[1841-1843.]
Although my own recollections of Cardinal Mezzofanti, in comparison with
those which have already been laid before the reader, are so few and
unimportant that I hesitated at one time as to the propriety of alluding
to them, I feel that I should be very forgetful of the kindness which I
experienced at all times at his hands, were I to withhold the impressions
of his character as well as of his gifts, which I received from my
intercourse with him.
I saw Cardinal Mezzofanti for the first time, in July, 1841. He was then
in his sixty-seventh year: but, although his look and colour betrayed
the delicacy of his constitution, his carriage, as yet, exhibited little
indication of the feebleness of approaching age. He was below the middle
stature, and altogether of a diminutive, though light, and in youth most
active frame. His shoulders, it is true, were slightly rounded, and
his chest had an appearance of contraction; but his movements were yet
free, tolerably vigorous, and, although perhaps too hurried for dignity,
not ungraceful. His hair was plentifully dashed with gray; but, except
on the crown, where the baldness was but partially concealed by the
red _zucchetto_, (skull cap,) it was still thick and almost luxuriant.
More than one portrait of him has been published, and several of those
who saw him at different times have recorded their impressions of his
appearance: but I cannot say that any of these portraitures, whether of
pencil or of pen, conveys a full idea of the man. His countenance was
one of those which Madame Dudevant strangely, but yet significantly,
describes as “not a face, but a physiognomy.” Its character lay far less
in the features than in the expression. The former, taken separately,
were unattractive, and even insignificant. The proportions of the face
were far from regular. The complexion was dead and colourless, and these
defects were made still more remarkable by a small mole upon one cheek.
There was an occasional nervous winking of the eyelids, too, which
produced an air of weakness, and at times even of constraint; but there
was, nevertheless, a pervading expression of gentleness, simplicity, and
open-hearted candour, which carried off all these individual defects,
and which no portrait could adequately embody. Mr. Monckton Milnes
told me that the best likeness of the Cardinal he ever saw, was the
kneeling figure in Raffaelle’s noble picture, the Madonna di Foligno:
and undoubtedly, without any close affinity of lineament, it has a
strong general similitude of air and expression:—the same “open brow of
undisturbed humanity,” on which no passion had written a single line, and
which care had touched only to soften and spiritualize; the same quiet
smile, playful, yet subdued, humility blended with self-respect, modesty
unmarred by shyness or timidity;—above all the same
Eyes beaming courtesy and mild regard—
radiant with a sweetness which I have seldom seen equalled; singularly
soft and winning, and possessing that undefined power which is the
true beauty of an honest eye—a full and earnest, but not scrutinizing
look—deep, but tranquil, and placing you entirely at ease with yourself
by assuring you of its own perfect calmness and self-possession. But
the great charm of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s countenance was the look of
purity and innocence which it always wore. I have seldom seen a face
which retained in old age so much of the simple expression of youth,
I had almost said of childhood; although, with all this gaiety and
light-heartedness, there was a gentle gravity in his bearing which kept
it in perfect harmony with his years and character. He had acquired,
or he possessed from nature, the rare and difficult characteristic of
cheerful old age, to which Rochefoucault alludes when he says:—_Peu
de gens savent être vieux_. And thus he was equally at home among
his venerable peers of the Consistory, and in the youngest and most
light-hearted _camerata_ of the Propaganda. No old man ever illustrated
more clearly that
The heart—the heart, is the heritage
Which keepeth the old man young!
During a sojourn of some weeks in Rome, in the summer of 1841, I had the
honour of conversing with his eminence several times; at the Propaganda;
at the Roman Seminary; at a meeting of the Accademia della Religione
Cattolica; and more than once in his own apartments. In the course of one
of these interviews I heard him speak in several languages, to different
acquaintances whom he met, and with each of whom he conversed in his own
tongue—English, German, French, Spanish, Romaic, and Hungarian. With
myself his conversation was always in English.
His English, as we have seen, has been variously judged. Herr Fleck
describes it as “only middling:” by others it is pronounced to be
undistinguishable from that of a native. The truth, as in all such cases,
lies between these extremes.
All visitors, with the single exception of Herr Fleck, (certainly a very
questionable authority,) concur in admitting at least the perfect fluency
and strict grammatical accuracy of the Cardinal’s English conversation:
but some have hesitated as to its idiomatical propriety. M. Crawford,
ex-secretary of the Ionian Islands, told M. d’Abbadie[518] last year,
that Mezzofanti appeared to him to use some un-English constructions. To
Dean Milman, who was introduced to him several years ago by Mr. Francis
Hare, his English appeared “as if learned from books, grammatical,
rather than idiomatical.”[519] And Lady Morgan even determines the period
of English literature on which his English appeared to be modelled.[520]
I cannot fully concur, nevertheless, in this opinion. My own impressions
of the Cardinal’s English, derived from many conversations on different
occasions, agree with those already quoted from Mr. Stewart Rose, Lady
Blessington, Mr. Harford, Bishop Baines, Cardinal Wiseman, and others,
who attest his perfect accuracy both of grammar and of idiom. Mr.
