

Dr. Cureton’s very important Syriac publications, have associated their

names with the linguistic as well as the antiquarian memories of this

age. Nor are there many English Orientalists whose foreign reputation is

so high as that of Mr. Lane. But I am unable to speak of the attainments

of any of these gentlemen in the other families of language.

By far the most noticeable names in the list of living linguists of

British race are those of Sir John Bowring, now Governor at Hong-Kong,

Professor Lee of Cambridge, and the American ex-blacksmith, Elihu

Burritt. All three, beyond their several degrees of personal merit,

possess a common claim to admiration, as being almost entirely

self-educated. John (now Sir John) Bowring, as I learn from a Memoir

published about three years since,[196] before he had attained his

eighteenth year, had learned Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,

German, and Dutch. He is said to have since added to his store almost

every language of Europe;—Russian, Servian, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian,

Slovakian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Lettish, Finnish, and even Basque;

and he is further described as familiar with all the provincial varieties

of each; for instance, of the various offshoots of German, and of the

several dialects of Spanish which prevail in Catalonia, Valencia and

Galicia. Dr. Bowring’s later career brought him into familiarity with

Arabic and Turkish; and his still more recent successes in China and in

Siam and its dependencies are equally remarkable. It is not so easy to

offer an opinion as to the degree of Sir John Bowring’s acquaintance with

each of the languages which are ascribed to him. His interesting poetical

translations from Russian, Servian, Bohemian, and other languages of

Europe, are rather a test of elegant literary tastes than of exact

linguistic attainments; nor am I aware to what more direct ordeal his

various attainments have been subjected. It were to be wished that the

Memoir from which these particulars are derived had entered more into

detail upon this part of the subject. But, even making every allowance

for possible exaggeration, it seems impossible to doubt the claim of Sir

John Bowring to a place in the very highest rank of modern linguists.

Dr. Samuel Lee is perhaps even a still more extraordinary example of

self-education. He was born in the very humblest rank in the village

of Longnor in Shropshire, and, after having spent a short time in the

poor-school of his native village, commenced life as a carpenter’s

apprentice, when he was but twelve years old. In the few intervals of

leisure which this laborious occupation permitted, Mr. Jerdan states[197]

that, without the least assistance from masters, he taught himself Latin,

Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee; having contrived, from the hoardings of

his scanty wages, to procure a few elementary books in these and other

languages. On his marriage, however, he was forced to sell the little

library which he had accumulated, in order to provide for the new wants

with which he found himself encompassed: and for a time his struggle

after learning was suspended; but his extraordinary attainments having

begun to attract notice, he was relieved from the uncongenial occupation

which he had hitherto followed, and appointed master of a school at

Shrewsbury. In the more favourable position which he had thus obtained,

he soon extended his reading to Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. In 1813

he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where it is worthy of note that

he distinguished himself no less in science than in languages, and took

his degree with much credit. He was afterwards appointed superintendent

of the Oriental press of the British and Foreign Bible Society, for which

body he has not only edited the Arabic, Persian, Coptic, Hindustani,

Malay, and other versions of the Bible, but has also translated, or

superintended the translation, of many tracts in these various languages.

When Mr. Wheaton, an American traveller, (brother of the well-known

American jurist of that name) visited Professor Lee, he found him

acquainted with no less than “sixteen languages, in most of which he

was able to write.”[198] Neither this writer, however, nor Mr. Jerdan,

informs us as to the extent of Dr. Lee’s attainments in speaking foreign

languages.

The list of linguists of the British race may be closed not unworthily

with the still more remarkable name of Elihu Burritt, who, though born

in America (in 1811,) is descended of an English family, settled in

Connecticut for the last two centuries. The circumstances of Burritt’s

father, who was a shoemaker, were so narrow, that the education of

Elihu, the youngest of five sons, was entirely neglected. When his

father died, Elihu, then above fifteen years old, had spent but three

months at school; and, being altogether dependent on his own exertions

for support, he was obliged to bind himself as an apprentice to the

trade of blacksmith. Fortunately, however, an elder brother who was

a schoolmaster, settled in the same town before the term of Elihu’s

apprenticeship expired; and as the latter had carefully devoted each

spare moment of his laborious life to reading every book that came within

his reach, he gladly availed himself, as soon as he became his own

master, of his brother’s offer to take him as a pupil for half a year,

which was all the time he could hope to spare from his craft. During that

time, brief as it was, Elihu “became well versed in mathematics, went

through Virgil in the original, and read several French books.” Having

thus laid the foundation, he returned to his trade, resolved to labour

till he should have acquired the means of completing the work; and, in

the strong passion for knowledge which devoured him, he actually engaged

himself to do the work of two men, in order that, by receiving double

wages, he might more quickly realize the desired independence. Yet, even

while he was thus doubly tasked, and while his daily hours of labour were

no less than fourteen, he contrived to give some time in the mornings and

evenings to Latin, French, and Spanish; and he actually procured a small

“Greek grammar, which would just _lie in the crown of his hat_, and used

to carry it with him to read during his work—the casting of brass cow

bells, a task which required no small amount of attention!”

With the little store which he thus toilfully accumulated, he betook

himself to New Haven, the seat of Yale College, although without a hope

of being able to avail himself of its literary advantages. Here too he

worked almost unaided. He took lodgings at an inn frequented by the

students, though too poor to enter the university; and in the course of

a few months, by unremitting study, he read through the whole Iliad in

Greek, and had made considerable progress in Italian and German, besides

extending his knowledge of Spanish and French. Having obtained, soon

afterwards, a commercial appointment, he was partially released, for a

space, from the mechanical drudgery in which he was so long engaged; and,

as he was thus enabled to devote a little more time to his favourite

studies, he contrived to learn Hebrew, and made his first advance towards

a regular course of Oriental reading. But this interval of rest was a

brief one; after a very mortifying failure, he was at last compelled to

return once more to the anvil, as his only sure resource against poverty.

Still, nevertheless, he toiled on in his enthusiastic struggle for

knowledge. Even while engaged in this painful drudgery, “every moment,”

says Mrs. Howitt,[199] “which he could steal out of the four-and-twenty

hours was devoted to study; he rose early in the winter mornings, and,

while the mistress of the house was preparing breakfast by lamplight,

he would stand by the mantel-piece, with his Hebrew Bible on the shelf,

and his lexicon in his hand, thus studying while he ate; the same method

was pursued at the other meals; mental and bodily food being taken in

together. This severe labour of mind, as might be expected, produced

serious effects on his health; he suffered much from headaches, the

characteristic remedy for which were two or three additional hours of

hard forging, and a little less study.”

An extract from his own weekly Diary, which Mrs. Howitt has preserved,

tells the story of his struggle still more touchingly:—“_Monday_, June

18, headache; forty pages Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, sixty-four pages

French, eleven hours forging. _Tuesday_, sixty-five lines of Hebrew,

thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier’s Theory, eight lines Syriac,

ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto Polish, fifteen names of

stars, ten hours forging. _Wednesday_, twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty

pages of astronomy, eleven hours forging. _Thursday_, fifty-five lines

Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours forging. _Friday_, unwell;

twelve hours forging. _Saturday_, unwell; fifty pages Natural Philosophy,

ten hours forging. _Sunday_, lesson for Bible class.”

Through these and many similar difficulties, has this extraordinary man

found his way to eminence. Without attempting to chronicle the stages

of his progress, it will be enough to state that a writer of last year

describes him as at present acquainted with eighteen languages, besides

his native English, viz:—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic,

Turkish, Persian, Ethiopic, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Danish,

Irelandic, Esthonian, Bohemian, and Polish.[200] He is author of several

works, and was for some time Editor of a Journal entitled “The Christian

Citizen.”

As in the case of Dr. Lee, no attempt is made, in either of the

biographies of Burritt which I have consulted, to define with exactness

the degree of his knowledge of each among the various languages which he

has learned; but if his proficiency in them be at all considerable, his

position among linguists must be admitted to be of the very highest; and

as he is still only in his forty-sixth year, it would be difficult to

predict what may be the limit of his future successes.

§ VII. LINGUISTS OF THE SLAVONIC RACE.

The extraordinary capacity of the Slavonic races for the acquisition of

foreign languages, has long been a subject of observation and of wonder.

In every educated foreign circle Russians and Poles may be met, whom it

is impossible to distinguish, by their language, or even by their accent,

from the natives of the country: and this accomplishment is frequently

found to embrace the entire range of the polite languages of Europe. In

the higher native Russian society, it is rare to meet one who does not

speak several languages, besides his own. Every candidate for public

office in Russia, especially in connexion with foreign affairs, must be

master of at least four languages, French, German, English, and Italian;

and in the Eastern governments of the empire, are constantly to be found

employés, who, to the ordinary stock of European languages, add an equal

number of the dialects of the Asiatic races subject to the Czar.

