The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-05 00:00:00

THE QUARTERLIES.

The Edinburgh Review. No. CCV.

Conspicuous among the nine articles in the cur-
rent number of the Edinburgh Review, just pub-
lished, is the paper relating to the extraordinary
and altogether unparalleled genius of the late Car-
dinal Mezzofanti. The contribution is one evi-
dently from the hand of an accomplished critic, if
it nowhere betrays on the part of the writer any
very considerable erudition as a philologist. The
subject of disquisition selected by the reviewer is
precisely of a character the most eminently well
calculated to rouse the attention and excite the
curiosity of every intelligent mind interested in the
more curious and recondite fields of psychological
investigation. It is nothing less, in fact, than the
minute analysis, as far at least as such a matter can
well be analysed, of an intellectual capacity of such
surpassing magnitude, and of a nature so rare, if
not altogether unparalleled, as to be no other than
an absolute and admitted phenomenon. That phe-
nomenon, as already intimated, the genius and
career of the Cardinal Guiseppe Gaspardo Mezzo-
fanti—incomparably the most wonderful linguist
the world ever beheld, whether in recent times or
in the days of antiquity. According to the Edinburgh
Review, the only name of which we have any re-
cord whatsoever, worthy of being brought into
comparison with that of Mezzofanti, is the name
with which that of the latter has been so frequently
associated, the name of the ancient King of Pontus
—the many-tongued Mithridates. But whereas
Mithridatos could speak no less than " twenty-
two" languages, if we are to believe the assurance
of Pliny, and Solinus, and -Veering Maximus, or
as many as " twenty-five," if we are to give credit
to Aulus Genius, who avers that with a quarter of a
hundred tongues the royal linguist was "thoroughly
conversant" (percal/uit)—Mezzofanti could speak—
how many? Why, astonishing to relate, as many
as " fifty-eight," according to M. Manavit, or
actually no less than "seventy-eight," according
to the Ctivi/ta Cattolica. In the accuracy of
these statements, however, as to the number of
different languages perfectly well known to—road
and spoken by—Cardinal Mezzofanti,
disposed to the writer in
the Edinburgh is not by any means
place implicit credence, without first of all subject-
ing them, one by one, in regular succession, to a
most careful, searching, and, so to speak, oven
microscopic examination. Yet after sifting the
various pros aid cons relating to it, how astound-
ing are the scope and amplitude of the reputation
appertaining by right (according even to this most
sceptical of critics) to Cardinal Mezzofanti I How
linguallcaonpgacaitigoesbyofLord Byron.
H
Mezzofanti
whheh his wonder
which marvellouswere w e hh a
Tto
ebe
been
passage in the
nobleow many
poet,solf us e
tt
e rh atov e
a frieforgottend,ia t
is so wonder-fully expressed in regard to that mon-
stiteriraroefuslaonfgupaagrtess,
of
hsapteewoha,lkiof h
walking polyglot,
he says heg polyglot, that
" ought to hare existed at the time of the tower of
Babel as universal interpreter r Any one who
has lost an exact remembrance of the witty pane-
gyric referred to, will find it given complete at page
47 of the present number of the Edinburgh—and
in the same article passim a variety of kindred
quotations. One of these, taken from an elaborate
sketch of Mezzofanti penned in 1846 by Guido
GOrres, the son of the celebrated Catholic publicist
and Professor, we must gratify ourselves, and our
readers too we believe, by transcribing. It runs
as follows :

" The vastness of the range of languages which he had
mastered borders closely on the incredible ; and, what
appears hardly less marvellous, this anon:awls store has
not only not produced any Babel-like confusion in his
head, but, on the contrary, is completely at his com-
mand, se that, without the least effort, and without any
observable interval, he passes from one realm of lan-
guage to another as lightly as a bird hops from sprig to
sprig. He is familiar with all the European languages.
And by this we understand not merely the old classical
tongues and the first-class modern ones ; that is to say,
the Greek and Latin, the Italian, Preach, Spanish,
Portuguese, German, and English ; his knowledge em-
braces also the languages of the second class, viz., the
Dutch, the Danish and Swedish, the whole Scla,vonio
family, the Russian, Polish, Bohemian or Czechish, and
Servian, the Hungarian, and Turkish, and even those
of the third and fourth class, the Irish, Welsh, Albanian,
Wallachian, Bulgarian, and Illyrian are equally at his
command. Oa ray happening to mention that I had
once dabbled a little in Basque, he at once proposed that
we should set about it together. Even the Romani of
the Alps and the Lettish are -not unfamiliar to him ;
nay, he has made himself acquainted with Lappish,
the language of the wretched nomadic tribes of
Lapland, although he told me he did not know whether
it should be called Lappish or Lapbandish. Passing
along to Asia, it is true that he does not claim acquain-
tance with all the dialects of this vast region with its
desolate steppes, and its fallen, degenerate, and fast
decreasing population ; but nevertheless, even here,
there is hardly one ofj the more prominent languages,
especially those which fall within the circle of European
intercourse, that has escaped his group. Thus he is mas-
ter of all the languages that are classed under the Tudo-
German family.: then San:met and Persia*, the Moor-
dish, tke Armenian, the Georgian,---he is familiar with
all the numbers of the Semitic family, the Hebrew,
Arabic, Syriac, Samaritan, Chaldee, the Sabaio and even
the Chinese, which he not only reads, but speaks. As
regards Africa, and its Hamitic races, the re-
cent revival of intercourse with that country, and
especially with Egypt and Abyssinia, have facilitated
the extension of his acquaintance with its languages
He knows the Coptic, Ethiopic, Abyssinian, Amharic,
and Angolese. I cannot from my own knowledge say
whether he has acquired any of the native languages of
America, except the Californian ; but I have been told
that even. while he was in Bologna, he learned some of
these from an ex-Jesuit who bad sojourned as a mission-
ary on that continent."—(Histories Politischt Bleitter.
1842.)
Later on, the reviewer in the Edinburgh enume-
ivTerhsuitsy_, of languages actually
known
enume-
rates the various and, according to his impression,
conflicting statements of different travellers and
philologists,tom
easzztoofatnhteid.

