[1843-1849.]
In the midst of the honours and occupations of his new dignity, Cardinal
Mezzofanti sustained a severe affliction in the death of his favourite
nephew, Monsignor Minarelli—the _Giuseppino_ (Joe) so often commemorated
in his early correspondence. This amiable and learned ecclesiastic
instead of accompanying his uncle to Rome, where the most brilliant
prospects were open to him, preferred to pursue the quiet and useful
career of university life, in which he had hitherto been associated with
him in Bologna. By successive steps, he had risen to the Rectorate of
the University; and in recognition of his services to that institution,
the honorary dignity of a prelate of the first class in the Roman
Court—popularly styled _del mantelletto_—had been conferred on him by the
Pope. The Cardinal, as is plain from his own letters and those of his
Bologna friends, was warmly attached to him. While he lived in Bologna
Giuseppe was his friend and companion, rather than his pupil; and the
young man’s early death was felt the more deeply by him, from the
congeniality of tastes and studies which had always subsisted between
them.
The Cardinal’s sister, Teresa, (mother of the deceased prelate,) although
she was ten years his senior, was still living in their old home at
Bologna, and he continued to correspond with her up to the time of his
death. His letters to her are all exceedingly simple and unaffected—so
entirely of a domestic character, and without public interest, that, if
I translate one of them here—the latest which has come into my hands—it
is merely as a specimen of the warmth and tenderness, as well as deeply
religious character of the Cardinal’s affection for his sister and for
her children.
“We are on the eve of your Saint’s Day, my dearest sister. I am
to say Mass on that day in the Church of the Servites; but I
shall offer it for you, praying with all the fervor of my heart
that God may long preserve you in health, and console you under
your affliction, and that your holy patroness may protect you,
and obtain for you all the graces of which you stand in need.
I wish to mark the occasion by a little token of my affection,
and I have already written to Gesnalde to transmit it to you.
It is a mere trifle, but I know that you will only look, as
you have always done in past years, to the person it comes
from, and that you will give it value by accepting it, and by
corresponding with me in recommending me, as I do you, to the
special favour of the Almighty. As being my elder sister, you
used always, when we were children, to pray for your little
brother; and I know that you still continue the practice; I am
most grateful for it, and I try to make you every return.
Your sons, and my niece Anna unite with me in their
affectionate wishes, and beg your blessing. May God bestow his
most abundant blessings on you!”
The history of the later years of the Cardinal’s life presents scarcely
any incidents of any special interest. Few of the reports of the
foreigners who met him at this period, differ in any material particulars
from those which we have already seen. I shall content myself, therefore,
with two or three of them, which may be taken as specimens of the entire,
but which are selected also with a view to serve in guiding the reader
in his estimate, not merely of the general attainments of the Cardinal
as a linguist, but of his proficiency in the languages of the writers
themselves, and in other languages, not specially commemorated hitherto.
We have already passingly alluded to the account of Mezzofanti given
by the Rev. Ingraham Kip, a clergyman of the Episcopalian Church in
America: but the details into which this gentleman enters, regarding
his Eminence’s knowledge of the English language and literature, are so
important, that it would be unpardonable to pass them by.
“He is a small lively looking man,” says Mr. Kip, “apparently
over seventy. He speaks English with a slight foreign
accent—yet remarkably correct. Indeed, I never before met with
a foreigner who could talk for ten minutes without using some
word with a shade of meaning not exactly right; yet, in the
_long conversation I had with the Cardinal, I detected nothing
like this. He did not use a single expression or word in any
way which was not strictly and idiomatically correct._ He
converses, too, without the slightest hesitation, never being
at the least loss for the proper phrase.
In talking about him some time before to an ecclesiastic, I
quoted Lady Blessington’s remark, ‘that she did not believe he
had made much progress in the literature of these forty-two
languages; but was rather like a man who spent his time in
manufacturing keys to palaces which he had not time to enter;’
and I inquired whether this was true. ‘Try him,’ said he,
laughing; and, having now the opportunity, I endeavoured to do
so. I led him, therefore, to talk of Lord Byron and his works,
and then of English literature generally. He gave me, in the
course of his conversation, quite a discussion on the subject
which was the golden period of the English language; and of
course fixed on the days of Addison. He drew a comparison
between the characteristics of the French, Italian, and Spanish
languages; spoke of Lockhart’s translation from the Spanish,
and incidentally referred to various other English writers. He
then went on to speak of American literature, and paid high
compliments to the pure style of some of our best writers. He
expressed an opinion that, with many, it had been evidently
formed by a careful study of the old authors—those ‘wells of
English undefiled’—and, that within the last fifty years we had
imported fewer foreign words than had been done in England. He
spoke very warmly of the works of Mr. Fennimore Cooper, whose
name, by the way, is better known on the continent than that of
any other American author.”
