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.

CHAPTER XVII.
(RECAPITULATION.)

We have now before us, in the narrative of Cardinal Mezzofanti’s life, such materials for an estimate of his attainments as a linguist and a scholar, as a most diligent and impartial inquiry has enabled me to bring together. I can truly say that in no single instance have I suffered my own personal admiration of his extraordinary gifts to shape or to influence that inquiry. I have not looked to secure a verdict by culling the evidence. A great name is but tarnished by unmerited praise—non eget mendacio nostro. I have felt that I should consult best for the fame of Mezzofanti, by exhibiting it in its simple truth; and I have sought information regarding him, fearlessly and honestly, in every field in which I saw a prospect of obtaining it,—from persons of every class, country, and creed—from friendly, from indifferent, and even from hostile quarters;—from all, in a word, without exception, whom I knew or thought likely to possess the means of contributing to the solution of the interesting problem in the annals of the human mind, which is involved in his history. It only remains to sum up the results. Nor is it easy to approach this duty with a perfectly unbiassed mind. If, on the one hand, there is a temptation to heighten the marvels of the history, viewed through what Carlyle calls “the magnifying camera oscura of tradition,” on the other, there is the opposite danger of unduly yielding to incredulity, and discarding its genuine facts on the sole ground of their marvellousness. I shall endeavour to hold a middle course. I shall not accept any of the wonders related of Mezzofanti, unless they seem attested by undisputable authority: but neither shall I, in a case so clearly abnormal as his, and one in which all ordinary laws are so completely at fault, reject well-attested facts, because they may seem irreconcilable with every-day experience. Our judgments of unwonted mental phenomena can hardly be too diffident, or too circumspect. The marvels of the faculty of memory which we all have read of; the prodigies of analysis which many of us have witnessed in the mental arithmeticians who occasionally present themselves for exhibition; the very vagaries of the senses themselves, which occasionally follow certain abnormal conditions of the organs—are almost as wide a departure from what we are accustomed to in these departments, as is the greatest marvel related of Mezzofanti in the faculty of language. Perhaps there could not be a more significant rebuke of this universal scepticism, than the fact that the very event which Juvenal, in his celebrated sneer at the tale of

Velificatus Athos, et quidquid Græcia mendax