" Stewart Rose says that Mezzofanti read twenty and
conversed in eighteen languages / 33aron Von Bach ex-
tends the number to thirty-two, living and dead !
Blume, though he considers the Baron's account exag-
gerated as to degree, makes no objection to it in point of
number ; Molbech says, ' the number extends to more
than thirty languages.' Fleck makes it `807114 thirty.'
Even of his own account of himself we hare different
serourutofimfbat3leriof languages in Isa,ntghnaatgMes,ezezmoifla,endtiatisitmhe-
ae reports
fg,gwehr
exaggeration,
ohsnhu, so ,
spoke
eg
though be
hoberi Morgan al): nao
rdstya:
oonne over the outline of
the contrary, says
that, with affected humility, he told her ' he spoke only
question addressed by him to Mezzofanti as
Paget, on
traveller states that, in
forty laziguages.,:ndAtihres.RPuasgs
which he could express
fathooniins:whyself, Mezzofanti sent him the name of God written
with his own hand in forty-sir languages! To com-
plete tbo ombarrassment, M. Manavit gives a detailed
list of forty-eight languages spoken by the Cardinal ;
while smother writer, the author of a sketch which ap-
peared in the
.Guilts Cattolica, (whom M. Manavit
quotes, and who states as his authority a conversation
with Mentofanti in 1846), makes
the number sso less
than seventy-eight I"

critic,stwaetenareep:tast:
to our thinking reNgaotrdssothdeofore-
going Ei:as jo ourselves.
b u
conflictingrTghh There
re
ig
i a progression
tni
utith.ev tvth number;.gi,
~a stated
aqnudi tee, compatible
than Mithridates—
aPtaiti.ble witlfour no-
twtlreotme ionrel,Btlh9an thirty-five, and
, and perpetual
powers of our modern
1\
,mi developmentietzhz roi
fl:teis: and
thedo eosf
tl
ourhine gual
more
revieweroprw
so entirely forget
when the wonder
othfaßtoSlotegwnaartwßasoseli
that thirty years and more had elapsed
before the
n and.o n
died the l7th of Septem-
statement afterwards given was put forth in the
pages of the " Civilta Cattolicae Guiseppe Mez-
bzoefra,nitni,lr7e7c4o,llaetßologna,
wasogn
bao,ras recently as on
the 15th of March,_ in 1849, at Rome. Upwards of
seventy-fire years altogether had elapsed during
the interval—years dedicated by the great linguist
to the perpetual increase and extension of his ex_
traordinary stores of philological. knowledge. Why
we learn from the Edinburgh, reviewer himself that
it was (p. 63) only towards the close of his pro-
tracted life that Mezzofanti mastered the Chinese
language, " probably," sap the critic, " the most
signal triumph of his career ' —and mastered it,
moreover, so completely as to be able to deliver in
that tongue a series of discourses, moral and con-
troversial, to the Chinese students collected to-
gether, at the time, under the roof of the Propa-
ganda. Moreover, in a previous page .p ,_
( 61) the
reviewer has also recorded on the high authority of
the Roman Catholic Bishop Baines, a prelate him-
self of extended learning, And of very varied ac-
complishments, that it was not until late in Mezzo-
fanti's career that, for a freak, one might almost
call it, in six weeks (without any knowledge of it
beforehand) his extraordinary intellect grasped and
mastered the Welsh language ! Howbeit, with all
his admitted admiration for the really unexampled
powers of the great Cardinal, the. Edinburgh re-
viewer seems at times to have resolved perversely
to discredit the vastness of those powers, merely
for the sake of appearing less of an enthusiast and
of a hero-worshipper. Incredulous upon many
points in re; and to Mezzofanti, the critic is never-
theless all-believing in regard to any other linguist
whomsoever. Ex. gr., he quite bows down his
judgment to the assertion of Du Bartas, to wit,
that Scaliger spoke thirteen languages, as thus
celebrated in ridiculous doggrel :
" - Scaligor, merveille de notre age,
Soleil des savants, qui parle elegamment
Hobreu, Grecoic, Romeo, Espagnol, Allemand,
Francois, Italien, Nubian, Arabique,
Syriaque, Persian, Anglois, Chaldaique."
Again, the Edinburgh reviewer has an implicit
credence in the capacity of the Admirable Crichton
—that paragon of fabulous scholarshi
.- P--to dispute
in any of the twelve languages (Hebrew, Syriac, Ara-
, bic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, English,