[1798-1802.]
The years which followed this forfeiture of his professorship were a
period of much care, as well as of severe personal privation, for the
Abate Mezzofanti.
Both his parents were still living;—his father no longer able to maintain
himself by his handicraft; his mother for some years afflicted with
partial blindness, and in broken or failing health. The family of his
sister, Teresa Minarelli, had already become very numerous, and the
scanty earnings of her husband’s occupation hardly sufficed for their
maintenance, much less for the expenses of their education. In addition,
therefore, to his own necessities, Joseph Mezzofanti was now in great
measure burdened with this twofold responsibility—a responsibility to
which so affectionate a brother, and so dutiful a son could not be
indifferent. To meet these demands, he had hitherto relied mainly upon
the income arising from his professorship, although this was miserably
inadequate, the salaries attached to the professorships in Bologna, at
the time when Lalande visited Italy, (1765-6,) not exceeding a hundred
Roman crowns, (little more than £25). Small, however, as it was, this
salary was Mezzofanti’s main source of income. As a title to ordination,
the archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Giovanetti, had conferred upon him
two small benefices, the united revenues of which, strange as it may
sound in English ears, did not exceed eight pounds sterling;[299] and
an excellent ecclesiastic, F. Anthony Magnani, who had long known and
appreciated the virtues of the family, and had taken a warm interest in
Joseph from his boyhood, settled upon him from his own private resources
about the same amount. Now, as Mezzofanti had devoted himself to
literature, and lived as a simple priest at Bologna, declining to accept
any preferment to which the care of souls was annexed, this wretched
pittance constituted his entire income. It is true that he was about
this period chaplain of the Collegio Albornoz,[300] an ancient Spanish
foundation of the great Cardinal of that name;[301] but his services
appear either to have been entirely gratuitous, or the emolument, if any,
was little more than nominal.
And thus, when the Abate Mezzofanti, relying upon Providence, had the
courage to throw up, for conscience sake, the salary which constituted
nearly two-thirds of his entire revenue, he found himself burdened with
the responsibilities already described, while his entire certain income
was considerably less than twenty pounds sterling! Nevertheless, gloomy
and disheartening as was this prospect, far from suffering himself to
be cast down by it, he was even courageous enough to venture, about
this time, on the further responsibility of receiving his sister and
her family into his own house. The renewal of hostilities in Italy, in
1799, filled him with alarm for her security; and his nephew, Cavaliere
Minarelli, who has been good enough to communicate to me a short MS.
Memoir of the events of this period of his uncle’s life, still remembers
the day on which, while the French and Austrian troops were actually
engaged before the walls, and the shot and shells had already begun to
fall within the city, his uncle came to their house, at considerable
personal risk, and insisted that his sister and her children should
remove to his own house which was in a less exposed position. From that
date (1799) they continued to reside with him.
To meet this increased expenditure, the Abate’s only resource lay in
that wearisome and ill-requited drudgery in which the best years of
struggling genius are so often frittered away—private instruction. He
undertook the humble, but responsible, duties of private tutor, and
turned industriously, if not very profitably, to account, the numerous
acquisitions of his early years. There are few of the distinguished
families of Bologna, some of whose members were not among his pupils—the
Marescalchi, Pallavicini, Ercolani, Martinetti, Bentivoglio, Marsigli,
Sampieri, Angelelli, Marchetti, and others. To these, as well as to
several foreigners, he gave instructions in ancient and modern languages,
to some in his own apartments, but more generally in their houses.
As regarded his own personal improvement in learning, these engagements,
of course, were, for the most part, a wasteful expenditure of time
and opportunities for study; but there was one of them—that with the
Marescalchi family[302]—which supplied in the end an occasion for
extending and improving his knowledge of languages. The library of the
Marescalchi palace is especially rich in that department; and, as the
modest and engaging manners of Mezzofanti quickly established him on the
footing of a valued friend, rather than of an instructor, in the family,
he enjoyed unrestricted use of the opportunities for his own peculiar
studies which it afforded. In this family, too, one of the most ancient
and distinguished in Bologna, he had frequent opportunities of meeting
and conversing with foreigners, each in the language of his own country.