As Mr. Kip, unfortunately, was not acquainted with any of the Indian
languages of North America, he was unable to test the extent of the
Cardinal’s attainments in these languages. His account, nevertheless, is
not without interest.
“In referring to our Indian languages, he remarked, that the
only one with which he was well acquainted was the Algonquin,
although he knew something of the Chippewa and Delaware; and
asked whether I understood Algonquin; I instantly disowned
any knowledge of the literature of that respectable tribe of
Savages; for I was afraid the next thing would be a proposal
that we should continue the conversation in their mellifluous
tongue. He learned it from an Algonquin missionary, who
returned to Rome, and lived just long enough to enable the
Cardinal to begin this study. He had read the works of Mr.
Du Ponceau[533] of Philadelphia, on the subject of Indian
languages, and spoke very highly of them.”
It is right to add Mr. Kip’s conclusions from the entire interview, and
his impressions regarding the natural and acquired powers of the great
linguist.
“And yet,” he concludes, “_all this conversation by no
means satisfied me_ of the depth of the Cardinal’s literary
acquirements. There was nothing said which gave evidence of
more than a superficial acquaintance with English literature;
the kind of knowledge which passes current in society, and
which is necessarily picked up by one who meets so often
with cultivated people of each country. His acquirements in
words are certainly wonderful; but I could not help asking
myself their use. I have never yet heard of their being of
any practical benefit to the world during the long life of
their possessor. He has never displayed anything philosophical
in his character of mind; none of that power of combination
which enables Schlegel to excel in all questions of philology,
and gives him a talent for discriminating and a power of
handling the resources of a language which have never been
surpassed.”[534]
Perhaps the reader will be disposed to regard Mr. Kip’s criticism as
somewhat _exigeant_ in its character; and to think that, even taking his
own report of his conversation with the Cardinal, and of the number and
variety of the English and American writers, with whom, and with whose
peculiar characteristics, he was acquainted—some of them, moreover—as
for example, Lockhart’s Spanish Ballads—a translation from a foreign
language—most unlikely to attract a “superficial” foreigner, he was a
little unreasonable in refusing “to be satisfied with the depth of the
Cardinal’s literary acquirements.” For my part, I cannot help thinking
this interview, even as recorded by Mr. Kip, one of the most astonishing
incidents in the entire history of this extraordinary man. And I may add
to what is here stated of his familiarity with the principal English
authors, native and American, that, as I am informed by the Rev. Mr.
Gray, of Glasgow, the Cardinal was also intimately acquainted with the
national literature of Scotland; that he had read many of the works of
Walter Scott and Burns; and that he understood and was able to enjoy the
Lowland Scottish dialect, which is one of the great charms of both.
Mr. Kip’s impressions as to the Cardinal’s want of skill in the science
of language and of its philosophical bearing on history and ethnology,
must be admitted to have more foundation, and are shared by several of
the scholars who visited him, especially those who cultivated ethnology
as a particular study. I have reserved for this place a short notice of
the Cardinal, which has been communicated to me by Baron Bunsen, and
which, while it does ample justice to Mezzofanti’s merits as a linguist,
puts a very low estimate on his accomplishments as a philologer, and a
critic. The reader will gather from much of what has been already said,
that I am far from adopting this estimate in several of its particulars;
but Baron Bunsen’s opinion upon any question of scholarship or criticism
is too important to be overlooked.
“I saw him first as Abate and Librarian at Bologna, in 1828,
when travelling through Italy, with the Crown Prince (now
King) of Prussia. When he came to Rome as head librarian to
the Vatican, I have frequently had the pleasure of seeing
him in my house, and in the Vatican. He was always amiable,
humane, courteous, and spoke with equal fluency the different
languages of Europe. His gentleness and modesty have often
struck me. Once, when some misrepresentations of Lady Morgan
in her book on Italy, were mentioned before him with very
strong vituperation, ‘Poor Lady Morgan!’ he said, ‘it is not
yet given to her to see truth.’ When complimented by an English
lady upon his miraculous facility in acquiring languages, with
the additional observation that Charles the Fifth had said,
‘as many languages as a man knows, so many times he is a man,’
he replied, ‘Well, that ought rather to humble us; for it is
essential to man to err, and therefore, such a man is the more
liable to error, if Charles the Fifth’s observation is true.’