Badeley, the eminent lawyer, who saw him but one year before his death,
told me that “he spoke English in a perfectly easy and natural manner;”
and Mr. Kip, whose visit was about the same time, declares that, “in
the course of a long conversation which he held with the Cardinal, his
eminence did not use a single expression or word in any way that was not
strictly and idiomatically correct.” It is true that I should hardly
have been deceived as to his being a foreigner; but the slight, though
to my ear decisive, foreign characteristics of his English, were rather
of accent than of language; or, if they regarded language at all, it was
not that his expressions were unidiomatical, or that his vocabulary was
wanting in propriety, but merely that his sentences were occasionally
more formal—more like the periods of a regular oratorical composition
than is common in the freedom of every-day conversation. Nor did the
peculiarity of accent to which I refer amount to anything like absolute
impropriety. His pronunciation was most exact; his accentuation almost
unerring; and, although it certainly could be distinguished from that of
a born Englishman, the difference lay chiefly in its being more marked,
and in its precision being more evidently the result of effort and of
rule, than the unstudied and instinctive enunciation of a native speaking
his own language. If I were disposed to criticize it very strictly,
I might say (paradoxical as this may seem,) that, _compared with the
enunciation of a native_, it was almost _too correct to appear completely
natural_; and that its very correctness gave to it some slight tendency
to that extreme which the Italians themselves, in reference to their own
language in the mouth of a stranger, describe as _caricato_. But I have
no hesitation in saying, that I never met any foreigner, not resident in
England, whose English conversation could be preferred to Mezzofanti’s.
The foreign peculiarity was, in my judgment, so slight as to be barely
perceptible, and I have myself known more than one instance similar to
that already related from Cardinal Wiseman, in which Irish visitors
meeting the Cardinal for the first time, without knowing who he was,
took him _for an English dignitary_,[521] mistaking the slight trace of
foreign peculiarity which I have described for what is called in Ireland,
“the English accent.”
Indeed with what care he had attended to the niceties of English
pronunciation—the great stumbling block of all foreign students of
the language—may be inferred from his familiarity with the peculiar
characteristics, even of the provincial dialects. It will be recollected
how he had amused Mr. Harford in 1817, by his specimens of the Yorkshire
and the _Zummer_setshire dialects, and how successfully he imitated
for Mr. Walsh the slang of a London cabman. And a still more amusing
example of the minuteness of his knowledge of these dialects has been
communicated to me by Rev. Mr. Grant of Lytham, brother of my friend the
Bishop of Southwark, to whose unfailing kindness I am indebted for this
and for many other most interesting particulars regarding the Cardinal.
Mr. Grant was presented to his eminence in the Spring of 1841, by the
Rev. Father Kelleher, an Irish Carmelite, of which order the Cardinal
was Protector. After some preliminaries the conversation turned upon the
English language.
“‘You have many patois in the English language,’ said the
Cardinal. ‘For instance, the Lancashire dialect is very
different from that spoken by the Cockneys; [he used this
word;—] so much so, that some Londoners would find considerable
difficulty in understanding what a Lancashire man said. The
Cockneys always use _v_ instead of _w_, and _w_ instead of
_v_: so that they say ‘vine’ instead of ‘wine;’ [he gave
this example.] And then the Irish _brogue_, as it is called,
is another variety. I remember very distinctly having a
conversation with an Irish gentleman whom I met soon after
the peace, and he always mis-pronounced that word, calling it
‘_pace_.’’
Here, F. Kelleher broke out into a horse-laugh, and, slapping
his hand upon his thigh, cried out, ‘Oh! excèllent! your
Eminence, excèllent!’ ‘Now, there you are wrong,’ said
Mezzofanti: ‘you ought not to say excèllent, but èxcellent.’
Then he went off into a disquisition on the word ‘great,’
contending that, according to all analogy, it should be
pronounced like ‘gr_ee_t’—for that the diphthong _ea_ is so
pronounced in almost all, if not in _every_ word, in which it
occurs; and he instanced these words:—‘_eagle_, _meat_, _beat_,
_fear_,’ and some others. And he said Lord Chesterfield thought
the same, and considered it a vulgarism to pronounce it like
‘grate.’ He next spoke about the Welsh language—but I really
quite forget what he said: I only remember that the impression
left on me was that he knew Welsh also.”
As to the extent of his acquaintance with English literature, my own
personal knowledge is very limited. His only allusion to the subject
which I recollect, was a question which he put to me about the completion
of Moore’s History of Ireland. He expressed a strong feeling of regret
that we had not some Irish History, as learned, as impartial, and as
admirable in its style, as Lingard’s History of England.
This is a point, however, on which we have the concurring testimony of
a number of English visitors, extending over a period of nearly thirty
years. The report of Mr. Harford in 1817, has been already quoted; Dr.
Cox of Southampton, spoke with high admiration of the Cardinal’s powers
as an English critic. Cardinal Wiseman assures me that “he often heard
him speaking on English style, and criticizing our writers with great
justness and accuracy. He certainly,” adds the Cardinal, “knew the
language and its literature far better than many an English gentleman.”
With Mr. Henry Grattan, then (in the year 1843,) member of Parliament
for Meath, he held a long conversation on the English language and
literature, especially its poets.