* * * * *
At all events, whatever may have been his actual opportunities of study
during the years which succeeded his deprivation, it is certain that,
upon the whole, his progress during that time was not less wonderful than
at the most favoured periods of his life. Northern Italy, during this
troubled time, was the principal seat of the struggle between Austria
and the French Republic; and from the first advance of the French in
1796, till the decisive field of Marengo in 1800, Bologna found itself
alternately in the occupation of one or other of the contending powers.
For nearly twelve months, however, after the battle of Trebbia, in July,
1799, the Austrians remained in undisturbed possession. The army of
Austria at that day comprised in its motley ranks, representatives of
most of the leading European languages—Teutonic, Slavonic, Czechish,
Magyar, Romanic, &c. The intercourse with the officers and soldiery thus
opened for Mezzofanti, in itself supplied a school of languages, which,
taken in conjunction with the university, and its other resources, it
would have been difficult to find in any other single European city,
except Rome.
And these advantages presented themselves to the Abate Mezzofanti, since
his advancement to the priesthood, in a way which enlisted still higher
feelings than that desire for knowledge which had hitherto formed his
main incentive to study.
All the accounts which have been preserved of the early years of his
ministry, concur in extolling his remarkable piety, his devotedness
to the duties of the confessional,[303] and above all his active and
tender charity. He had a share in every work of benevolence. He loved
to organize little plans for the education of the poor. Notwithstanding
his numerous and pressing occupations, he was a constant visitant of
the numerous charitable institutions for which Bologna, even among the
munificent cities of Italy, has long been celebrated. He was particularly
devoted to the sick;—not only to the class who are called in Italy “the
bashful poor,” whom he loved to seek out and visit at their own houses,
and to whom, poor as he was in worldly wealth, his active benevolence
enabled him to render services which money could not have procured;—but
also in the public hospitals, both civil and military. Now the terrible
campaign of 1796-’97, and again of 1799, had filled the camps of both
armies with sick and wounded soldiers; and thus in the public hospitals
of Bologna were constantly to be found invalids of almost every European
race. M. Manavit[304] states that, even before Mezzofanti was ordained
priest, he had begun to act as interpreter to the wounded or dying in the
hospitals, whether of their temporal or their spiritual wants and wishes.
From the date of his ordination, of course, he was moved to the same
service by a zeal still higher and more holy.
“I was at Bologna,” he himself told M. Manavit,[305] “during the time
of the war. I was then young in the sacred ministry; it was my practice
to visit the military hospitals. I constantly met there Hungarians,
Slavonians, Germans, and Bohemians, who had been wounded in battle, or
invalided during the campaign; and it pained me to the heart that from
want of the means of communicating with them, I was unable to confess
those among them who were Catholics, or to bring back to the Church those
who were separated from her communion. In such cases, accordingly, I
used to apply myself, with all my energy, to the study of the language
of the patients, until I knew enough of them to make myself understood;
I required no more. With these first rudiments I presented myself among
the sick wards. Such of the invalids as desired it, I managed to confess;
with others I held occasional conversations; and thus in a short time
I acquired a considerable vocabulary. At length, through the grace of
God, assisted by my private studies, and by a retentive memory, I came
to know, not merely the generic languages of the nations to which the
several invalids belonged, but even the peculiar dialects of their
various provinces.”