On the other side, I must confess that I was always struck by
the observation of an Italian who answered to the question:
‘Non è miracoloso di vedere un uomo parlare quaranta due
lingue?’ replied, ‘Si, senza dubbio; ma più miracoloso ancora
è di sentire che questo uomo in quaranta due lingue non dice
_niente_.’ A giant as a linguist, Mezzofanti certainly was a
child as a philologer and philological critic.
He delighted in etymologies, and sometimes he mentioned new
and striking ones, particularly as to the Romanic languages
and their dialects. But he could not draw any philosophical
or historical consequences from that circumstance, beyond the
first self-evident elements. He had no idea of philosophical
grammar. I have once seen his attempt at decyphering a Greek
inscription, and never was there such a failure. Nor has he
left or published anything worth notice.
I explain this by his ignorance of all _realities_. He
remembered words and their sounds and significations almost
instinctively; but he lived upon reminiscences: he never had
an original thought. I understood from one of his learned
colleagues, (a Roman Prelate,) that it was the same with his
theology; there was no acuteness in his divinity, although he
knew well St. Thomas and other scholastics.
As to Biblical Criticism, he had no idea of it. His knowledge
of Greek criticism too was very shallow.
In short, his linguistic talent was that of seizing sounds and
accents, and the whole (so to say) idiom of a language, and
reproducing them by a wonderful, but equally special, memory.
I do not think he had ever his equal in this respect.
But the cultivation of this power had absorbed all the rest.
Let it, however, never be forgotten that he was, according to
all I have heard from him, a charitable, kind Christian, devout
but not intolerant, and that his habitual meekness was not a
cloak, but a real Christian habit and virtue. Honour be to his
memory.”
There is a part of this criticism which is unquestionably just: but
there are also several of the views from which I am bound to dissent
most strongly, and to which I shall have occasion to revert hereafter.
Meanwhile, that the Cardinal paid more attention to these inquiries than
Mr. Kip and M. Bunsen suppose, will appear from the testimony of the Abbé
Gaume, author of the interesting work, “_Les Trois Rome_.”
“I had often met the illustrious philologer,” says M. Gaume,
“at the Propaganda, where he used to come to spend the
afternoon. Kind, affable, modest, he mixed with the students,
and spoke by turns Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Chinese, and
twenty other languages, with a facility almost prodigious.
When I entered, I found him studying Bas-Breton, and I have
no doubt that in a short time he will be able to exhibit it
to the inhabitants of Vannes themselves. His eminence assured
me of two points. The first is the fundamental unity of all
languages. This unity is observable especially in the parts of
speech, which are the same or nearly so in all languages. The
second is the trinity of dialects in the primitive language;—a
trinity corresponding with the three races of mankind. The
Cardinal has satisfied himself that there are but three races
sprung from one common stock, as there are but three languages
or principal dialects of one primitive language;—the Japhetic
language and race; the Semitic language and race; and the
Chamitic language and race. Thus the unity of the human kind
and the trinity of races, which are established by all the
monuments of history, are found also to be supported by the
authority of the most extraordinary philologer that has even
been known.
The Cardinal’s testimony is the more important inasmuch as
his linguistic acquirements are not confined to a superficial
knowledge. Of the many languages which he possesses, there is
not one in which he is not familiar with the every day words,
common sayings, adages, and all that difficult nomenclature
which constitutes the popular part of a language. One day
he asked one of our friends to what province of France he
belonged. ‘To Burgundy;’ replied my friend. ‘Oh!’ said
Mezzofanti, ‘you have two Burgundian dialects; which of them do
you speak?’ ‘I know,’ replied our friend, ‘the patois of Lower
Burgundy.’ Whereupon the Cardinal began to talk to him in Lower
Burgundian, with a fluency which the vine-dressers of Nantes or
Beaune might envy.”[535]
This curious familiarity with provincial _patois_, described by the
Abbé Gaume, extended to the other provincial dialects of France. M.