“He spoke in English,” says Mr. Grattan, “and with great
rapidity. He talked of Milton, Pope, Gray, and Chaucer. Milton,
he observed, was our English Homer, but he was formed by the
study of Dante, and of the Prophets. On Gray’s Elegy, and on
Moore’s Melodies, he dwelt with great delight; of the latter he
repeated some passages, and admired them extremely. Chaucer, he
said, was taken from Boccaccio. He added that Milton, besides
his merit as an English poet, also wrote very pretty Italian
poetry. Talking of French literature, he said that, properly
speaking, the French have no poetry: ‘they have too much poetry
in their prose,’ said he, ‘and besides they want the heart that
is necessary for genuine poetry.’”
But the most extraordinary example of Mezzofanti’s minute acquaintance
with English literature that I have heard, has been communicated to me by
Mr. Badeley, who found him quite familiar with an author so little read,
even by Englishmen, as Hudibras!
“The Cardinal,” says Mr. Badeley, “received me most graciously;
his first question was, ‘Well, what language shall we talk?’
I said, ‘Your eminence’s English is doubtless far better than
my Italian, and therefore we had better speak English.’ He
accordingly spoke English to me, in the most easy and natural
manner, and the conversation soon turned upon the English
language, and upon English literature; and his reference to
some of our principal authors, such as Milton, and others of
that class, shewed me that he was well acquainted with them.
We talked of translations, and I mentioned that the most
extraordinary translation I had ever seen was that of Hudibras
in French. He quite started with astonishment. ‘Hudibras in
French! impossible—it cannot be!’ I assured him that it was
so, and that I had the book. ‘But how is it possible,’ said
he, ‘to translate such a book? The rhymes, the wit, the jokes,
are the material points of the work—and it is impossible to
translate these—you cannot give _them_ in French!’ I told
him that, strange as it might seem, they were very admirably
preserved in the translation, the measure and versification
being the same, and the point and spirit of the original
maintained with the utmost fidelity. He seemed quite lost
in wonder, and almost incredulous—repeating several times,
‘Hudibras in French! Hudibras in French! Most extraordinary—I
never heard of such a thing!’ During the rest of our interview,
he broke out occasionally with the same exclamations; and, as
I took leave, he again asked me about the book. I said that
it was rather scarce, as it had been published many years
ago;[522] but, that I had a copy, which I should be happy
to send him, if he would do me the honour of accepting it.
Unfortunately, on my return to England, before I could find
anybody to take charge of it for him, he died.”
The very capacity to appreciate “the rhymes, the wit, the jokes,” of
Hudibras, in itself implies no common mastery of English. How few even
among learned Englishmen, could similarly appreciate Berni, Pulci,
Scarron, or Gresset, not to speak of the minor humourists of France or
Italy!
In all this, however, I have been anticipating. My own conversations
with him, during my first visit to Rome, had but little reference to
languages or to any kindred subject. He questioned me chiefly about our
college, about the general condition of the Church in Ireland, and the
relations of religious parties in Ireland and England. My sojourn in Rome
occurred at a time of great religious excitement in the latter country.
The Tractarian Movement had reached its highest point of interest. The
secessions from the ranks of Anglicanism had already become so numerous
as to attract the attention of foreign churches. The strong assertion
of catholic principles brought out by the Hampden Controversy; the
steady advance in tone which the successive issues of the Tracts for
the Times, and still more of the “British Critic,” had exhibited; above
all, the almost complete identification in doctrine with the decrees of
the Council of Trent, avowed in the celebrated Tract 90; had created
everywhere a confident hope that many and extensive changes were imminent
in England: and there were not a few among the best informed foreign
Catholics, who were enthusiastic in their anticipation of the approaching
reconciliation of that country with the Church. It was almost exclusively
on this topic that Cardinal Mezzofanti spoke during my several interviews
with him, in 1841. He was already well informed as to the general
progress of the movement; but he enquired anxiously about individuals,
and especially about the authors of the Tracts for the Times. I was much
struck by the extent and the accuracy of his information on the subject,
as well as by the justice of his views. He was well acquainted with the
relations of the High and Low Church parties and with their history.
“Rest assured,” he one day said to me, “that it is to individual
conversions you are to look in England. There will be no general
approximation of the Churches. This is not the first time these
principles have been popular for a while in the English Church. It was
the same at the time of Laud, and again in the time of the Catholic King,
James II. But no general movement followed. Many individuals became
Catholics; but the mass of the public still remained Protestant, and were
even more violent afterwards.”
More than once during the many outbursts of fanaticism, which we have
since that time witnessed in England, I have called to mind this wise and
far-seeing prediction.
But, although the Cardinal did not partake in the anticipation, which
some indulged, of a general movement of the English Church towards
Rome, his interest in the conversion of individuals was most anxious
and animated. It was his favourite subject of conversation with English
visitors at this period. Mr. Grattan has kindly permitted me to copy from
his journal an account of one of his interviews with the Cardinal, (a few
months after this date) which describes a half serious, half jocular,
attempt on the part of his Eminence to convert him from Protestantism.
Mrs. Grattan, who is a Catholic, was present during the interview.
Having referred, in the course of a very interesting discussion on
English literature, which the reader has already seen, to Sir Thomas
More, as the earliest model of English prose, the Cardinal observed that
More was a truly great and good man.