In most cases, however, this facility in the use of foreign languages

enjoyed by the natives of Russia and Poland, is chiefly conversational,

and acquired rather by practice than by study; and, among the numbers

who, during the last three centuries, must be presumed to have possessed

this gift in an eminent degree, very few appear to have acquired a

permanent reputation as scholars in the higher sense of the name.

Unfortunately, too, even were it otherwise, the materials for a history

of Russian linguists are extremely scanty. Not one of those who have

written upon Slavonic Literature, appears to have adverted to this

as a distinct branch of scholarship; Slavonic scholars, too, have

met but imperfect justice from the writers on general biography; and

thus, especially for one to whom the native sources of information are

inaccessible, the rare allusions which can be gleaned from the general

history of Slavonic literature supply but an uncertain and imperfect

guide,[201] even did opportunities present themselves for pursuing the

inquiry.

It would be unpardonable, nevertheless, to pass the subject over in

silence; and I can only renew in especial reference to this part of the

memoir, the claim for indulgence with which I entered upon this Essay.

* * * * *

Christianity, and with it the first seeds of civilization, reached

Russia from Constantinople; and it is not unlikely that the friendly and

frequent intercourse which subsisted between the two courts under the

first Christian Dukes of Muscovy, Vladimir and Jaroslav, may have led to

a considerable interchange of language between the members of the two

nations. The many foreign alliances, too, with Constantinople, Germany,

Hungary, France, England, Norway, and Poland, which were formed by

the children of Jaroslav, may, perhaps, have tended to familiarize his

subjects, or at least his court, with some of the languages of Southern

and Western Europe. But no record of this—the one bright period in early

Russian history—has been preserved, from which any particulars can be

gleaned.

The division of Jaroslav’s dominions between his sons at his death, (in

1054,) plunged the Russian nation into a series of civil wars and into

the barbarism to which such wars lead, from which it did not begin to

emerge till the sixteenth century; and, although a few translations

(chiefly theological), from Greek and Latin, were made during this

period, yet, from the interruption of all intercourse with foreign

countries, it may be presumed that (with the exception, perhaps, of a

few enterprising individuals, like the merchant Nikitin,[202] who, in

the fifteenth century, traversed the entire East, and penetrated as far

as Tibet,) the natives of an empire so completely isolated concerned

themselves little about any language beyond their own.

Macarius, who was Metropolitan of Moscow in the middle of the sixteenth

century, did something to promote the introduction of foreign letters

into Russia,[203] and many translations, not only from the Greek and

Latin fathers, but also from the classical writers, were made under

his direction. A still greater impulse must have been given to this

particular branch of study by the new policy introduced by the Czar Boris

Feodorowitsch Godounoff, who not only invited learned foreigners to his

court, but sent eighteen young nobles of Russia to foreign countries to

study their arts, their literature and their languages.[204]

The results of this more liberal policy, however, had hardly begun to

be felt, when the troubles which followed the well-known revolution of

Demetrius the Impostor, revived for a time the worst forms of barbarism

in the Empire.

The elevation (in 1613,) of the family of Romanoff to the throne, in

the person of the Czar Michael, by restoring a more settled government,

contributed to advance the cause of letters. The monk Beründa Pameva,

published about this time a Slavo-Russian Lexicon, which exhibits in its

etymologies an acquaintance with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.[205]

A school was founded at Moscow by the priest-monk Arsenius, for the

study of Greek and Latin, in 1643, one of the scholars of which,

Theodore Rtischtscheff, founded a society for translating works from

foreign languages in 1649; and another school of still more wide-spread

influence was opened in the Monastery of Saikonosspassk, in 1682. It is

worthy of remark, nevertheless, that the first Russian grammar, that of

Ludolf,[206] was printed, not at any native press, but in the University

of Oxford.

One of the members of the Translation Society alluded to above, the

monk Epiphanius Slawinezki, appears to have been regarded by his

contemporaries as a linguist of notable attainments. He published

a Greek, Latin, and Slavonic Dictionary, and commenced a Slavonic

translation of the Bible from the original Greek, which was cut short

by his death in 1676; but there is no reason to believe that he was

acquainted with any of the Oriental languages; and the inference to be

drawn from the reputation which he enjoyed on so slight a foundation, is

far from creditable to the linguistic attainments of his time.

It is only from the reign of Peter the Great that the history of

this, as of all other branches of Russian enlightenment, may be

properly said to commence. Independently of the encouragement which

Peter held out to foreign talent to devote itself to his service, the

grand and comprehensive scheme of the academy which he planned under

the direction of Leibnitz, contained a special provision for the

department of languages.[207] And although it was not formally opened

until after Peter’s death, by the Empress Catherine I. (1725), the

influence of the policy in which it originated, had made itself felt

long before. The Czar’s favourite, Mentschikoff, who from an obscure

origin (1674-1729) built up the fortunes of what is now one of the

greatest houses of Russia, was master of eight languages, most of which

he spoke with perfect fluency. Demetrius Kantemir, (1673-1723), father

of the celebrated poet of that name, deserves also to be noticed. He

was descended of a Turkish family, and held the office of Hospodar of

Moldavia; but he prized his literary reputation more than his rank. He

appears to have been a scholar in the highest sense of the name, and

was familiarly acquainted, not only with the living languages which

are so easily acquired by his countrymen, but with several of the

learned languages, both of the East and the West.[208] The poet, his

son Antiochus Demetrjewitsch, is also described as “master of several

languages, ancient and modern.”[209] The same may be inferred regarding

the great traveller, Basilius Gregorowitsch Barskj, who was born at

Kiew, in 1702. He must necessarily have acquired, during his long and

adventurous wanderings in Europe and the East, a familiarity with many

of the languages of the various countries through which he journeyed,

although he was prevented from turning it to account upon his return to

Russia by his premature death in 1747.[210]

Basilius Nikititsch Tatisscheff, one of the youths sent abroad by Peter

the Great, for the purpose of studying in the foreign universities,

enjoyed a considerable reputation as a linguist.[211] The History of

Russia which he compiled, supposes a familiarity with several Asiatic,

as well as European languages; but, as it is not improbable that part

of the materials which he employed in this history were translated

for his use by assistants engaged for the purpose, it may be doubted

whether this can be assumed as a fair test of his own capabilities. The

linguistic attainments of the celebrated poet Lemonossoff,[212] although

considerable, form his least solid title to fame. His history is so

full of interest, that its incidents, almost utterly unvarnished, have

supplied the narrative of one of the most popular of modern Russian

novels. Born (1711) in a rude fisher’s hut in the wretched village

of Denissowka on the shore of the Frozen Ocean, he rose by his own

unassisted genius not only to high eminence in science, but to the

very first rank in the literature of his native country, of which he

may truly be described as the founder; and, although he does not seem

to have made languages a special study, he deserves to be noticed even

in this department. He was perfect master of Greek, Latin, French,

and German; and possessed with other ancient and modern languages, an

acquaintance sufficient for all the purposes of study. The attainments

of his contemporary, Basilius Petrowitsch Petroff, (1736) were

perhaps more profound. He was a scholar of the celebrated convent of

Saikonosspassk; and having attracted notice by an ode which he composed

for the coronation of the Empress Catherine, he was employed, through the

influence of Potemkin, at the English and several other European courts.

Through the opportunities which he thus enjoyed, he became one of the

best linguists of his day, and we may form an estimate of his zeal and

perseverance from the circumstance of his having learned Romaic after his

sixtieth year.[213] Gabriel, Archbishop of St. Petersburg, (1775-1801)

and one of the most distinguished pulpit orators of Russia, is also

mentioned as a very remarkable linguist.[214] His success, however, lay

chiefly in modern languages.

The most eminent scholars engaged in the philological and ethnological

investigations undertaken by the Empress Catherine II. were foreigners;

as, for example, Pallas, and Bakmeister. Some, however, were native

Russians, but few details are preserved regarding them. Of Sujeff, who

accompanied Pallas in the expedition to Tartary and China, and who

translated the journals of the expedition into Russian,[215] I have not

been able to obtain any particulars. I have been equally unsuccessful

as to the history of Theodore Mirievo de Jankiewitsch, the compiler of

the alphabetical Digest of Pallas’s Comparative Vocabulary, described in

a former page; but it can scarcely be doubted, from the very nature of

his task, that he must have been a man of no ordinary acquirements as a

linguist, at least as regards the vocabularies of language.