Manavit found him not only acquainted with the Tolosan dialect, but
even not unread in its local literature. His library contains books in
the dialects of Lorraine, Bearne, Franche Comté, and Dauphiné. I have
already mentioned his speaking Provençal with Madame de Chaussegros;
and Dr. Grant, bishop of Southwark, told me that he was able, solely by
the accent of the Abbé Carbry, to determine the precise place of his
nativity, Montauban.
Another language regarding which, although it has more than once been
alluded to, few testimonies have as yet been brought forward, is Spanish.
I shall content myself, nevertheless, with the evidence of a single
Spaniard, which, brief as it is, leaves nothing to be desired. “I can
assert of his Eminence,” writes Father Diego Burrueco, a Trinitarian
of Zamora, who knew the Cardinal during many of these years, “that he
spoke our Spanish like a native of Castile. He could converse in the
Andalusian dialect with Andalusians; he was able, also, to distinguish
the Catalonian dialect from that of Valencia, and both from that of the
Island of Majorca.”[536] We have already seen that, at a very early
period of his life, he studied the Mexican, Peruvian, and other languages
of Spanish America. That he spoke both Mexican and Peruvian after he
came to Rome, Cardinal Wiseman has no doubt. He is also stated to have
learned something of the languages of Oceanica from Bishop Pompalier,
of New Zealand. I may add here, though I have failed in finding native
witnesses, that it is the universal belief in Rome that he spoke well
both ancient and modern Chaldee, and ancient Coptic, as also the modern
dialect of Egypt. He had the repute also of being thoroughly familiar
with both branches of the Illyrian family—the Slavonic and the Romanic.
To the testimonies already borne to his skill in Armenian and Turkish,
I must add that of the Mechitarist, Father Raphael Trenz, Superior of
the Armenian College in Paris, who knew him in 1846. “Having conversed
with his Eminence,” writes this father,[537] “in ancient and in modern
Armenian, and also in Turkish, I am able to attest that he spoke and
pronounced them all with the purity and propriety of a native of these
countries.”
Perhaps also, although we have had many notices of his skill in Russian
and Polish from a very early period, it may be satisfactory to subjoin
the reports of one or two travellers who conversed with him in these
languages during his latter years.
To begin with Russian. A traveller of that nation who twice visited him
about this time, cited by Mr. Watts, describes him as “a phenomenon as
yet unparalleled in the literary world, and one that will scarce be
repeated, unless the gift of tongues be given anew, as at the dawn of
Christianity.”
“Cardinal Mezzofanti,” he writes, “spoke eight languages
fluently in my presence: he expressed himself in Russian
very purely and correctly; but, as he is more accustomed to
the style of books than that of ordinary discourse, it is
necessary to use the language of books in talking with him for
the conversation to flow freely. His passion for acquiring
languages is so great, that even now, in advanced age, he
continues to study fresh dialects. He learned Chinese not long
ago; and is constantly visiting the Propaganda for practice in
conversation with its pupils of all sorts of races. I asked
him to give me a list of all the languages and dialects in
which he was able to express himself, and he sent me the name
of GOD written in his own hand, in fifty-six languages, of
which thirty were European, not counting their subdivision of
dialects, seventeen Asiatic, also without reckoning dialects,
five African, and four American. In his person, the confusion
that arose at the building of Babel is annihilated, and all
nations, according to the sublime expression of Scriptures,
are again of one tongue. Will posterity ever see anything
similar? Mezzofanti is one of the most wonderful curiosities of
Rome.”[538]
In the end of the year 1845, Nicholas, the late Emperor of Russia, (who
of course is an authority also on the Polish language,) came to Rome, on
his return from Naples, where he had been visiting his invalid Empress.
The history of his interview with the Pope, Gregory XVI., and of the
apostolic courage and candour with which, in two successive conferences,
that great pontiff laid before him the cruelty, injustice, and impolicy
of his treatment of the Catholic subjects of his empire, is too well
known to need repetition here.[539] It was commonly said at the time,
and has been repeated in more than one publication, that the Pope’s
interpreter in this memorable conference was Cardinal Mezzofanti. This is
a mistake. The only Cardinal present at the interview was the mild and
retiring, but truly noble-minded and apostolic, Cardinal Acton.