“‘He made an enemy of his King,’ said he, ‘but he made a
friend in his God.’ He then inquired of Mrs. Grattan, how it
happened that I had not changed my religion, and become a
Catholic—‘Now-a-days,’ said he, ‘there is no penalty and no
shame attached to the step; on the contrary, a great party in
England esteem you the more for it, and many learned men of
your own day have set you the example. You have, besides, the
venerable Bede; you have St. Patrick, too—both the greatest of
your countrymen in their age; you have King Alfred, and the
Edwards, all inviting you to the Church.’ He then approached
me in the most affectionate manner, took my hand and pressed
it, with a mixture of tenderness, drollery, and good nature.
‘Now you _must_ change,’ he continued. ‘You will not be able to
escape it; your religion is but three hundred years old: the
Catholic dates from the beginning of Christianity. It is the
religion of Christ; its head on earth is the Pope—not, as yours
once was, an old woman, but the Pope!’ Here he became quite
animated, took Mrs. Grattan’s hand, and drew her over, holding
each of us by the hand; his manner became most fervent, his old
eye glistened, he looked up to Heaven, and exclaimed,—‘There
is the place to make a friend!’ Then turning to me, he said,
‘Ireland is the garden of religion, and you must one day become
a flower in it.’”
Mr. Grattan was deeply affected by this remarkable interview; and I may
add that I have known few Protestant visitors of the Cardinal, who did
not carry away the most favourable impressions regarding him. With all
the earnestness and fervour of his own religious convictions, he was
singularly tolerant and forbearing towards the followers of another
creed. “His gentleness and modesty,” writes Chevalier (now Baron)
Bunsen, “have often struck me. Once, some misrepresentations of Lady
Morgan in her book on Italy, being mentioned in his presence with strong
vituperation, he gently interposed. ‘Poor Lady Morgan!’ said he; ‘it is
not yet given to her to see truth.’”
But although in my conversations with the Cardinal in 1841, his Eminence
confined himself entirely to English, yet on one occasion, at the close
of a meeting of the Accademia della Cattolica Religione, I heard him
converse, with every appearance of fluency and ease, in six different
languages with the various members of a group who collected around him;
in Romaic with Monsignor Missir, a Greek Archbishop; in German with
Guido Görres; in Magyar with a Hungarian artist who accompanied him; in
French with the Abbé La Croix, of the French church of St. Lewis; in
Spanish with a young Spanish Dominican; and in English with myself and my
companions. It was only however, during a second and more prolonged visit
to Rome in the first six months of 1843, that I was witness, in its full
reality, of the marvellous gift of which I had read and heard so much.
I was fortunate enough to arrive on Rome in the vigil of the great
annual “Academy” of the Propaganda, which, from immemorial time has
been held during the octave of the Epiphany, the special festival of
that institution. It is hardly necessary, in speaking of an exercise
now so celebrated, to explain that this Academy consists of a series of
brief addresses and recitations, generally speaking in a metrical form,
delivered by the students in all the various languages which happen
at the time to be represented in the college. The subjects of these
compositions are commonly drawn from the festival itself, or from some
kindred theme; and the rapidity with which they succeed each other,
and the earnestness and vigour with which most of them are delivered,
create an impression which hardly any other conceivable exhibition
could produce. To the audience, of course, the greater number of these
recitations are an unknown sound; but the earnest manner of the speakers;
their foreign and unwonted intonations; the curious variety of feature
and expression which they present; and the unique character of the whole
proceeding—gave to the scene an interest entirely independent of the
recitations themselves considered as literary compositions.
I never shall forget the impression which I received at my first entrance
at the _Aula Maxima_[523] on the evening of Sunday, January 8th, 1843.
At the farther end of the hall, on an elevated platform, the benches
of which rose above each other like the seats of a theatre, sat the
assembled pupils, arranged with some view to effect, in the order in
which they were to take part in the exercise. They seemed of all ages,
from the dawn of youth to mature manhood. It would be difficult to find
elsewhere collected together so many specimens of the minor varieties of
the human race. Gazing upon the eager faces crowded within that little
space, one might almost persuade himself that he had the whole world in
miniature before him, with all its motley tribes and races—
Che comprender non può prosa ne vérso:—
Da India, dal Catai, Marrocco, e Spagna.
Some of the varieties, and perhaps those which present the most marked
physiological contrasts with the rest, it is true, were wanting; but
all the more delicate shades of difference were clearly discernable;
the familiar lineaments of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon race; all the
well-known European types of feature and complexion; the endless though
highly contrasted varieties of Asiatic and North African form—the classic
Indian, the stately Armenian, the calm and impassive Chaldee, the solemn
Syrian, the fiery Arab, the crafty Egyptian, the swarthy Abyssinian, the
stunted Birman, the stolid Chinese. And yet in all, far as they seemed
asunder in sentient and intelligent qualities, might be traced the common
interest of the occasion. Each appeared to feel that this—the feast of
the illumination of the Gentiles—was indeed his own peculiar festival.
All were lighted up by the excitement of the approaching exercise; and
it was impossible, looking upon them, and recalling the object which had
brought them all together from their distant homes, not to give glory to
God for this, the most glorious work of his church: in which “Parthians,
and Medes, and Elamites, and the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea, and
Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts
of Lybia about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews also, and proselytes,
Cretes and Arabians, speak the wonderful works of God;”—not, as of old,
in one tongue, but each in the tongue of his own people.