During the present century a good deal has been done in Russia for

the cultivation of particular families of languages. The “Lazareff

Institute,” founded at Moscow in 1813,[216] by an Armenian family from

which it takes its name, comprehends in its truly munificent scheme

of education not only the Armenian, Georgian, and Tartar languages,

but also the several members of the Caucasian family.[217] An Oriental

Institute[218] on a somewhat similar plan was established at St.

Petersburg in 1823. Another was opened at the still more favourable

centre of languages, Odessa, in 1829; and a fourth, yet more recently,

at Kazan, the meeting point of the two great classes of languages

which practically divide between them the entire Russian Empire.[219]

Individual scholars, too, have taken to themselves particular branches

of the study, some of them with very remarkable success. Timkoffsky, the

well-known missionary in China,[220] and Hyacinth Bitchourin, who was

head of the Pekin Russian Mission from 1808 to 1812, have contributed to

popularize the study of Chinese.[221] Igumnoff of Irkutsch published a

useful dictionary of the Mongol: Giganoff, and more recently Volkoff, a

dictionary of the Tartar languages; of which Mirza Kazem-Beg, professor

of the Turkish and Tartar languages at St. Petersburg, has compiled an

excellent grammar. The same service has been rendered to the language

of Georgia and its several dialects by David Tchubinoff.[222] The

numerous philological writings of Goulianoff, too, and, more lately,

Prince Alexander Handjeri’s _Dictionnaire Français, Arabe, Persan, et

Turc_,[223] have established a European reputation.

The present Prefect Apostolic of the Arctic Missions, who is a convert

from the Russian Church, is said to be a very extraordinary linguist.

Even before he entered upon his missionary charge, in which, of course,

the circle of his languages is much enlarged, he habitually heard

confessions, at Paris, in six languages.

Perhaps also it may be permitted to enumerate among Russian linguists

three eminent literary men who have long been resident at St. Petersburg,

and who, although not natives of Russia, may now be regarded as

naturalised subjects of the Empire—Senkowsky, Gretsch and Mirza Kazem-Beg.

The first is by birth a Pole;[224] but having early attained to much

eminence as an Orientalist, and having travelled with some reputation as

an explorer in Syria and Egypt, he obtained the Professorship of Oriental

languages in the university of St. Petersburg, in which he has since

distinguished himself by an important controversy with the celebrated

Von Hammer. Senkowsky, since his residence in St. Petersburg, has made

the Russian language his own, and is one of the most prolific writers

in the entire range of modern Russian literature. His grammar of that

language is among the most intelligible to foreigners that has ever been

issued. With most of the languages of Europe, he is said to be perfectly

familiar, and his attainments as an Orientalist are of the very highest

rank. He is a corresponding member of the Asiatic Societies of most of

the capitals of Europe, and publishes indifferently in Polish, Russian,

German, and French.

Gretsch, the editor of the well-known St. Petersburg Journal, “The

Northern Bee,” is perhaps less profound, but equally varied in his

attainments. Although a German by birth, he writes exclusively in

Russian, and is the author of the best and most popular extant history

of Russian literature; of which Otto’s _Lehrbuch der Russischen

Literatur_, although apparently an independent work, is almost a literal

translation.[225]

Mirza Kazem-Beg is of the Tartar race, but a native of Astracan, where

his father, a man of much reputation for learning, had settled about

the commencement of the century. Soon after the establishment of the

professorship of the Turkish and Tartar languages at Kazan, Kazem-Beg was

selected to fill it; and, after some time, he was removed to the same

chair in the University of Petersburg, which he still holds. Besides the

ordinary learned languages, he is acquainted with the Hebrew, Chaldee,

Arabic, Syrian, Persian, and Turkish, as well as those of the Tartar

stock; and he is described as perfect master of the modern European

languages, especially French, Italian, German, and English. The last

named language he speaks and writes with great ease and elegance, and

has even published some translations into it, as, for example, the

“Derbend-Nâmeh.”[226]

* * * * *

The reputation of the Poles as linguists is equally high. So far back

as the election of Henry de Valois, Choisnin, who accompanied Henry

to Poland, says that of the two hundred Polish nobles who were then

assembled, there were hardly two who did not speak, in addition to their

native Polish, German, Italian, and Latin.[227] So universal was the

knowledge of the last named language that, with perhaps a pardonable

exaggeration, Martin Kromer alleges that there were fewer in Poland than

in Latium itself who did not speak it.[228]

Nevertheless, few names present themselves in this department which have

left any permanent trace in history. Francis Meninski, the learned author

of the _Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium_,[229] was not only a profound

scholar in most of the ancient and modern languages, but, from his long

residence in the East, and from the office of Oriental Interpreter which

he held, first in the Polish and afterwards in the Imperial service, must

be presumed to have spoken them freely and familiarly. But Meninski was a

native of Lorraine, and by some is believed to have been originally named

_Menin_, and only to have adopted the Polish affix, _ski_, on receiving

from the Diet his patent of naturalization and nobility.

Among the early Polish Jesuits were many accomplished classical and

Oriental linguists, but in the absence of any particulars of their

attainments, it would be uninteresting to enumerate them. In later times

the names of Groddek and Bobrowski may be mentioned as philologers,

if not as linguists. The learned Jesuit historian, John Christopher

Albertrandy, also, possesses this among many other lilies to fame. He

was a most laborious and successful collector of materials for Polish

history, in search of which he explored the libraries of Italy, from

whence he carried home, after three years of patient research, a hundred

and ten folio volumes of extracts copied with his own hand! From Italy

he proceeded to Stockholm and Upsala, where many important documents

connected with the time of John III. and Sigismond III. are preserved:

and here, being, from some unworthy jealousy, only permitted to inspect

the desired documents on the condition of not making notes or copies in

the library, his prodigious memory enabled him on his return each evening

to his apartments, to commit to writing what he had read during the day,

and the collection thus formed amounted to no fewer than ninety folio

volumes![230] Albertrandy’s historical works are very numerous; and when

his labours in this department are remembered, his success as a linguist

will appear almost prodigious. Besides Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he knew

most of the modern languages, French, English, Italian, German, and

Russian, and spoke the majority of them with ease and propriety.

The well-known Polish General, Wenceslaus Rzewuski, devoted the later

years of his busy and chequered career to literary, and especially to

linguistic, pursuits. He is said to have spoken the learned tongues

as well and as freely as his native Polish, and to have been master,

moreover, of all the leading modern languages of Europe. The great

Oriental Journal published at Vienna, _Fundgruben des Orients_, which is

really what its title implies, a _mine_ of Oriental learning, was for

many years under his superintendence.

The Russo-Polish diplomatist, Count Andrew Italinski, is another example

of the union of profound scholarship with great talents for public

affairs. Born in Poland about the middle of the eighteenth century,

Italinski visited in the successive stages of his education, Kiew,

Leyden, Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Berlin, and acquired the languages

of all those various countries. Being eventually appointed to the Russian

embassy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he became even more perfect

in Italian. In addition to all these languages, he was so thoroughly

master of those of the East, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, &c., as to

challenge the admiration even of the Easterns themselves.[231]

It is perhaps right to add that the eminent Orientalist of St.

Petersburg, Senkowsky, although a Russian by residence and by

association, is not only, as I have already stated, of Polish birth, but

is, moreover, one of the most popular writers in his native language.

* * * * *

Our notice of Bohemian linguists must be even more meagre.

The early period of Bohemian letters presents no distinguished name. From

the extraordinary activity which the Bohemians exhibited in translating

the Bible in the fifteenth century, it might be supposed that the study

of Greek and Hebrew had already taken root in the schools of Prague. But

out of the “thirty-three copies in Bohemian of the entire Bible, and

twenty-two of the New Testament,”[232] which are still extant, translated

during that period, not one was rendered from the original languages.

Blakoslav, the first translator of the Bible from Greek (in 1563) is

said to have been a man of “profound erudition.” The same is said of

George Strye a few years later; and the Jesuits Konstanj, Steyer, and

Drachovsky, are also entitled to notice.

John Amos Komnensky, also, better known by his Latinized name, Comenius,

a native of Komna in Moravia, (1592-1671) deserved well of linguistic

science, not only by his own acquirements, but by his well-known work,

the _Janua Linguarum Reserata_, which has had the rare fortune of being

translated not only into twelve European languages, but into those of

several Oriental nations besides. The _Janua Linguarum_, however, though

it attracted much attention at the time, has long been forgotten.

It would be still more unpardonable to overlook the celebrated

philologer, Father Joseph Dobrowsky, who, although born in Raab, in

Hungary, was of a Bohemian family, and devoted himself especially to

the literature and language of his nation. He had just entered the

Jesuit society at Brunn at the moment of the suppression of the order.