In this way, being already well acquainted with German, he became master
successively of Magyar, Bohemian, or Czechish, Polish, and even of the
Gipsy dialect, which he learned from one of that strange race, who was
a soldier in a Hungarian regiment quartered at Bologna during this
period.[306] It is probable, too, that it was in the same manner he also
learned Russian. It is at least certain that he was able to speak that
language fluently, at the date of his acquaintance with the celebrated
Suwarrow. Mezzofanti’s report of the acquirements of this “remarkable
barbarian” differs widely from the notion then popularly entertained
regarding him. He described him as a most accomplished linguist, and
a well-read scholar. This report, it may be added, is fully confirmed
by the most recent authorities, and Alison describes him as “highly
educated, polished in his manners, speaking and writing seven languages
with facility, and extensively read, especially upon the art of war.”[307]
It was about this time also that Mezzofanti learned Flemish. He acquired
that language from a youth of Brussels, who came as a student to the
University of Bologna.[308]
The reputation which he was thus gradually establishing, of itself served
to extend his opportunities of exercise in languages. Every foreigner who
visited Bologna sought his society for the purpose of testing personally
the truth of the marvellous reports which had been circulation. In these
days Bologna was the high road to Rome, and few visitors to that capital
failed to tarry for a short time at Bologna, to examine the many objects
of interest which it contains. To all of these Mezzofanti found a ready
and welcome access. There were few with whom his fertile vocabulary did
not supply some medium of communication; but, even when the stranger
could not speak any except the unknown tongue, Mezzofanti’s ready
ingenuity soon enabled him, as with the patients in the hospital, to
establish a system for the interchange of thought. A very small number
of leading words sufficed as a foundation; and the almost instinctive
facility with which, by a single effort, he grasped all the principal
peculiarities of the structure of each new language, speedily enabled
him to acquire enough of the essential inflections of each to enter
on the preliminaries of conversation. For his marvellous instinct of
acquisitiveness this was enough. The iron tenacity of his memory never
let go a word, a phrase, an idiom, or even a sound, which it once had
mastered.
In his zeal for the extension of the circle of his knowledge of
languages, too, he pushed to the utmost the valuable opportunities
derivable from the converse of foreigners. “The hotel-keepers,” he told
M. Manavit,[309] “were in the habit of apprising me of the arrival of
all strangers at Bologna. I made no difficulty when anything was to be
learned, about calling on them, interrogating them, making notes of their
communications, and taking instructions from them in the pronunciation
of their respective languages. A few learned Jesuits, and several
Spaniards, Portuguese, and Mexicans, who resided at Bologna, afforded
me valuable aid in learning both the ancient languages, and those of
their own countries. I made it a rule to learn every new grammar, and
to apply myself to every strange dictionary that came within my reach.
I was constantly filling my head with new words; and, whenever any new
strangers, whether of high or low degree, passed through Bologna, I
endeavoured to turn them to account, using the one for the purpose of
perfecting my pronunciation, and the other for that of learning the
familiar words and turns of expression. I must confess, too, that it cost
me but little trouble; for, in addition to an excellent memory, God had
blessed me with an incredible flexibility of the organs of speech.”