Below the platform were arrayed the auditory. The front seats,
distinguished by their red drapery, were reserved for the Cardinals, of
whom several were present,—Franzoni, the Cardinal Prefect, with his pale
and passionless face—the very ideal of self-denying spirituality;—the
English Cardinal Acton, shrinking, as it seemed, from the notice which
his prominent position drew upon him—Castracane, Cardinal Penitentiary,
with the look of earnest and settled purpose which he always wore;—the
lively little Cardinal Massimo,[524] in animated and evidently pleasant
conversation, with two of the Professors, the lamented abate Palma
and abate Graziosi;—the classic head of Mai, every feature instinct
with intellectuality—every look bespeaking the scholar and the priest.
But it need scarcely be said, that on this evening, despite his scant
proportions and unimposing presence, every other claimant for notice was
forgotten in comparison with the true hero of such a scene—the great
polyglot Cardinal Mezzofanti. He was seated on the extreme right of the
front rank, and, as I entered, was conversing eagerly with a stately
looking Greek bishop, Monsignor Missir, whose towering stature and
singularly noble head contrasted strongly with the diminutive and almost
insignificant figure of the great linguist.
Behind the Cardinals sate a number of foreign bishops, prelates, members
of religious orders, and other distinguished strangers, many of them
evidently orientals. The general assembly at the back included most
of the literary foreigners then in Rome, among whom were more than one
English clergyman, at that time the object of many an anxious prayer and
aspiration, of which we have since been permitted to witness the happy
fulfilment in their accession to the fold of the Church.
The exercises of the evening, besides a Latin proem and an epilogue in
Italian, comprised forty-eight recitations on “the Illumination of the
Gentiles;” but, as these included several varieties of Latin and Italian
versification, the total number of languages represented in the Academy
was only forty-two. The Latin proem was delivered by a young Irish
student from the centre of the platform; the other speakers delivering
their parts from the places assigned to them by the programme. Most of
the languages were spoken by natives of the several countries where they
prevail; and, where no native representative could be found, a student
remarkable for his proficiency in the language was selected instead.
It thus happened that the Hebrew psalm was recited by a Dutchman; the
Spanish ode fell to a native of Stockholm; and the soft measures of the
Italian _terzine_ and anacreontics were committed to the tender mercies
of two youths from beyond the Tweed!
With those of the odes which I was in some degree able to follow, the
Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and German, I was much pleased. They
appeared to me remarkably simple, elegant, and in good taste. But for the
rest, it would be idle to attempt to convey an idea of the strange effect
produced by the rapid succession of unknown sounds, uttered with every
diversity of intonation,[525] accompanied by every variety of gesture,
and running through every interval in the musical scale, from “syllables
which breathe of the soft south,” to the
Harsh northern whistling, grunting, guttural,
That we’re obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.
Some of the recitations were singularly soft and harmonious; some
came, even upon an uninstructed ear, with a force and dignity, almost
independent of the sense which they conveyed; some on the contrary,
especially when taken in connexion with the gestures and intonation of
the reciter, were indescribably ludicrous. Among the former was the
Syriac ode, recited by Joseph Churi, a youth since known in English
literature. Among the latter, the most curious were a Chinese Eclogue,
and a Peguan Dialogue. The speakers in both cases were natives, and I
was assured by a gentleman who was present at the exercise, and who
had visited China more than once, that their recitation was a perfect
reproduction of the tone and manner of the native theatre of China.
* * * * *
Throughout the entire proceedings Cardinal Mezzofanti was a most
attentive, and evidently an anxious listener. Every one of the young
aspirants to public favour was personally and familiarly known to
him. Many of the pieces, moreover, upon these occasions, were his own
composition, or at least revised by him; and thus, besides his paternal
anxiety for the success of his young friends, he generally had somewhat
of the interest of an author in the literary part of the performance. It
was plain, too, that, for the young speakers themselves, his Eminence
was, in his turn, the principal object of consideration; and it was
amusing to observe, in the case of one of the oriental recitations,
that the speaker almost appeared to forget the presence of the general
auditory, and to address himself entirely to the spot where Cardinal
Mezzofanti sate.
At the close of the exercises, as soon as the interesting assemblage
of the platform broke up, a motley group was speedily formed around
the good-natured Cardinal, to hear his criticisms, or to receive his
congratulations on the performance; and I then was witness for the first
time of what I saw on more than one subsequent occasion—the almost
inconceivable versatility of his wonderful faculty, and his power of
flying from language to language with the rapidity of thought itself,
as he was addressed in each in succession;—hardly ever hesitating, or
ever confounding a word or interchanging a construction. Most of the
members of the polyglot group which thus crowded around him and plied
him with this linguistic fusilade, were of course unknown to me; but I
particularly noticed among the busiest of the questioners, the Chinese
youths who had taken part in their native eclogue, and a strange,
mercurial, monkey-like, but evidently most intelligent lad, whom I
afterwards recognized as one of the speakers in the Peguan Dialogue.[526]
I was gratified, too, to see a gap which I had observed in the programme
of the exercises—the omission of the Russian language—supplied by his
Eminence in this curious after-performance. A Russian gentleman, who
had sate near me during the evening, now joined the group assembled
around the Cardinal, and good-humouredly complained of the oversight.