Repairing to Prague, he applied himself for a time to the study of the

Oriental languages, but eventually concentrated all his energies on the

history and language of Bohemia. His works upon Bohemian history and

antiquities fill many volumes; and his Slavonic Grammar may be regarded

as a classical work, not only in reference to his native language, but

to the whole Slavonian family. Father Dobrowsky survived till the year

1829, engaged until the very time of his death in active projects for the

cultivation of the language and literature of the country of his adoption.

But probably the most remarkable name among Bohemian linguists is

that of Father Dobrowsky’s friend, the poet Wenceslaus Hanka, born at

Horeneyes in 1791. Hanka’s love of languages was first stirred while he

was tending sheep near his native village, by the opportunity which he

had of learning Polish and Servian from some soldiers of these races

being quartered upon his father’s farm. When he grew somewhat older, his

parents, in order to save him from the chances of military conscription,

(from which, in Bohemia, scholars are exempted) sent him to school;

and he afterwards entered the University of Prague, and subsequently

that of Vienna. On the foundation of the Bohemian Museum at Prague,

he was appointed its librarian, through the recommendation of Father

Dobrowsky; and from that time he devoted himself almost entirely to the

antiquities, literature, and language of his native country. Besides

his own original compositions, Hanka’s name has obtained considerable

celebrity in connexion with the controversy about the genuineness of the

early Bohemian poems known under the title of “Kralodvor,”—a controversy

which, although it has ended differently, was for a time hardly less

animated than those regarding the Ossian and Rowley MSS. in England.

Notwithstanding the variety of Hanka’s pursuits, and his especial

devotion to his own language, his acquisitions in languages have been

most various and extensive. He is described in the “Oesterreichische

National Encyclopædie” as “master of eighteen languages.”[233]

* * * * *

With the Slavonic race our Catalogue of Linguists closes. Many

particulars regarding the eminent names which it comprises are, of

necessity, left vague and undetermined. I should have especially

desired to distinguish, in all cases, between mere book knowledge of

languages and the power of writing, or still more of speaking, them. But

unfortunately the accounts which are preserved regarding these scholars

hardly ever enter into this distinction. Even Sir William Jones, though

he carefully classified the languages which he knew, did not specify

this particular; and in most other instances, the narrative, far from

particularizing, like that of Jones, the extent of the individual’s

acquaintance with each language, even leaves in uncertainty the number of

languages with which he was acquainted in any degree.

The very distribution, too, which I have found it expedient to

follow—according to nations—has had many disadvantages. But it seemed

to be upon the whole the most convenient that could be devised. A

distribution into periods, besides that it would have been difficult to

follow out upon any clear and intelligible principle, would have been

attended with the same disadvantages which characterize that according

to nations; while the more strictly philosophical distribution according

to ethnographical or philological schools, would have in great measure

failed to illustrate the object which I have chiefly had in view.

Several of the most eminent of the modern ethnographical writers, and

particularly Pritchard, disavow all claim to the character of linguists;

and the qualifications of many even of those whose pretensions seem the

highest, have, when submitted to a rigid examination, proved far more

than problematical.

* * * * *

There are many curious details, however, into which, if space permitted,

it would be interesting to pursue this inquiry.

It might seem natural, for instance, to investigate the nature and

extent of the Miraculous Gift of Languages—the γένη γλωσσῶν of St.

Paul—whether that possessed by the Apostles and other early teachers of

Christianity, or that ascribed in later times to the missionaries among

the Heathen, and especially to the great Apostle of India, St. Francis

Xavier. Materials are not wanting for such an investigation;[234] but as

it can hardly be said to bear upon the subject of this Biography, I have

reluctantly passed it by.

The history of Royal Linguists, too, might afford much amusing material

for speculation. Mithridates, King of Pontus, as we have seen, spoke

twenty-two languages. Cleopatra was mistress, not only of seven

languages enumerated by Plutarch, but, if we may believe his testimony,

of most other known languages of the time. The accomplished, but

ill-fated, Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia, was familiar with Greek, Latin,

Syriac, and Egyptian; and it may be presumed from the notion which

prevailed among some Christian writers of her being a Jewess, that she

was also acquainted with Hebrew or its kindred tongues.[235] Most of the

Roman Emperors were able indifferently to speak Greek or Latin.

The mediæval sovereigns, with the exception of Frederic II., referred

to in a former page,[236] and the great and learned Pope Sylvester II.,

better known by his family name Gerbert,[237] share, as linguists, the

common mediocrity of the age. The learned Princess Anna Comnena does not

appear at all distinguished in this particular; Charlemagne’s reputation

rests on his acquaintance with Latin, and perhaps also Greek; and our own

Alfred was regarded as a notable example of success, although there is no

evidence that his linguistic attainments extended beyond a knowledge of

Latin.

Very early, however, after the revival of letters, Matthias Corvinus, the

learned and munificent King of Hungary, attained a rank as a linguist

not unworthy of a later day. Besides the learned languages, he was also

acquainted with most of the living tongues of Europe. Charles V. knew and

spoke five languages.[238] Henry VIII. spoke four. Several of the Roman

Pontiffs, particularly Paul IV., in other respects also a most remarkable

scholar,[239] and the great Benedict XIV., were learned Orientalists,

as well as good general linguists. The house of Stuart was eminent for

the gift of tongues. The ill-fated Mary of Scotland spoke most of the

European languages. James I., her son, with all his silly pedantry, was

by no means a contemptible linguist. His grandson, Charles II., spoke

French and Spanish fluently; and his brilliant grand-daughter, Elizabeth

of Bavaria, who alone, according to Descartes, of all her contemporaries,

was able to understand the Cartesian philosophy, was mistress, besides

many scientific and literary accomplishments, of no fewer than six

languages.[240] Christina of Sweden surpassed her in one particular.

She knew as many as eight languages, the major part of which she spoke

fluently.

Nor are the courts of our own day without examples of the same

acquirement. The late Emperor of Russia spoke five languages. Several of

the reigning sovereigns of Europe, Queen Victoria, Alexander of Russia,

and Napoleon III. among the number, enjoy the reputation of excellent

linguists. The young Emperor of Austria is an accomplished classical

scholar, and a perfect master of French, and of all the languages of

his own vast empire—German, Italian, Hungarian, Czechish, and Servian!

Prince Lewis Lucian Bonaparte is a distinguished philologer, as well as a

skilful linguist. His “Polyglot Parable of the Sower” is an interesting

contribution to the former science. Even the remote kingdom of Siam

furnishes, in its two Royal brothers, the First and the Second King,

an example more deserving of praise than would be a far higher success

in a more favoured land. The First King, Somdetch Phra Paramendt Maha

Mongkut,[241] has evinced a degree of intellectual activity, rare

indeed among the potentates of the East. Besides the ancient language

and literature of his own kingdom, and all its modern dialects and

sub-divisions, he knows Sanscrit, Cingalese, and Peguan. From the

Catholic missionaries, especially Bishop Pallegoix, he has learned Latin

and also Greek, and from the American Baptists, English. His letters,

though sometimes unidiomatical, are highly characteristic, and display

much intelligence and ability. He is also well versed in European

sciences, especially astronomy and mechanics. He has formed, moreover, a

very considerable collection of astronomical and philosophical apparatus;

has established printing and lithographic presses in the palace; and has

imported steam machinery of various kinds from America. It is gratifying

to add that his brother, the Second King, shares all his tastes, and is

treading worthily in his footsteps.

* * * * *

A still more attractive topic would be the long line of Lady-Linguists.

It is not a little remarkable that, among the sovereigns who have

distinguished themselves as linguists, the proportion of queens is very

considerable. The three names, Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Christina of

Sweden, unquestionably represent a larger aggregate of languages than any

three of the king-linguists, if we exclude Mithridates.

Nor are the humbler lady-linguists unworthy this companionship. The nun

Roswitha, of Gandesheim, still favourably known by her sacred Latin

poetry, was also acquainted with Greek—a rare accomplishment in the tenth

century. Tarquinia Molza, grand-daughter of the gifted, but licentious

poet of the same name, knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as the

ordinary modern languages. Elena Cornaro Piscopia knew Italian, Spanish,

French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic.[242] Nay, strange as it

may seem in modern eyes, the university of Bologna numbers several ladies

among the occupants of its pulpits. The beautiful Novella d’Andrea,

daughter of the great jurist, Giovanni d’Andrea, professor of law in the

University of Bologna in the 15th century, was wont to take her father’s

place as lecturer on law; observing, however, the precaution of using

a veil, lest her beauty should distract the attention of her pupils.