Occasionally, too, he received applications from merchants, bankers, and
even private individuals, to translate for them portions of their foreign
correspondence which chanced to be written in some of the languages of
less ordinary occurrence. In all such cases, Dr. Santagata[310] says,
Mezzofanti was the unfailing resource; and his good nature was as ready
as his knowledge was universal. He cheerfully rendered to every applicant
every such assistance; and it was his invariable rule never to accept any
remuneration whatsoever for this or any similar service.[311]
Even his regular priestly duties as a confessor now contributed, as his
extraordinary duties in the hospitals had done before, to enlarge his
stock of languages. He was soon marked out as the “foreigners’ confessor”
(_confessario dei forestieri_) of Bologna, an office which, in Rome and
other Catholic cities, is generally entrusted to a staff consisting
of many individuals. Almost every foreigner was sure to find a ready
resource in Mezzofanti; though it more than once happened that, as a
preliminary step towards receiving the confession of the party applying
for this office of his ministry, he had to place himself as a pupil in
the hands of the intending penitent, and to acquire from him or her the
rudiments of the language in which they were to communicate with each
other. The process to him was simple enough. If the stranger was able to
repeat for him the Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed,
or any one of those familiar prayers which are the common property of all
Christian countries, or even to supply the names of a few of the leading
ideas of Christian theology, as God, sin, virtue, earth, heaven, hell,
&c., it was sufficient for Mezzofanti. In many cases he proceeded to
build, upon a foundation not a whit more substantial than this, the whole
fabric of the grammar, and to a great extent even of the vocabulary, of
a language. A remarkable instance of this faculty I shall have to relate
in the later years of his life. Another, which belongs to the present
period, has been communicated to me by Cardinal Wiseman. “Mezzofanti
told me,” says his Eminence, “that a lady from the island of Sardinia
once came to Bologna, bringing with her a maid who could speak nothing
but the Sardinian dialect, a soft patois composed of Latin, Italian, and
Spanish (e.g., Mezzofanti told me that _columba mia_ is Sardinian for “my
wife.”) As Easter approached the girl became anxious and unhappy about
confession, despairing of finding a confessor to whom she should be able
to make herself understood. The lady sent for Mezzofanti; but at that
time he had never thought of learning the language. He told the lady,
nevertheless, that, in a fortnight, he would be prepared to hear her
maid’s confession. She laughed at the idea; but Mezzofanti persisted, and
came to the house every evening for about an hour. When Easter arrived,
he was able to speak Sardinian fluently, and heard the girl’s confession!”
* * * * *
It might be instructive to trace the order in which the several
languages which he mastered in this earlier part of his career were
successively acquired. But unfortunately neither the papers and letters
which have been preserved, nor the recollections of the few friends who
have survived, have thrown much light upon this interesting inquiry.
All accounts, however, agree in representing his life during these
years as laborious almost beyond belief. The weary hours occupied in
the drudgery of tuition; the time given to the manifold self-imposed
occupations described in this chapter; the time spent in the ordinary
devotional exercises of a priest, and in the performance of those duties
of the ministry in the hospitals and elsewhere which he had undertaken;
above all, the time regularly and perseveringly given to his great
and all-engrossing study of languages;—may well be thought to form an
aggregate of laborious application hardly surpassed in the whole range of
literary history. It fully confirms the well-known assurance of the noble
Prologue of Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning:” “Let no man doubt that
learning will expulse business, but rather it will keep and defend the
possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise may
enter at unawares to the prejudice of both.” Other students may perhaps
have devoted a longer time to continuous application. The celebrated
Jesuit theologian, Father Suarez, is said to have spent seventeen hours
out of the twenty-four between his studies and his devotions. Castell,
the author of the Heptaglot Lexicon, declares, in the feeling address
which accompanied its publication, that his thankless and unrequited
task had occupied him for sixteen or eighteen hours every day during
twenty years.[312] Theophilus Raynaud, during his long life of eighty
years, only allowed himself a quarter of an hour daily from his studies
for dinner;[313] and the Puritan divine, Prynne, seldom would spare
time to dine at all.[314] It may be doubted whether the actual labour
of Mezzofanti, broken up and divided over so many almost incompatible
occupations, did not equal and perhaps exceed them all in amount, if not
in intensity. According to the account of Guido Görres,[315] his time for
sleep, during this period of his life, was limited to three hours.[316]
His self-denial in all other respects was almost equally wonderful.
He was singularly abstemious both in eating and in drinking; and his
power of enduring the intense cold which prevails in the winter months
throughout the whole of Northern Italy, especially in the vicinity of the
Apennines, was a source of wonder even to his own family. During the long
nights which he devoted to study he never, even in the coldest weather,
permitted himself the indulgence of a fire.
I may here mention that he continued the same practice to the end of his
life. Even after his elevation to the cardinalate, he could hardly ever
be induced to have recourse to a fire, or even to the little portable
brazier, called _scaldino_, which students in Italy commonly employ, as a
resource against the numbness of the feet and hands produced by the dry
but piercing cold which characterizes the Italian winter.