His Eminence, without a moment’s thought, replied to him in Russian;—in
which language a lengthened conversation ensued between them, with every
evidence of ease and fluency on the part of the Cardinal. Although I have
never since learned the name of this traveller, I noted the circumstance
with peculiar interest at the time, because he had already established
a claim upon my remembrance, by selecting (without knowing me as an
Irishman,) among all the recitations of the evening, as especially
harmonious and expressive in its sounds, the _Irish Ode_; which had been
delivered with great character and effect by a young student of the
County Mayo.
During my first visit to Rome, I had heard a great deal of this curious
power of maintaining a conversation simultaneously with several
individuals, and in many different languages; but I was far from being
prepared for an exhibition of it so wonderful as that which I have
witnessed. I cannot, at this distance of time, say what was the exact
number of the group which stood around him, nor can I assert that they
all spoke different languages; but making every deduction, the number
of speakers cannot have been less than ten or twelve; and I do not
think that he once hesitated for a sentence or even for a word! Many
very wonderful examples of the power of dividing the attention between
different objects have been recorded. Julius Cæsar, if we believe Pliny,
was able to listen with his ears, read with his eyes, write with his
pen, and dictate with his lips, at the same time. Mordaunt, Earl of
Peterborough, often dictated to six or seven secretaries simultaneously.
Walter Scott, when engaged in his Life of Napoleon, used to dictate
fluently to his amanuensis, while he was, at the same time, taking down
and reading books, consulting papers, and comparing authorities on the
difficult points of the history which were to follow. The wonderful
powers of the same kind possessed by Phillidor, the chess-player, too,
are well known.[527] But I cannot think that there is any example of
the faculty of mental self-multiplication, if it can be thus called,
upon record, so wonderful as that exhibited by Mezzofanti in these, so
to speak, linguistic tournaments, in which he held the lists against all
opponents, not successively, but at once. Guido Görres, describing the
rapidity of his transitions from one language to another, compares it
to “a bird flitting from spray to spray.” The learned Armenian, Father
Arsenius, speaking of the perfect distinctness of his use of each, and
of the entire absence of confusion or intermixture, says his change from
language to language “was like passing from one room into another.”
“Mezzofanti himself told me,” writes Cardinal Wiseman, “that whenever he
began to speak in one tongue, or turned into it from another, he seemed
to forget all other languages except that one. He has illustrated to me
the difficulty he had to encounter in these transitions, by taking a
common word, such as ‘bread,’ and giving it in several cognate languages,
as Russian, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian, &c., the differences being very
slight, and difficult to remember. Yet he never made the least mistake in
any of them.”
When Rev. John Strain, now of St. Andrew’s, Dumfries, who assures me
that, while he was in the Propaganda, he often heard Mezzofanti speak
seven or eight languages in the course of half an hour, asked him how it
was that he never jumbled or confused them. Mezzofanti laughingly asked
in his turn.
“Have you ever _tried on a pair of green spectacles_?”
“Yes,” replied his companion.
“Well,” said Mezzofanti, “while you wore these spectacles everything
was green to your eyes. It is precisely so with me. While I am speaking
any language, for instance, Russian, _I put on my Russian spectacles_,
and for the time, _they colour everything Russian_. I see all my ideas
in that language alone. If I pass to another language, _I have only to
change the spectacles, and it is the same for that language also_!”
This amusing illustration perfectly describes the phenomenon so far
as it fell under observation; but, so far as I am aware, no one has
attempted to analyse the mental operation by which these astounding
external effects were produced. The faculty, whatever it was, may have
been improved and sharpened by exercise; but there is no part of the
extraordinary gift of this great linguist so clearly exceptional, and so
unprecedented in the history of the faculty of language.
A few weeks after the Propaganda academy, I met his Eminence at the
levee of the newly created Cardinal Cadolini, ex-Secretary of the Sacred
Congregation. Recognizing me at once as “the Maynooth Professor,” he
addressed me laughingly in Irish: _Cion̄us tá tú_ “How are you?” It has
repeatedly been stated that he knew Irish; and that language is actually
enumerated in more than one published list of the languages which he
spoke. Had it not been for his own candour on the occasion in question, I
myself should have carried away the same impression from our interview.
But on my declaring my inability to enter into an Irish conversation,
he at once confessed that, had I been able to go farther, I should have
found himself at fault; as, although he knew so much as enabled him to
initiate a conversation, and to make his way through a book, he had not
formally studied the Irish language. Nevertheless that he was acquainted
with its general characteristics, and the leading principles of its
inflections and grammatical structure, its analogies with Gælic, as well
as their leading points of difference, and its general relations with
the common Celtic family, I was enabled to ascertain in a subsequent
interview, in which I was accompanied by an accomplished Irish scholar,
the late Rev. Dr. Murphy of Kinsale. Dr. Murphy was much struck with the
accuracy and soundness of his views.
One of the observations which he made during this interview was
afterwards the occasion of no little amusement to us. During an audience
which Dr. Murphy, accompanied by Dr. Cullen, then Rector of the Irish
College, had had a few days before with the Pope, Gregory XVI., a new
work of Sir William Betham, _Etruria Celtica_—in which an attempt is made
to establish the identity of the Irish and Etrurian languages, and in
which the celebrated Eugubian inscriptions are explained as Irish,—had
been presented to the Pope. His holiness, who was much interested in
Etruscan antiquities, on hearing from Dr. Cullen the nature and object
of the work, had expressed great amusement at this latest discovery in a
matter which had already been explained in at least a dozen different and
conflicting ways. We mentioned this to the Cardinal.