Her mother Milancia, scarcely less learned, was habitually consulted by

Giovanni on all questions of special difficulty which arose.[243] Laura

Bassi held the chair of philosophy in more modern times.[244] Clotilda

Tambroni, the last and not the least distinguished of the lady professors

of Bologna, has, besides her literary glories, the honour of having

suffered in the cause of loyalty and religion. Like her friend and fellow

professor, Mezzofanti, she refused, on the occupation of Bologna by the

French, to take the oaths of the new government, and was deprived of the

professorship of Greek in consequence.

The learned ladies of Bologna are not alone among their countrywomen.

The celebrated Dominican nun, Cassandra Fedele of Venice; Alessandra

Scala of Florence; and Olympia Fulvia Morata of Ferrara, are all equally

distinguished as proficients in at least two learned languages, Latin and

Greek. Margherita Gaetana Agnesi, of Milan, was familiar with Latin at

nine years of age; and, while still extremely young, mastered Greek and

Hebrew, together with French, Spanish, and German. In the very meridian

of her fame, nevertheless, she renounced the brilliant career which lay

open to her, in order to devote herself to God as a Sister of Charity.

Another fair Italian, Modesta Pozzo, born at Venice in 1555, deserves to

be mentioned, although she is better known for her extraordinary powers

of memory, than her skill in languages.[245] She was able to repeat the

longest sermon after hearing it but once.

Nor are we without examples, although perhaps not so numerous, in other

countries. Many Spanish and Portuguese ladies learned in languages, are

enumerated by Nicholas de Antonio.[246] Dona Anna de Villegas, and D.

Cecilia di Arellano, besides being excellent Latinists, were mistresses

of French, Italian, and Portuguese.[247] To these languages D. Cecilia

de Morellas added Greek as one of her accomplishments,[248] and D.

Juliana de Morell, a nun of the Dominican order in the middle of the

seventeenth century, in addition to these languages, was not only a

learned Hebraist, but an acute and skilful disputant in the philosophy of

the schools.[249]

The accomplished Anna Maria Schurmann, of whom Cologne is still justly

proud, in addition to her numerous gifts in painting, sculpture, music,

and poetry, was mistress of eight languages, among which were Latin,

Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopic.

The brilliant, but eccentric Russian Princess Dashkoff, holds a still

more prominent place in the world of letters. The early friend and

confidant of the Empress Catherine, and (with a few alternations

of disfavour,) the sharer of most of the literary projects of that

extraordinary woman, the Princess Dashkoff had the (for a lady rare)

honour of holding the place of President of the Russian Academy. When

the Dictionary of the Academy was projected, she actually undertook, in

her own person, three letters of the work, together with the general

superintendence of the entire! The princess was not unfamiliar with the

learned languages, some of which she not only spoke but wrote: but her

chief attainments were in those of modern Europe. Her autobiographical

Memoirs appear to have been written in French; and the English letters

embodied in the work prove her to have possessed a thorough knowledge of

that language also.

Some of our own countrywomen, if less showy, may perhaps advance a more

solid title to distinction. The beautiful Mrs. Carter, translator of

Epictetus, well deserves to be mentioned; and the amiable and singularly

gifted Elizabeth Smith, is a not unmeet consort for the most eminent

linguists of any age. “With scarcely any assistance,” writes her

biographer, Mrs. Bowdler, to Dr. Mummsen,[250] “she taught herself the

French, Italian, Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, and Hebrew languages. She

had no inconsiderable knowledge of Arabic and Persian.” Her translation

of the Book of Job is a permanent evidence that her knowledge of Hebrew

was of no ordinary kind.

Even the New World has supplied some names to this interesting catalogue.

The Mexican poetess, Juana Inez de la Cruz, better known as the “Nun of

Mexico,” (1651-95), a marvel of precocious knowledge, learned Latin in

twenty lessons, when a mere girl; and quickly became such a proficient

as to speak it with ease and fluency. Her acquisitions in general

learning were most various and extensive; and when on one occasion, in

her seventeenth year, forty learned men of Mexico were invited to dispute

with her, she proved a match for each in his own particular department.

All these accomplishments, notwithstanding, she had the humility to bury

in the obscurity of a convent in Mexico, where she silently devoted

herself for twenty-seven years to literature and religion. She died

in 1695, leaving behind many works still regarded as classics in the

language, which fill no less than three 4to. volumes, and have passed

through twelve successive editions in Spain. All, with the exception of

two, are on sacred subjects.[251]

“Infant Phenomena” of language would supply another curious and fertile

topic for inquiry—an inquiry too in a psychological point of view

eminently interesting.

Many of the great linguists enumerated in this Memoir, Pico of Mirandola,

Crichton, Martin del Rio, and several others, owed part of their

celebrity to the marvellous precociousness of their gifts. A far larger

proportion, however, of those who prematurely displayed this talent, were

cut off before it had attained any mature or healthy development.

Cancellieri[252] mentions a child named Jacopo Martino,[253] born at

Racuno, in the Venetian territory, in 1639, who not only acquired a

knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, between the age of three and seven, but

made such progress in philosophical science as successfully to maintain

a public thesis in philosophy at Rome, when no more than eight years of

age.[254] This extraordinary child, however, died of exhaustion in 1649,

before he had completed his ninth year.

It was the same for Claudio del Valle y Hernandez, a Spanish prodigy,

mentioned by the same author.

But probably the most extraordinary examples of this psychological

phenomenon upon record, occur, by a curious coincidence, almost at the

very same date in the commencement of the eighteenth century. Within

the three years, from 1719 to 1721, were born in different countries,

three children of a precociousness (even though we accept the traditions

regarding them with great deductions,) entirely without parallel in

history.

The first of these, John Lewis Candiac, was born at Nismes, in 1719.

This strangely gifted child, we are told, was able, in his third

year, to speak not only his native French but also Latin. Before he

was six years old he spoke also Greek and Hebrew. He was well versed,

besides, in arithmetic, geography, ancient and modern history, and even

heraldry.[255] But, as might be expected, these premature efforts quickly

exhausted his overtaxed powers, and he died of water on the brain in

1726, at seven years of age.

Christian Henry Heinecken, a child of equal promise, was cut off even

more prematurely. He was born at Lubeck in 1721. He is said to have been

able to speak at ten months old. By the time he attained his twelfth

month, he had learned, if his biographers can be credited, all the facts

in the history of the Pentateuch.[256] In another month he added to this

all the rest of the history of the old Testament; and, when he was but

fourteen months old, he was master of all the leading facts of the Bible!

At two and a half years of age, he spoke fluently, besides his native

German, the French and Latin languages. In this year he was presented at

the Danish court, where he excited universal astonishment. But, on his

return home, he fell sick and died in his fourth year.

The third of these marvels of precocity, John Philip Baratier, who is

probably known to many readers by Johnson’s interesting memoir,[257]

was born at Anspach in the same year with Heinecken, 1721. His career,

however, was not so brief, nor were its fruits so ephemeral, as those

of the ill-fated children just named. When Baratier was only four years

old, he was able to speak Latin, French, and German. At six he spoke

Greek; and at nine Hebrew; in which latter language the soundness of his

attainments is attested by a lexicon which he published in his eleventh

year. Nor was Baratier a mere linguist. He is said to have mastered

elementary mathematics in three months, and to have qualified himself by

thirteen month’s study for the ordinary thesis maintained at taking out

the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was also well versed in architecture,

in ancient and modern literature, in antiquities, and even the uncommon

science of numismatics. He translated from the Hebrew Benjamin of

Tudela’s “Itinerary.” He published a detailed and critical account of the

Rabbinical Bible; and communicated to several societies elaborate papers

on astronomical and mathematical subjects. This extraordinary youth died

at the age of nineteen in 1760.

Later[258] in the same century was born at Rome a child named

Giovanni Cristoforo Amaduzzi,[259] if not quite so precocious as this

extraordinary trio, at least of riper intellect, and destined to survive

for greater distinction and for a more useful career. The precise dates

of his various attainments do not appear to be chronicled; but, when he

was only twelve years old, he published a poetical translation of the

Hecuba of Euripides, which excited universal surprise; and a few years

later, on the visit of the Emperor Joseph II. and his brother Leopold to

Rome, he addressed to the Emperor a polyglot ode of welcome in Greek,

Latin, Italian, and French. His after studies, however, were more serious

and more practical. He is well-known, not only as a linguist, but also

as a philologer of some merit; and in his capacity of corrector of the

Propaganda Oriental Press, a post which he filled till his death, in

1792, he rendered many important services to Oriental studies.[260]

* * * * *

It would be interesting too, and not without its advantage in reference

to the history of the human mind, to collect examples of what may be

called Uneducated Linguists; of Dragomans, Couriers, “Lohnbedienter,”

and others[261], who, ignorant of all else besides, have acquired a

facility almost marvellous of speaking several languages fluently, and in

many cases with sufficient, seeming accuracy.

