The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-07-23

10 ten LHUuSdIlu ZINES, anu III LOOK ABOUT
a week to hear them. Zone boy In nv
year, he says, repeated the enormous
quantity of fourteen thousand lines of
Homer, Horace and Virgil. / heard
him say ita
Ease in learning foreign languages
is sometimes regarded as mere mat
ter OF memory; while. however, this is
not exactly true; it must be allowed, of
course; that skilled linguists are EN-
dowed with powers Of memory beyond
the average. Here also we find that
there are no examples in ancient times
that will stand comparison with
our great modern inguists. OUT
modern facilities for travel and Study
| place us at an immense advantage.
Crassus, when pr8tor in Asia, was so
familiar with the dialects of Greek,
that he was able to try cases and pro-
nounce judgment In any dialect that
might chance I'd be spoken in his pres
ence. ...Mithridates; king Of twenty
two nations; administered their laws
III as many languages, and could
array Of soldiers in its own language
or dialect
| But what are such inguists as these
by the side Of the best examples of re-
cent times? Keeping within the limits
of the last hundred years, we have ex-
amples that have never been surpassed
or even approached in former times.
Sir William Jones knew thirteen lam
guages well, and could read with COM
parative ease in thirty others. John
Leyden, very inferior man to his
great contemporary, had a good &C
quaintance with fifteen of the leading
European and Asiatic languages.
/ Within the last few years we have lost
| two men who could have travelled from
| the hills of Connemara or the mount
| aims of Wales to the Ural mountains,
or from Lisbon or Algiers to Ispahan or
Delhi, and hardly met with a language
in which they could not converse or
write with ease. The reader will most
likely have anticipated the names of
two OF the most remarkable linguists
this country has produced George
| Borrow and Edward Henry Palmer.
| When Borrow was at St. Petersburg,
he published little book called Tar
gum, in which he gave TRANSACTIONS in
prose and poetry from thirty different
languages. Besides speaking the
native tongue of every European nation,
Palmer was so perfect master of Ara
bic, Persian, Hindustani, Turkish and
the language of the gypsies, that even
natives were sometimes deceived as to
his nationality. Mr.. Leland says that
one day in Paris Palmer entered into
conversation with Zouave or Turco,
native Arab. After while the man
said: why do you wear these clothes?'
| why, how should dressp' exclaimed
Palmer. Dress like what you arer
was the indignant reply-'like Mus
| lim!'
Viscount Strangford may be placed
| in the same category with these; and
| the Learned blacksmith" Elihu Bur-
rift, whose friends claim for him that
he knew all the languages of Europe
and most of those of Asia, must not be
left out of sight. But even these do
not touch the highest limit of linguistic
skill and power of memory. The most
scientific linguist we have to name,
and one of the most remarkable for the
extent of his acquisition, is Won der
| Gabelentz, who seems to have been
equally at home with the Suahilis, the
| Samoyeds, the Hazaras, the Aimaks,
| the Dyaks, the Dakotas and the Kiriris;
who could translate from Chinese into
Manchu, compile a grammar or correct
the speech OF the inhabitants of the Fiji
Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands
or New Caledonia. When we come to
Cardinal Mezzofanti and Sir John Bow
ring we find the ''highest record as
regards the mere number and variety of
tongues that men have been known to
acquire. No one can speak with alb
solute certainty as to the number of
languages Mezzofanti could converse
in with ease. Mrs. Somerville says that
he protested only fifty-two.
| This brief review of the subject nee
essarily leaves out of account vast
number of the most extraordinary and
interesting examples. Artists like
Horace Vernet; mathematicians and
calculators like DR.. Wallis and Leon
ard Euler, or G. P. Bidder and young
Colburn; musicians like Mozart; news
paper reporters like the unequalled
| Memory Woodfall;" literary men like
Lord Macaulay and T. H. Buckle;
chess-players like Paul Morphy and J.
H, Blackbourne, have accomplished
feats of memory as marvellous as any
of those which have been mentioned. =
| Chambers Journal