A few days, however, after this interview, M. Boutanieff, the Russian
minister at Rome, wrote to request that Cardinal Mezzofanti would wait
upon the Emperor; and a still more direct invitation was conveyed to
him, in the name of the Emperor himself, by his first aide-de-camp. The
Cardinal of course could not hesitate to comply. Their conversation was
held both in Russian and in Polish. The Emperor was filled with wonder,
and confessed that, in either of these languages it would be difficult
to discover any trace of foreign peculiarity in the Cardinal’s accent or
manner.[540] It is somewhat amusing to add, that the Cardinal is said to
have taken some exceptions to the purity, or at least the elegance, of
the Emperor’s Polish conversational style.
As regards the Polish language, however, the year 1845 supplies other and
more direct testimonies than that of the Emperor Nicholas.
In an extract cited by Mr. Watts from the Posthumous Works of the eminent
Polish authoress, Klementyna z Tanskich Hoffmanowa, who visited Rome in
the March of that year, it is stated that “the cardinal spoke Polish
well, though with somewhat strained and far-fetched expressions;” and
that he was master of the great difficulty of Polish pronunciation—that
of the marked _l_—“although he often forgot it.” This lady has preserved
in her Diary a Polish couplet, written for her by the Cardinal with his
own hand, under a little picture of the Madonna.
Ten ogien ktory żyia w sercu twoiem
O Matko Boża! zapal w sercu moiem.[541]
Another, and to the Cardinal far more interesting, representative of the
Polish language appeared in Rome during the same year. Mezzofanti had
long felt deeply the wrongs of his oppressed fellow-Catholics in Poland
and Lithuania. A few months before the Emperor’s arrival in Rome, they
had been brought most painfully under his eyes by the visit of a refugee
of that vast empire, and a victim of the atrocious policy which had
become its ruling spirit—the heroic Makrena Mirazylawski, abbess of the
Basilian convent of Minsk, the capital of the province of that name. The
organized measures of coercion by which the Emperor endeavoured to compel
the Catholic population of Lithuania and Poland, and the other Catholic
subjects of the empire, into renunciation of their allegiance to the
Holy See, and conformity with the doctrine and discipline of the Russian
church, comprised all the members of the Catholic church in Russia
without exception, even the nuns of the various communities throughout
their provinces. Among these was a sisterhood of the Basilian order in
the city of Minsk, thirty-five in number. The bishop of the diocese and
the chaplain of the convent, having themselves conformed to the imperial
will, first endeavoured to bend the resolution of these sisters by
blandishment, but in the end sought by open violence to compel them into
submission. But the nobleminded sisters, with their abbess at their head,
firmly refused to yield; and, in the year 1839, the entire community
(with the exception of one who died from grief and terror) were driven
from their convent, and marched in chains to Witepsk, and afterwards
to Polosk, where, with two other communities equally firm in their
attachment to their creed, they were subjected, for nearly six years, to
a series of cruelties and indignities of which it is difficult to think
without horror, and which would revolt all credibility, were they not
attested by authorities far from partial to the monastic institute.[542]
Chained hand and foot; flogged; beaten with the fist and with clubs;
thrown to the earth and trampled under foot; compelled to break stones
and to labour at quarries and earthworks; dragged in sacks after a
boat through a lake in the depth of winter; supplied only with the
most loathsome food and in most insufficient quantity; lodged in cells
creeping with maggots and with vermin; fed for a time exclusively on salt
herrings, without a drop of water; tried, in a word, by every conceivable
device of cruelty;—the perseverance of these heroic women is a living
miracle of martyr-like fidelity. Nine of the number died from the effects
of the excessive and repeated floggings to which, week after week, they
were subjected, three fell dead in the course of their cruel tasks; two
were trampled to death by their drunken guards; three were drowned in
these brutal _noyades_; nine were killed by the falling of a wall, and
five were crushed in an excavation, while engaged in the works already
referred to; eight became blind; two lost their reason; several others
were maimed and crippled in various ways; so that, in the year 1845,
out of the three united communities (which at the first had numbered
fifty-eight) only four, of whom Makrena was the chief, retained the use
of their limbs! These heroines of faith and endurance contrived at last
to effect their escape from Polosk, from which place it had been resolved
to transport them to Siberia; and, through a thousand difficulties and
dangers, Makrena Mirazylawski made her adventurous way to Rome.
The sufferings and the wrongs of this interesting stranger found a ready
sympathy in Cardinal Mezzofanti’s generous heart. He listened to her
narrative with deep indignation, and took the liveliest interest in all
the arrangements for her safe and fitting reception and that of her
companions.