Perhaps this is the place to mention the once notorious (to use his own

favourite designation) “Odcombian Leg-stretcher,” Tom Coryat, a native

of Odcombe in Somersetshire (1577-1617), and author of the now rare

volume, “Coryat’s Crudities.”[262] Coryat may fairly be described as

“an uneducated linguist;” for, although he passed through Westminster

School, and afterwards entered Gloucester Hall, Oxford, the languages

which he learned were all picked up, without regular study, during his

long pedestrian wanderings in every part of the world; one of which, of

nearly two thousand miles, he accomplished in a single pair of shoes,

(which he hung up in the church of Odcombe as a votive offering on his

return), and another, of no less than two thousand seven hundred, at a

cost of about three pounds sterling! This strange genius acquired, in a

sufficient degree for all the wants of conversation, Italian, Turkish,

Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani!

Another singularity of the same kind was Robert Hill, the Jewish tailor,

whom Spence has made the subject of an exceedingly curious parallel with

Magliabecchi.[263] And many similar examples might doubtless be collected

among the couriers, interpreters, and valets-de-place of most of the

European capitals. Baron von Zach mentions an ordinary valet-de-place who

could speak nearly all the European languages with the greatest ease and

correctness, although he was utterly ignorant not only of the grammar of

every one of them, but even of that of his own language. I have already

said that the same species of talent is hereditary in several families in

different ports and cities of the Levant.

The history of such cases as these, if it were possible to investigate

it accurately, might throw light on the operations of the mind in the

acquisition of languages. These, however, and many similar topics,

interesting and curious as they are for their own sake, have but little

bearing on the present inquiry; the purpose of which is simply to prepare

the way for a fitting estimate of the attainments of the illustrious

subject of the following Biography, by placing in contrast with them the

gifts of others who, at various times, have risen to eminence in the same

department. Cardinal Mezzofanti will be found to stand so immeasurably

above even the highest of these names, in the department of language,

that, at least for the purposes of comparison with him, its minor

celebrities can possess little claim for consideration.

THE LIFE OF CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI.

CHAPTER I.

[1774-1798.]

A Memoir of Cardinal Mezzofanti can be little more than a philological

essay. Quiet and uneventful as was his career, its history possesses few

of the ordinary attractions of Biography. The main interest of such a

narrative must consist in the light which it may tend to throw on the

curious problem;—what degree of perfection the human mind, concentrating

its powers upon one department of knowledge, is capable of attaining

therein; and the highest hope of the author is to escape the reproach

which Warburton directed against Boileau’s biographer, Desmaiseaux, of

having “written a book without a life.”

* * * * *

Joseph Caspar Mezzofanti,[264] was born at Bologna,[265] on the 17th

of September, 1774.[266] His father, Francis Mezzofanti, a native

of the same city, was of very humble extraction, and by trade a

carpenter. Though almost entirely uneducated,[267] Francis Mezzofanti

is described by the few who remember him, as a man of much shrewdness

and intelligence, a skilful mechanic, and universally respected for his

integrity, piety, and honourable principles. For Mezzofanti’s mother,

Gesualda Dall’ Olmo, a higher lineage has been claimed;—the name of Dall’

Olmo[268] being extremely ancient and not undistinguished in the annals

of Bologna; but the fortunes of the immediate branch of that family from

which Gesualda Dall’ Olmo sprung, were no less humble than those of her

husband. Her education, however, was somewhat superior; and with much

simplicity and sweetness of disposition, she united excellent talents,

great prudence and good sense, and a profoundly religious mind.

Of this marriage were born several children; but they all died at an

early age, except a daughter named Teresa, and Joseph Caspar, the

subject of the present biography. Teresa was the senior by ten years,

and, while her brother was yet a boy, married a young man named Joseph

Lewis Minarelli,[269] by trade a hair dresser, to whom she bore a very

numerous family,[270] several of whom still survive. To the kind courtesy

of one of these, the Cavaliere Pietro Minarelli, I am indebted for a

few particulars of the family history, and of the early years of his

venerated uncle.[271]

It may be supposed that in the case of Mezzofanti, as in those of most

men who attain to eminence in life, there are not wanting marvellous

tales of his youthful studies, and anecdotes of the first indications of

the extraordinary gift by which his later years were distinguished.

According to one of these accounts, his first years were entirely

neglected, and he was placed, while yet a mere child, in the workshop of

his father, to learn the trade of a carpenter. As is usual in the towns

of Italy, the elder Mezzofanti, for the most part, plied his craft not

within doors, but in the open street: and it chanced that the bench at

which the boy was wont to work was situated directly opposite the window

of a school kept by an old priest, who instructed a number of pupils in

Latin and Greek. Although utterly unacquainted, not only with the Greek

alphabet, but even with that of his own language, young Mezzofanti,

overhearing the lessons which were taught in the school, caught up every

Greek and Latin word that was explained in the several classes, without

once having seen a Greek or Latin book! By some lucky accident the fact

came to the knowledge of his unwitting instructor: it led of course to

the withdrawal of the youth from the mechanical craft to which his father

had destined him, and rescued him for the more congenial pursuit of

literature.[272]

A still more marvellous tale is told by a popular American writer, Mr.

Headley, whom his transatlantic admirers have styled the “Addison of

America;” that while Mezzofanti “was still an obscure priest in the north

of Italy, he was called one day to confess two foreigners condemned for

piracy, who were to be executed next day. On entering their cell, he

found them unable to understand a word he uttered. Overwhelmed with the

thought that the criminals should leave the world without the benefits

of religion, he returned to his room, resolved to acquire the language

before morning. He accomplished his task, and next day confessed them in

their own tongue! From that time on, he had no trouble in mastering the

most difficult language. The purity of his motive in the first instance,

he thought, influenced the Deity to assist him miraculously.”[273] This

strange tale Mr. Headley relates, on the authority of a priest, a friend

of Mezzofanti; and he goes so far as to say, that “Mezzofanti himself

attributed his power of acquiring languages to the divine influence.”[274]

The imagination might dwell with pleasure upon these and similar tales

of wonder; but, happily for the moral lesson which it is the best

privilege of biography to convey, the true history of the early studies

of Mezzofanti, (although while falling far short of these marvels, it is

too wonderful to be held out as a model even for the most aspiring) is,

nevertheless, such as to show that the most gifted themselves can only

hope to attain to true eminence by patient and systematic industry.

Far from being entirely neglected, as these tales would imply,

Mezzofanti’s education commenced at an unusually early period. His

parents—

A virtuous household, but exceeding poor,

conscious of their own want of learning, appear, from the very first, to

have bestowed upon the education of their son all the care which their

narrow circumstances permitted. According to an account obtained from

the Cavaliere Minarelli, he was sent, while a mere child, not yet three

years old, to a dame’s school, more, it would seem, for security, than

for actual instruction. Being deemed too young to be regularly taught,

he was here left for a time to sit in quiet and amuse himself as best

he could, while the other children were receiving instruction; but the

mistress soon discovered that the child, although excluded from the

lessons of his elders, had learned without any effort, all that had been

communicated to them, and was able to repeat promptly and accurately

the tasks which she had dictated. He was accordingly admitted to the

regular classes; and, child as he was, passed rapidly through the various

elementary branches of instruction, to which alone her humble school

extended.

From this dame’s school he was removed to the more advanced, but still

elementary, school of the Abate Filippo Cicotti, in which he learned

grammar, geography, writing, arithmetic, algebra, and the elements

of Latin. But, after some time, the excellent priest who conducted

this school, honestly advised the parents, young as was their boy, to

remove him to another institution, and to permit him to apply himself

unrestrainedly to the higher studies for which he was already fully

qualified.

His father appears to have demurred for a while to this suggestion.

Limiting his views in reference to the boy to the lowly sphere in which

he himself had been born, he had only contemplated bestowing upon him a

solid elementary education in the branches of knowledge suited to its

humble requirements; and, with the old-fashioned prejudices not uncommon

in his rank, he was unwilling to sanction his son’s entering upon what

appeared to him an unnatural and unprofitable career, for one who was

destined to earn his bread by a mechanical art. Fortunately, however, his

wife entertained higher and more enlightened views for their child, and

understood better his character and capabilities.