“His Holiness is perfectly right,”he replied. “There is no possible
meaning which could not be taken out of it, if you only grant the licence
which these antiquarians claim. The Eugubian tables, in different
systems,[528] have been explained by some as a calendar of Festivals; by
others as a code of laws; by others as a system of agricultural precepts.
It is no wonder that your Irish author explains them as Irish. But I
will venture to say that, if you only take any common Italian or Latin
sentence, and apply to it the same system of interpretation, you may
explain it as Irish, and find it make excellent sense.”
On leaving his Eminence, we resolved to put his suggestion to the test.
We took the first sentence in the first of F. Segneri’s sermons which
opened in the volume. I have since tried, but in vain, to find the
passage: and I only recollect about it, that it related to the ardent
desire of our Divine Lord, that the light of his gospel should shine
among men. Dr. Murphy, without exceeding in the slightest degree the
license which Sir W. Betham allows himself, in dealing with the Eugubian
inscriptions, converted this Italian sentence into an Irish one, which,
to our infinite amusement, literally rendered, ran as follows: “In
sailing into the harbour, they came to the place of his habitation; and
_they took a vast quantity of large specked trouts, by the great virtue
of white Irish fishing-rods_!”
The Cardinal repeated to Dr. Murphy during this visit what he had before
said, that he did not pretend to speak Irish, but added that, if he had a
little practice, he would easily acquire it. I had already heard the same
from the Archbishop of Tuam, who knew him on his first arrival in Rome. I
have since been told that, in the following winter, he formally addressed
himself to the study, with the assistance of the late Rev. Dr. Lyons of
Erris, who was then in Rome; but I have no means of testing the truth of
the statement, or of ascertaining the extent of his progress.
This discussion regarding the Irish language naturally suggested a
similar inquiry as to the Cardinal’s knowledge of the kindred Gælic.
The Rev. John Strain, who knew him in 1832, when he first came to Rome,
informs me that in that year he had no knowledge whatever of the Gælic
language. He got a friend of Mr. Strain’s to repeat some sentences in it
for him, and expressed a wish to procure some books for the purpose of
learning it. I find from the catalogue of his library that he did procure
a few Gælic books: and Rev. John Gray of Glasgow, who was a student of
the Propaganda till the year 1841, informs me that he at that time knew
the language, but spoke it very imperfectly.[529]
An American gentleman whom I met one day in the Cardinal’s ante-chamber,
showed me an impromptu English couplet which his eminence had just
written for him, on his asking for some memorial of their interview. I
am not able now to recall this distich to memory; but it is only one of
numberless similar tokens which the Cardinal presented to his visitors
and friends. One of his favourite amusements consisted in improvising
little scraps of verse in various languages, for the most part embodying
some pious or moral sentiment, which he flung off with the rapidity of
thought, and without the slightest effort. Few of those which I have
seen, indeed, can be said to exhibit much poetical genius. There is
but little trace of imagination in them, and the sentiments, though
excellent, are generally commonplace enough. But while, considered as a
test of command over the languages in which they are written, even the
most worthless of them cannot be regarded as insignificant, there are
many of them which are very prettily turned, and display no common power
of versification.
It is difficult to recover scraps like these, fragmentary of their own
nature, and scattered over every country of the earth. I have sought in
vain for oriental specimens, although the Cardinal distributed numbers
of them to the students of the Propaganda at their leaving college. In
a sheet of autographs prefixed to this volume will be found verses in
sixteen different languages. A few others are given in the appendix.
I shall jot down here two or three specimens of his classical epigrams
which have fallen in my way.
Most of them arose out of the very circumstance of his being asked for
such a token of remembrance.
For instance, on one occasion when the request was addressed to him _in
Greek_, he wrote:
Ἑλλάδος ἠρώτας ἐμε ῥήμασιν. Ἑλλάδος ἁυδήν
Ἐκχὲω, οὐδ’ ἄλλην χρή ἀπαμειβόμενον.
Οὐ φθόγγος φθόγγοισιν ἀμείβεται, εί μὴ ὁμοῖος,
Ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ συμφώνων γίγνεται ἁρμονίη.
Νῦν δέ τίνα Γνώμην δώσω ἀιτοῦντι; τιν ἄλλην
Ἡ—— ’Θεὸν ἐν πάσῃ, δὲι φιλέειν κραδίῃ.’
So again, when a visitor begged him to write _his name_ in an album, he
gave, instead, this pretty couplet.
Pauca dedi—nomen. Tu sane pauca petisti,
Assiduus sed ego te rogo plura—preces.
In answer to a similar request at another time, he replied—
Accipe quod poscis—nomen. Scribatur ut ipsum
In cœlo, ad Dominum tu bone funde preces.
On being presented on New Year’s day with a pair of spectacles by his
friend, Dr. Peter Trombetti, of Bologna, he wrote:—
Deficit heu acies oculorum! instante senecta;
Deficit;—at comis lumina tu duplicas.
Lumen utrumque mihi argento dum nocte coruscat
Haud mihi qui dederit decidet ex animo.
A similar present at the next New Year elicited the following:—
Cum vix sufficiunt oculi mihi nocte legenti,
Ecce bonus rursum lumina tu geminas.
