The Express.
London, England, 1858-05-13 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti, witA an Intro-
ductory Memoir of Eminent Linguists, Ancient
and Modern. By C. W. RUSSELL, D.D. Presi-
dent of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. London
Longman'.
Dr. Johnson characteristically remarks, " The
Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of
English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat,
an author, whose pregnancy of imagination and ele-
gance of language have deservedly set him high in
the ranks of -literature, but his zeal of friendship
or ambition of eloquence hie produced a funeral ora-
tion rather than a history ; he has given the cha-
racter, not the life, of Cowley, for he writes with so
little detail that scarcely anything is distinctly
named, but all is shown confused and enlarged
through the mist of panegyric." This same passage
may not exactly apply to Dr. Hamill, but un-
doubtedly a great part of it does. We confess we
rise from a perusal of this volume with very little
additional knowledge. We knew Mezzofantl was a
distinguished linguist before we opened Dr. Rea-
sell's work ; we know so now that we have laid it
down. We knew that by many the extent mad
value of his erudition was questioned, and Dr. Rus-
sell has not very conclusively disposed of that
opinion. We knew that the Cardinal to a certain
extent wee humble and holy—for a great student '
can never be very proud ; and a man whom emes
glee were devoted to mastering every language ander
heaven could have little time for gaiety and died-
patios—very fiery natures seldom tone down to the
mere knowledge of words. Such men cannot sit still
in the closet listening to the battle from afar. They
are like wild birds, who, when caged, dash elm-
selves to pieces against their prison bare. Them who
become good monks, and whose memories are held
dear in cloisters, are made of different stuff. Most
ecclesiastics have a kind of negative goodness, which
writers on Church history, whether Protestant or Ro-
man catholic, have too great a tendency to admire as
amain the highest virtue to which humanity can
attain. It is not &natural virtue. To acquire it you man
have a pliant discretion, and the vigorous training of
a life. Against it the indomitable will of all great
natured instinctively revolts. Such men make better
teachers than learners. Mezzofanti was not one of
such. We are not enamoured of him. We wonder
at his memory, that is all ; his faculty for acquiring
languages was prodigious, and we believe unparal-
leled, but it led to no results. For ethnology he did
nothing-7-for education he did nothing. As he him-
self said in jest, he was a walking dictionary badly
bound, and nothing more. Dr. Russell thinks be
has painted a character above all Greek and Roman
fame, when he has enumerated the number of lan-
guages the Cardinal acquired, when he has told us
how strangers came to see him as a prodigy, how
kind he was to his family, and what an interest he
took when Cardinal in the students of the Propa-
ganda, to which, with that wisdom which gene-
rally distinguishes the Roman catholic organisa-
tion, he was attached. To love and esteem the
man, we would fain learn something more of
him than Dr. Rairiell cares to communicate. He
wee no orator, no genius, no philosopher, but, save
Dr. Russell, he knew 114 languages, and his life
squared with eeelsostical proprieties. Mezzofanti
was a yewmg =a he stirring times, when through-
out Europe the spirit of freedom breathed on the
dry blew and they began to live. Did he ant the
pMelet's part, or did he plod on with his lexicons
sad grammara—and did his own beautiful Italy

110
crusied and bleeding, and shake, appeal to luta
in vain? When will men learn that bad citizens can-
not be good men—that our noblest virtues are public
ones--that there is no allegiance paramount to that
which each man owes to his native land?

In the facta of Meopotanti's life there is nothing
wonasetal. He Werilinrel of poor parentage at
Bologna, the 17th of September, 1774. His edu-
cation was carefully attended to from the first. At
an early age he wee distinguished for his skill in
the study of languages, and became a priest in the
Roman Catholic church. On the completion of his
twenty-third year he vi as made professor of Arabic
in the Universay of Bologna, but of this he was soon
deprived in consequence of his refusal to take the
oath to the Cisalpinc Republic. For some time he
appears to have lived cheaply and worked hard, and
this part of his career may be held up to admiration,
even if it be true, as one authority hints, that
Msszobusti attributed his skill as a linguist to the
special assistance of the Deity rather than to his pos-
session of great industry, capacity, and organs of
speech of great and rare flexibility. What will our
University does say when we tell them that at this
period of life Mezzofanti, though in possesiiion of
two ecclesiastical benefices, had but a ealary of 81. a
year on which to rapport himself and his relatives?
Indeed at this period be laid the foundation of his
subsequent greatness. Undoubtedly there opuses a
time to all men—the choice which came to Hercules
—when the man has to choose between Oud and
Mammon—then on his decision it rests whether he
shall lire, and plant his feet among the stars, or
whether he shall subside into an ignoble sham.
According to the light that was in him, Mee-
zofanti acted for the best. The Austrian
army of occupation, consisting of recruits
drawn from all parts of that vast empire, was at
Bologna, and the opportunity was one of which
Mezzofanti was not slow to avail himself. Not a
stranger cams to the town but Mezzofanti sought
the opportunity to learn from him some language of
which he was Ignorant, or the right pronunciation of
each languages as he chanced to know, and his pro-
tress was wonderful. His knowledge, for instance,
of English was so great that he beat Lord Byron at
slang. We need not add that Mezzotint{ lived
abstemiously. We are not surprised to learn that he
had great powers of endurance, and studied in the
coldest weather without a fire; but that be had only
three hours' sleep does excite our astonishment,
though it helps to explain how he came to be such a
prodigy of learning. Dr. Russell thus delineates

DINZIOTANTI •S • tmortsr,

Looking beck .;;; bferzofantfe
life, we caa trace a tolerably regale, progress to the number
of languages ascribed to him through its several Megan In
1806, socording to Father " he was oominan/y re-
ported to be master of mare than twenty-four
Gionlaars mama of him In 1812, memo, althea hit doss
not specify sag somber, ne Whole a greater total than thin.
Stewart Rosa, la 1817, spas of him as " reeding twenty
lenewspe, tai metameling Ice eighties." 8111011 von Zack,
in 1820, hip Or maker of the languages spoken by him
up to Alt ti lady Margin states, that by the public
report of hews mated to be master of forty. He
hissed. la ro
galled to M Musinghi that be knew forty-
Ave ; sad bedew Ufa, hg and to ray that he anew arty
and Bobegaem." Is reply to the reqoast of N. Mnuravi4
• little War, that %emu! give hint • lilt of the langmegai
that ha knew, la seat Ithe • sheet containing the nune of
God In fifty-sig bagames. In the year 1846 he told rather
Breedani ILat he knew eaventy-eight langnsgee and dialects,
sal a list commealeeded to me by his nephew. Dr. Gaetano
marolli, by wham lit has been compiled after • diligent
examination of his deemed siacto's books and papers, reaches
the astounding total of one hundred and fourteen.
In 1837 Mezzofanti moved to Rome, he was raised
to the dignity of the Cardinals* and there he died
in 1848, trembling at the rising of the nations around
—a rising so soon, elan! to be quenched in blood. Dr.
Russell's volume, in spite of an attempt to make it
an essay rather than a biography, in consequence, it
may be, of the form in which it originally appeared
—u an article in the _Edinburgh .Revisto—ham the
following