It was mainly, however, through the counsel and influence of a benevolent

priest of the Oratory, Father John Baptist Respighi, that the career

of the young Mezzofanti was decided. This excellent clergyman, to whom

many deserving youths of his native city were indebted for assistance

and patronage in their entrance into life, observed the rare talents of

Mezzofanti, and, by his earnest advice, promptly overruled the hesitation

of his father. At his recommendation, the boy was transferred from the

school of the Abate Cicotti, to one of the so-called “Scuole Pie,” of

Bologna;—schools conducted by a religious congregation, which had been

founded in the beginning of the seventeenth century, by Joseph Cazalana;

and which, though originally intended chiefly for the more elementary

branches of education, had also been directed with great success,

(especially in the larger cities,) to the cultivation of the higher

studies.

Among the clergymen who at this period devoted themselves to the service

of the Scuole Pie, at Bologna, were several members of the recently

suppressed society of the Jesuits, not only of the Roman, but also of

the Spanish and Spanish American provinces. The expulsion of the society

from Spain had preceded by more than three years the general suppression

of the order; and the Spanish members of the brotherhood, when exiled

from their native country, had found a cordial welcome in the Papal

states. Among these were several who were either foreigners by birth, or

had long resided in the foreign missions of the society. To them all the

Scuole Pie seemed to open a field of labour almost identical with that

of their own institute. Many of them gladly embraced the opportunity;

and it can hardly be doubted that the facility of learning a variety

of languages, which this accidental union of instructors from so many

different countries afforded, was, after his own natural bias, among

the chief circumstances which determined the direction of the youthful

studies of Mezzofanti.

One of these ex-Jesuits, Father Emanuel Aponte, a native of Spain, had

been for many years a member of the mission of the Philippine Islands.

Another, Father Mark Escobar, was a native of Guatemala, and had been

employed in several of the Mexican and South American missions of the

society. A third, Father Laurence Ignatius Thiulen, had passed through a

still more remarkable career. He was a native of Gottenburg, in Sweden,

where his father held the office of superintendent of the Swedish East

India Company, and had been born (1746,) a Lutheran. Leaving home in

early youth with the design of improving himself by foreign travel, he

spent some time in Lisbon, and afterwards in Cadiz, in 1768; whence,

with the intention of proceeding to Italy, he embarked for the island of

Corsica, in the same ship in which he had reached Lisbon from his native

country. In the meantime, however, this ship had been chartered by the

government as one of the fleet in which the Jesuit Fathers, on their

sudden and mysterious suppression in Spain, were to be transported to

Italy. By this unexpected accident, Thiulen became the fellow passenger

of several of the exiled fathers. Trained from early youth to regard

with suspicion and fear every member of that dreaded order, he at first

avoided all intercourse with his Jesuit fellow passengers. By degrees,

however, their unobtrusive, but ready courtesy, disarmed his suspicions.

He became interested in their conversation, even when it occasionally

turned upon religious topics. Serious inquiry succeeded; and in the end,

before the voyage was concluded, his prejudices had been so far overcome,

that he began to entertain the design of becoming a Catholic. After his

landing in the Island of Corsica, many obstacles were thrown in his

way by the Swedish consul at Bastia, himself a Lutheran; but Thiulen

persevered, and was enabled eventually to carry his design into execution

at Ferrara, in 1769. In the following year, 1770, he entered the Jesuit

society at Bologna. He was here admitted to the simple vow in 1772. But

he had hardly completed this important step, when the final suppression

of the Order was proclaimed; and, although both as a foreigner, and as

being unprofessed, he had no claim to the slender pittance which was

assigned for the support of the members, the peculiar circumstances of

his case created an interest in his behalf. He was placed upon the same

footing with the professed Fathers; and two years later, in 1776, he was

promoted to the holy order of priesthood, and continued to reside in

Bologna, engaged in teaching and in the duties of the ministry.[275]

These good Fathers, with that traditionary instinct which in their order

has been the secret of their long admitted success in the education of

youth, were not slow to discover the rare talents of their young scholar

in the Scuole Pie. In a short time he appears to have become to them more

a friend than a pupil. Two, at least, of the members, Fathers Aponte, and

Thiulen, lived to witness the distinction of his later life, and with

them, as well as with his first and kindest patron, Father Respighi,

he ever continued to maintain the most friendly and affectionate

relations.[276]

It would be interesting to be able to trace the exact history of this

period of the studies of Mezzofanti, and to fix the dates and the

order of his successive acquisitions in what afterwards became the

engrossing pursuit of his life. But, unfortunately, so few details

can now be ascertained that it is difficult to distinguish his school

life from that of an ordinary student. His chief teachers in the Scuole

Pie appear to have been the ex-Jesuit Fathers already named; of whom

Father Thiulen was his instructor in history, geography, arithmetic, and

mathematics;[277] Father Aponte in Greek; and probably Father Escobar

in Latin. As he certainly learned Spanish at an early period, it is not

unlikely that he was indebted for it, too, to the instructions of one of

these ecclesiastics, as also perhaps for some knowledge of the Mexican or

Central American languages.

But although barren in details, all the accounts of his school-days

concur in describing his uniform success in all his classes, and the

extraordinary quickness of his memory. One of his feats of memory is

recorded by M. Manavit.[278] A folio volume of the works of St. John

Chrysostom being put into his hand, he was desired to read a page of

the treatise “_De Sacerdotio_” in the original Greek. After a single

reading, the volume was closed, and he repeated the entire page, without

mistaking or displacing a single word! His manners and dispositions as

a boy were exceedingly engaging; and the friendships which he formed at

school continued uninterrupted during life. Among his school companions

there is one who deserves to be especially recorded—the well-known

naturalist, Abate Camillo Ranzani, for many years afterwards Mezzofanti’s

fellow-professor in the university. Ranzani, like his friend, was of

very humble origin, and like him owed his withdrawal from obscurity to

the enlightened benevolence of the good Oratorian, F. Respighi.[279]

Young Ranzani was about the same age with Mezzofanti; and as their homes

immediately adjoined each other,[280] they had been daily companions

almost from infancy, and particularly from the time when they began to

frequent the Scuole Pie in company. The constant allusions to Ranzani

which occur in Mezzofanti’s letters, will show how close and affectionate

their intimacy continued to be.

Joseph Mezzofanti early manifested a desire to embrace the ecclesiastical

profession; and although this wish seems to have caused some

dissatisfaction to his father, who had intended him for some secular

pursuit,[281] yet the deeply religious disposition of the child and his

singular innocence of life, in the end overcame his father’s reluctance.

Having completed his elementary studies unusually early, he was enabled

to become a scholar of the archiepiscopal seminary of Bologna, while

still a mere boy, probably in the year 1786.[282] He continued, however,

to reside in his father’s house, while he attended the schools of the

seminary.

Of his collegiate career little is recorded, except an incident which

occurred at the taking of his degree in philosophy. His master in

this study was Joseph Voglio, a professor of considerable reputation,

and author of several works on the philosophical controversies of the

period.[283] It is usual in the Italian universities for the candidate

for a philosophical degree, to defend publicly a series of propositions

selected from the whole body of philosophy. Mezzofanti, at the time that

he maintained his theses, was still little more than a child; and it

would seem that, his self-possession having given way under the public

ordeal, he had a narrow escape from the mortification of a complete

failure. One of the witnesses of his “Disputation,” Dr. Santagata,

in the Discourse already referred to, delivered at the Institute of

Bologna, gives an interesting account of the occurrence. “For a time,”

says Dr. Santagata, “the boy’s success was most marked. Each new

objection, among the many subtle ones that were proposed, only afforded

him a fresh opportunity of exhibiting the acuteness of his intellect,

and the ease, fluency, and elegance of his Latinity; and the admiring

murmurs of assent, and other unequivocal tokens of applause which it

elicited from the audience, of which I myself was one, seemed to promise

a triumphant conclusion of the exercise. But all at once the young

candidate was observed to grow pale, to become suddenly silent, and at

length to fall back upon his seat and almost faint away. The auditors

were deeply grieved at this untoward interruption of a performance

hitherto so successful; but they were soon relieved to see him, as if by

one powerful effort, shake off his emotion, recover his self-possession,

and resume his answering with even greater acuteness and solidity than

before. He was greeted with the loud and repeated plaudits of the crowded

assembly.”[284]

About this period, soon after Mezzofanti had completed his fifteenth

year, his health gave way under this long and intense application;

and his constitution for a time was so debilitated, that, at the

termination of his course of philosophy, he was compelled to interrupt

his studies;[285] nor was it until about 1793, that he entered upon the

theological course, under the direction of the Canon Joachim Ambrosi.