Prospera ut eveniant multis volventibus annis,
Cuncta tibi, par est me geminare preces.
To another of his Bolognese friends, the Canonico Tartaglia, now rector
of the Pontifical seminary, who begged some memorial, he sent the
following pretty epigram:—
Sæpe ego versiculos heic dicto, stans pede in uno;
Carmina sed fingo nulla linenda cedro.
Qualiacumque cano velox heu dissipat aura!
Unum de innumeris hoc mihi vix superest,
Mittimus hoc unum interea. Exiguum accipe donum
Eternæ veteris pignus amicitiæ.
Any one who has ever tried to turn a verse in any foreign tongue, will
agree with me in regarding the rapidity with which these trifles were
written, as one of the most curious evidences of the writer’s mastery
over the many languages in which he is known to have indulged this fancy.
The really pretty Dutch verses—verses as graceful in sentiment as they
are elegant in language—in reply to Dr. Wap’s address, were penned in Dr.
Wap’s presence and with great rapidity. Father Legrelle’s Flemish verses
were dashed off with equal quickness. The American of whom I spoke told
me that the Cardinal wrote almost without a moment’s thought. It was the
same for the lady mentioned by Dr. Wap, although the subject of these
verses arose during the interview; and even the Persian stanza which he
wrote for Dr. Tholuck, and which “contained several pretty ἐνθυμήσεις,”
cost him only about half an hour! How many of those who consider
themselves most perfect in French, Italian, or German, have ever ventured
even upon a single line of poetry in any of them?
I must not omit another circumstance which I myself observed, and which
struck me forcibly as illustrating the singular nicety of his ear, and
still more the completeness with which he threw himself into all the
details of every language which he cultivated;—I mean his manner and
accent in pronouncing Latin in conversation with natives of different
countries. One day I was speaking to him in company with Guido Görres,
when he had occasion to quote to me Horace’s line.
Si paulum a summo decessit, vergit ad imum:—
which he pronounced quite as I should have pronounced it, and without
any of the peculiarities of Italian pronunciation. He turned at once to
Görres, and added—
“Or, as you would say:
Si _pow_lum a _soomm_o _det_sessit, ver_ghit_ ad imum,”
introducing into it every single characteristic of the German manner
of pronouncing the Latin language. I have heard the same from other
foreigners. It was amusing, too, to observe that he had taken the
trouble to note and to acquire the peculiar expletive or interjectional
sounds, with which, as it is well known, natives of different countries
unconsciously interlard their conversation, and the absence or misuse
of which will sometimes serve to discover the foreign origin of one who
seems to speak a language with every refinement of correctness.[530] The
Englishman’s “ah!” the Frenchman’s “oh!” the whistling interjection of
the Neapolitan, the grunt of the Turk, the Spaniard’s nasal twang—were
all at his command.
My brief and casual intercourse with the Cardinal would not entitle me to
speak of his character and disposition, were it not that my impressions
are but an echo of all that has been said and written before me, of his
cheerful courtesy, his open-hearted frankness, and his unaffected good
nature. To all his visitors of whatever degree, he was the same—gay,
amiable, and unreserved. With him humility was an instinct. It seemed
as though he never thought of himself, or of any claim of his to
consideration. He would hardly permit the simple mark of respect—the
kissing of the ring which ordinarily accompanies the salutation of one of
high ecclesiastical dignity in Italy; and his demeanour was so entirely
devoid of assumption of superiority that the humblest visitor was at once
made to feel at home in his company.
His conversation was uniformly gay and cheerful, and no man entered
more heartily into the spirit of any little pleasantry which might
arise. On one occasion, upon a melting summer day, as he was shewing the
magnificent Giulio Clovio Dante, in the Vatican library, to a well-known
London clergyman, the latter, in his delight at one of the beautiful
miniatures by which it is illustrated—a moonlight scene—was in the act of
pointing out _with his moist finger_ some particular beauty which struck
him, when Mezzofanti, horror-struck at the danger, caught his arm.
“Softly, my dear Doctor,” he playfully interposed: “these things may be
looked at with the eyes, but not with the fingers.”
He delighted, too, in puns, and was equally ready in all languages. He
laughed heartily at Cardinal Rivarola’s Italian pun against himself,
about the _orecchini_;[531] and one day, while he was speaking German
with Guido Görres, the latter having made some allusion to his
Eminence’s increasing gray hairs, and spoken of him as a _weiss-haar_
(white-haired,)
“Ach!” he replied with a gentle smile, not untinged with
melancholy;—“ach! gäbe Gott dass ich, wie _weiss-haar_, so auch _weiser_
geworden wäre.”[532]
It will easily be inferred from this, that, among etymologies, he was
especially attracted by those which involved a play upon words:—if they
admitted a pun so much the better. He was much amused by Herr Fleck’s
suggestion, that the name Mezzofanti, was derived from Ἑν μέσῳ φαίνεται;
and Cardinal Wiseman told me that once, after learnedly canvassing the
various etymologies suggested for Felsina, the ancient name of his
native city, Bologna, he laughingly brought the discussion to a close by
suggesting that probably it was _Fé l’asina_, (the ass made it.)
Probably it was to this taste he was indebted for that familiarity with
Hudibras—a writer, otherwise so unattractive to a foreigner—which took
Mr. Badeley by surprise.