I was naturally anxious to hear what, on the other hand, were the
abbess’s impressions of the cardinal. In reply to the inquiries of my
friend, Rev. Dr. Morris, she “spoke of him in the very highest terms.”
“He was,” she said, “a living saint,” and she described both his charity
and his spirituality as very remarkable. When Father Ryllo (the Jesuit
Rector of the Propaganda before F. Bresciani) left Rome for the African
Mission, Cardinal Mezzofanti became Mother Makrena’s director, and
continued to be so for two years. “He spoke Polish,” she declares,
“like a native of Poland, and wrote it with great correctness.” Having
ascertained that the abbess had had a considerable packet of papers
written by him in Polish, generally on those occasions when he could not
come to her as usual, on various spiritual subjects, I was most anxious
to obtain copies of them; but I was deeply mortified to learn that they
were all unfortunately lost in the Revolution, when she was driven out
of her little convent near Santa Maria Maggiore. This humble community
was afterwards increased by the arrival of other fugitives from different
parts of the Russian Empire; nor did the cardinal cease till the very
last days of his life his anxious care of all their spiritual and
temporal interests.
Another religious institution to which he devoted a good deal of his
time was the House of Catechumens, of which, as has already been stated,
he was Cardinal Protector. When M. Manavit was in Rome the inmates of
this establishment, then in preparation for baptism, were between thirty
and forty, several of whom were Moors or natives of Algeria; and there
are few who will not cordially agree with him[543] in looking upon “the
modest Cardinal, catechism in hand, in the midst of this humble flock, as
a nobler picture, more truly worthy of admiration, than delivering his
most learned dissertation on the Vedas to the most brilliant company that
ever assembled in the halls of the Propaganda.”
In this, and in more than one other charitable institution of Rome, the
Cardinal took especial delight in assisting at the First Communion of the
young inmates; and, from the simple fervour of his manner and the genuine
truthfulness of his piety, he was most happy and effective in the little
half hortatory, half ejaculatory discourses, called _Fervorini_, which in
Rome ordinarily, on occasions of a First Communion, precede the actual
administration of the sacrament.
M. Manavit adds that, even after Mezzofanti became cardinal, his old
character of _Confessario dei Forestieri_ (“Foreigners’ Confessor”) was
by no means a sinecure. To many of the Polish exiles, clergy and laity,
who visited or settled in Rome, he acted as director, especially after
Father Ryllo’s departure to Africa. He was equally accessible to low and
high degree. M. Mouravieff[544] (the Russian traveller already cited)
mentions an instance in which, having heard of a poor servant maid,
a young Russian girl, who desired to be received into the Church, he
paid her repeated visits, instructed her in the catechism, and himself
completed in person every part of her preparation for the sacraments.
* * * * *
The death of Pope Gregory XVI., (June 1st, 1846) which, although in a
ripe old age, was at the time entirely unexpected, was a great affliction
to Mezzofanti, whose affectionate relations with him were maintained to
the very last. The Cardinal was, of course, a member of the conclave
in which (June 16th) Pius IX. was elected. The speedy and unanimous
agreement of the Cardinals in this election—one of the few which seemed
to convert the traditional form of “election by inspiration,” into a
reality—was commemorated impromptu by him in the following graceful
epigram:—
Gregorius cœlo invectus sic protinus orat:
“Heu cito Pastorem da, bone Christe, gregi!”
Audit; et immissus pervadit pectora Patrum,
Spiritus: et Nonus prodiitecce Pius![545]
During the pontificate of Gregory XVI., Cardinal Mezzofanti never held
any office of state; nor did the change of sovereign make any change
in his rank or his occupations. He was, of course, continued by the
new government in all his appointments; and the new Pope, Pius IX.,
regarded him with the same friendship and favour which he had enjoyed
at the hands of his predecessor. In the social and political changes
which ensued, Mezzofanti, from his non-political character, had no part.
No one sympathized more cordially with the beneficent intentions of
his Sovereign; but, completely shut out as he was by his position from
political affairs, he pursued his quiet career, with all its wonted
regularity, through the very hottest excitement of the eventful years of
1847 and 1848.
Many visitors who conversed with him in these, the last years of his
life, have repeated to me the accounts which have already become familiar
from the reports of those who knew him in earlier years. The fulfilment
of his public duties as Cardinal;—the care of the institutions over which
an especial charge had been assigned him;—the confessional, whenever his
services were sought by a foreigner;—above all, his beloved pupils in the
Propaganda—these formed for him the business of life.