One of his class-fellows, the Abate Monti, the venerable arch-priest of

Bagni di Poreta, in the archdiocese of Bologna, still survives and speaks

in high terms of the ability which he exhibited. He describes him as a

youth of most engaging manners and amiable dispositions—one who, from

his habitually serious and recollected air, might perhaps be noted by

strangers

For his grave looks, too thoughtful for his years,

but who, to his friends, was all gaiety and innocent mirthfulness. Mgr.

Monti adds that he was at this time a most laborious student, frequently

remaining up whole nights in the library for the purpose of study. His

master in moral theology was the Canonico Baccialli, author of a _Corpus

Theologiæ Moralis_, of some local reputation.

Having completed the course of theology, and also that of canon law,

he attended the lectures of the celebrated Jurist, Bonini, on Roman

Law. The great body of the students of the school of Roman Law being

laymen, the young ecclesiastic remained a considerable time unobserved

and undistinguished in the class; until, having accidentally attracted

the notice of the professor on one occasion, he replied with such

promptness and learning to a question which he addressed to him, as

at once to establish a reputation; and Dr. Santagata, who records the

circumstance,[286] observes that his proficiency in each of his many

different studies was almost as great as though he had devoted his

undivided attention to that particular pursuit.

Meanwhile, however, he continued without interruption, what, even thus

early in his career, was his chosen study of languages. Under the

direction of Father Aponte, now rather his friend and associate than

instructor in the study, he pursued his Greek reading; and as this had

been from the first one of his favourite languages, there were few Greek

authors within his reach that he did not eagerly read. Fortunately, too,

Aponte was himself an enthusiast in the study of Greek, and possessed a

solid and critical knowledge of the language, of which he had written

an excellent and practical grammar for the schools of the university,

frequently republished since his time;[287] and it was probably to the

habit of close and critical examination which he acquired under Aponte’s

instruction, that Mezzofanti owed the exact knowledge of the niceties of

the language, and the power of discriminating between all the varieties

of Greek style, for which, as we shall see later, he was eminently

distinguished.

One of his fellow pupils in Greek under Aponte was the celebrated

Clotilda Tambroni, whom I have already mentioned in the list of

lady-linguists, and whose name is the last in the catalogue of

lady-professors at Bologna. A community of tastes as well as of studies

formed a close bond of intimacy between her and Mezzofanti, and led to an

affectionate and lasting friendship in after life. To Aponte she was as

a daughter.[288]

His master in Hebrew was the Dominican Father Ceruti, a learned

Orientalist and professor of that language in the university. About the

same time also, he must have become acquainted with Arabic, a language

for the study of which Bologna had early acquired a reputation. And, what

is a still more unequivocal exhibition of his early enthusiasm, although

Coptic formed no part of the circle of university studies, Görres

states that he learned this language also under the Canon John Lewis

Mingarelli.[289] If this account be true, as Mingarelli died in March

1793, Mezzofanti must have acquired Coptic before he had completed his

nineteenth year.

Nor did he meanwhile neglect the modern languages. About the year 1792, a

French ecclesiastic a native of Blois, one of those whom the successive

decrees of the Constituent Assembly had driven into exile, came to

reside in Bologna. From him Mezzofanti speedily acquired French.[290] He

received his first lessons in German from F. Thiulen,[291] who had been

one of his masters in the Scuole Pie; and who, although a Swede by birth,

was acquainted with the cognate language of Germany. From him, too,

most probably, Mezzofanti would also have learned his native Swedish,

but, on the occupation of northern Italy by the French, F. Thiulen, who

had made himself obnoxious to the revolutionary party in Bologna, by

his writings in favour of the Papal authority, had been arrested and

sent into exile.[292] Perhaps Thiulen’s absence from Bologna was the

occasion of calling into exercise that marvellous quickness in mastering

the structure of a new language, which often, during Mezzofanti’s later

career, excited the amazement even of his most familiar friends. At

all events, the first occasion of his exhibiting this singular faculty

of which I have been able to discover any authentic record, is the

following:—

A Bolognese musician, named Uttini, had settled at Stockholm, where

he married a Swedish lady. Uttini, it would seem, died early; but his

brother, Caspar Uttini, a physician of Bologna, undertook the education

of his son, who was sent to Bologna for the purpose. The boy, at his

arrival, was not only entirely ignorant of Italian, but could not speak

a word of any language except his native Swedish. In this emergency

Mezzofanti, who, although still a student, had already acquired the

reputation of a linguist, was sent for, to act as interpreter between the

boy and his newly found relatives: but it turned out that the language

of the boy was, as yet, no less a mystery to Mezzofanti than it had

already proved to themselves. This discovery, so embarrassing to the

family, served but to stimulate the zeal of Mezzofanti. Having made a

few ineffectual attempts to establish an understanding, he asked to see

the books which the boy had brought with him from his native country. A

short examination of these books was sufficient for his rapid mind; he

speedily discovered the German affinities of the Swedish language, and

mastered almost at a glance the leading peculiarities of form, structure,

and inflexion, by which it is distinguished from the other members of the

Teutonic family; a few short trials with the boy enabled him to acquire

the more prominent principles of pronunciation; and in the space of a

few days, he was able, not only to act as the boy’s interpreter with his

family, but to converse with the most perfect freedom and fluency in the

language![293]

Mezzofanti received the clerical tonsure in the year 1795. In 1796 he

was admitted to the minor orders; and, on the 24th of September in the

same year, to the order of sub-deacon. On the first of April, 1797, he

was promoted to deaconship; and a few months later he was advanced, on

September 24th, 1797, to the holy order of priesthood.[294] At this time

he had only just completed his twenty-third year.

This anticipation of the age at which priesthood is usually conferred,

was probably owing to an appointment which he had just received (on the

15th of September,)[295] in the university—that of professor of Arabic.

Such an appointment at this unprecedented age, is the highest testimony

which could be rendered to his capacity as a general scholar, as well as

to his eminence as a linguist.

He commenced his lectures on the 15th of the following December. Dr.

Santagata, who was a student of the university at the time, speaks

very favourably of his opening lecture, not only for its learning and

solidity, but also for the beauty of its style, and its lucid and

pleasing arrangement.[296]

Unhappily his tenure of the Arabic professorship was a very brief

duration. The political relations of Bologna had just undergone a

complete revolution. Early in 1796, very soon after the advance of the

French army into Italy, Bonaparte had been invited by a discontented

party in Bologna to take possession of their city, and, in conjunction

with Saliceti, had occupied the fortresses on the 19th of January. At

first after the French occupation, the Bolognese were flattered by a

revival of their old municipal institutions; but before the close of

1796, the name of Bologna was merged in the common designation of the

Cisalpine Republic, by which all the French conquests in Northern Italy

were described. By the treaty of Tolentino, concluded in February, 1797,

the Pope was compelled formally to cede to this new Cisalpine Republic,

the three Legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna; and, in the

subsequent organization of the new territory, Bologna became the capital

of the Dipartimento del Reno.

One of the first steps of the new rulers was to require of all employés

an oath of fidelity to the Republic. The demand was enforced with great

strictness; and especially in the case of ecclesiastics, who in Italy,

as in France, were naturally regarded with still greater suspicion

by the Republican authorities, than even those civil servants of the

old government who had been most distinguished for their loyalty.

Nevertheless the republican authorities themselves consented that an

exception should be made in favour of a scholar of such promise as the

Abate Mezzofanti. The oath was proposed to him, as to the rest of the

professors. He firmly refused to take it. In other cases deprivation had

been the immediate consequence of such refusal; but an effort was made to

shake the firmness of Mezzofanti, and even to induce him without formally

accepting the oath, to signify his compliance by some seeming act of

adhesion to the established order of things. An intimation accordingly

was conveyed to him, that in his case the oath would be dispensed with,

and that he would be allowed to retain his chair, if he would only

consent to make known by any overt act whatsoever, (even by a mere

interchange of courtesies with some of the officials of the Republic,)

his acceptance of its authority as now established.[297] But Mezzofanti

was at once too conscientious to compromise what he conceived to be his

duty towards his natural sovereign, and too honourable to affect, by such

unworthy temporizing, a disposition which he did not, and could not,

honestly entertain. He declined even to appear as a visitor in the salons

of the new governor. He was accordingly deprived of his professorship in

the year 1798.

He was not alone in this generous fidelity. His friend Signora

Tambroni displayed equal firmness. It is less generally known that the

distinguished experimentalist, Ludovico Galvani,[298] was a martyr in the

same cause. Like Mezzofanti, on refusing the oath, he was stripped of all

his offices and emoluments. Less fortunate than Mezzofanti, he sunk under

the stroke. He was plunged into the deepest distress and debility; and,

although his Republican rulers were at length driven by shame to decree

his restoration to his chair, the reparation came too late. He died in

1798.