“Almost every evening, when I was in the College of the
Propaganda,” says F. Bresciani, “he would come to exercise
himself with these dear pupils, who are collected there from
all nations of the world, to be educated in sacred and profane
literature and in the apostolic spirit. Then, as he conversed
with me in the halls of the Propaganda when the pupils were
returning from their evening walks, he would go to meet them
as he saw them coming up the steps, and, as they passed him,
would say something to them in their own languages; speaking
to one, Chinese; to another, Armenian; to a third, Greek; to a
fourth, Bulgarian. This one he would accost in Arabic, that, in
Ethiopic, Geez, or Abyssinian; now he would speak in Russian,
then in Albanian, in Persian, in Peguan, in Coptic, in English,
in Lithuanian, in German, in Danish, in Georgian, in Kurdish,
in Norwegian, in Swedish. Nor was there ever any risk that he
should get entangled, or that a word of another language or a
wrong pronunciation should escape him.”[546]...
“Every year, from the time of his coming to Rome, even after
he had been made Cardinal, he used to assist the students in
composing their several national odes for the Polyglot Academy
of the Propaganda, which is held during the octave of the
Epiphany, and in which the astonished foreigners who witness
it behold a living emblem of the unity of the Catholic Church,
which alone is able, through the Holy Spirit that vivifieth
her, to show forth in one fraternity the union of all tongues,
in praising and blessing the Lord who created us and redeemed
us by the blood of Jesus Christ. Now the Cardinal, in these
fifty tongues and upwards, in which the pupils composed, would
make all the necessary corrections whether of thought, metre,
or phrase, with all, and perhaps more than all, the facility
and exactness of others in writing poetry in their native
tongue. After he had corrected the compositions, he would
take his beloved pupils, one by one, and instruct them in the
proper mode of reciting and pronouncing each. And, as some of
them occasionally had entered college when very little boys,
and had forgotten some of the tones or cadence of their native
languages, he would come to their aid by suggesting these,
testing and correcting them with the utmost gentleness and
patience.”[547]
It would be out of place here to enter into any detail of the startling
and violent changes by which these tranquil occupations were rudely
interrupted. The Cardinal had watched with deep anxiety the gradually
increasing demands with which each successive generous and confiding
measure of the administration of Pius IX. had been met; but even his
sagacious mind, schooled as it had already been in the vicissitudes of
former revolutions, was not prepared for the succession of terrible
events which crowded themselves into the last few weeks of the “year
of revolution”—the furious demands of the clubs—the expulsion of the
Jesuits—the assassination of De Rossi—the obtrusion of a republican
ministry—the flight of the Pope—the proclamation of the Republic. Amid
all the terrors of the time, he had but one thought—gratitude for the
safety of the Pope. He was urged by his friends to imitate the example
of the main body of the Cardinals, and to follow his Sovereign to Gaeta
or Naples; but he refused to leave Rome, and continued through all the
scenes of violence which followed the flight of Pius IX., to live,
without any attempt at concealment, at his old quarters in the Palazzo
Valentiniani.
Nevertheless, although, personally, Cardinal Mezzofanti suffered no
molestation, the alarm and anxiety inseparable from such a time, could
not fail to tell upon a constitution, at no time robust, and of late
years much enfeebled. From the beginning of the year 1849, his strength
began sensibly to diminish. It was characteristic of the man that even
all the terrors of the period could not make him forget his favourite
festival of the Epiphany; and that, among the numberless more deplorable
changes which surrounded him, he still had a regret for the absence of
the accustomed Polyglot Academy of the Propaganda. Before the middle of
January he became so weak, that it was with the utmost difficulty he was
able to say mass in his private chapel. While he was in this state of
extreme debility, he was seized with an alarming attack of pleurisy; and
although the acute symptoms were so far relieved at the end of January,
that his family entertained sanguine hopes of his recovery, this illness
was followed, in the early part of February, by an attack of gastric
fever, by which the slender remains of his strength were speedily
exhausted.
The venerable sufferer at once became sensible of his condition. From the
very first intimation of his danger, he had commenced his preparation
for death, with all the calm and simple piety which had characterised
his life. In accordance with one of our beautiful Catholic customs—at
once most holy in themselves, and an admirable help even to the sublimest
piety—he at once entered upon a _Novena_, or nine days’ devotion, to St.
Joseph; who, as, according to an old tradition, his own eyes were closed
in death by the blessed hands of his divine Saviour, has been adopted
by Catholic usage as the Patron of the Dying, and who was besides the
name-saint and especial Patron of the Cardinal himself. In these pious
exercises he was accompanied by his chaplain, by his nephews, Gaetano and
Pietro, and above all, by his niece, Anna, who was most tenderly attached
to him, and was inconsolable at the prospect of his death. He himself
fixed the time for receiving the Holy Viaticum and the Extreme Unction.
They were administered by Padre Ligi, parish priest of the Church of SS.
Apostoli, assisted by the Cardinal’s chaplain, and by his confessor,
Padre Proja, now Sacristan of St. Peter’s. The chaplain and the members
of his family frequently assembled at his bed-side, to accompany and
assist him in his dying devotions; and the intervals between these common
prayers, in which all alike took part, were filled up with pious readings
by Anna Minarelli, and with short prayers of the holy Cardinal himself.
“Dio mio! abbiate pietà di me!” “My God, have mercy on me!”—was his ever
recurring ejaculation, mingled occasionally with prayers for the exiled
Pontiff, for the welfare of his widowed Church, and for the peace of his
distracted country. “_Abbiate pietà della Chiesa! Preghiamo per lei!_”
By degrees he became too feeble to maintain his attention through a
long prayer; but even still, with that deeply reverent spirit which had
always distinguished him, he would not suffer the prayer to be abruptly
terminated. “_Terminiamo con un Gloria Patri_,” “Let us finish with a
Gloria Patri:”—he would say, when he found himself unable longer to
attend to the Litany of the Dying, or the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin.
But in a short time he would again summon them to resume their devotion.
Early in March it became evident that his end was fast approaching. He
still retained strength by energy enough to commence a second Novena
to his holy Patron St. Joseph—a pious exercise, which, in the simple
words of his biographer, “he was destined to bring to an end in heaven.”
During the last three days of life, his articulation, at times, was
barely distinguishable; but even when his words were inaudible, his
attendants could not mistake the unvarying fervour of his look, and the
reverent movements of the lips and eyes, which betokened his unceasing
prayer. From the morning of the 15th of March, the decline of strength
became visibly more rapid; and, on the night of that day, he calmly
expired.[548] His last distinguishable words, a happy augury of his
blessed end—were: “_Andiamo, andiamo, presto in Paradiso._” “_I am
going—I am going—soon to Paradise!_”
The absence of the Roman Court, as well as the other unhappy
circumstances of the times, precluded the possibility of performing his
obsequies with the accustomed ceremonial. An offer of the honours of
a public funeral, with deputations from the university, and an escort
of the National Guard, was made by M. Gherardi, the Minister of Public
Instruction in the new-born Republic. But these, and all other honours
of the anti-Papal Republic, were declined by his family;—not only from
the unseemliness of such a ceremonial at such a time, but still more as
inconsistent with the loyalty, and the personal feelings, principles, and
character, of the illustrious deceased.
Without a trace, therefore, of the wonted solemnities of a cardinalitial
funeral—the _cappella ardente_; the lofty catafalque; the solemn lying in
state; the grand _Missa de Requiem_;—the remains of the great linguist
were, on the evening of the 17th of March, conducted unostentatiously,
with no escort but that of his own family and of the members of his
modest household, bearing torches in their hands, to their last
resting-place in Sant’ Onofrio, on the Janiculum—the church of his
Cardinalitial title.
There, within the same walls which, as we saw, enclose the ashes of
Torquato Tasso, the tomb of Cardinal Mezzofanti may be recognised by
the following unpretending inscription, from the pen of his friend Mgr.
Laureani:—
HEIC. IN. SEDE. HONORIS. SUI.
SITUS. EST.
JOSEPHUS. MEZZOFANTI. S. R. E. CARD.
INNOCENTIA. MORUM. ET. PIETATE. MEMORANDUS.
ITEMQUE. OMNIUM. DOCTRINARUM.
AC. VETERUM. NOVORUMQUE. IDIOMATUM.
SCIENTIA.
PLANE. SINGULARIS. ET. FAMA. CULTIORI. ORBI.
NOTISSIMUS.
BONONIAE. NATUS. ANNO. MDCCLXXIV.
ROMAE. DECESSIT. AN. MDCCCXLVIIII.