For myself, I cannot envy the moral and intellectual utilitarianism, which pauses to measure by so paltry a standard a great psychological phenomenon, such as Nature, in the most prodigal exercise of her powers, has never before given to man to see. As well might we shut our eyes to the glory of those splendid meteors which at intervals illumine the sky, because we are unable to see what cold and sordid purpose of human utility they may be made to subserve.
I prefer to look to him with grateful and affectionate admiration, as a great example of the successful cultivation of one of the noblest of God’s gifts to His creatures;—as the man who has approached nearest to the withdrawal of that barrier to intercommunion of speech which, in punishment of human pride, was set up at Babel; and of whom, more literally than of any other son of Adam, it may be said, that he could
Hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind.
APPENDIX.
[Allusion is made, more than once, in this volume, to Cardinal Mezzofanti’s habit of amusing himself and his friends by writing short metrical pieces in various languages, and of composing or correcting the odes recited by the pupils at the annual Polyglot Academy of the Propaganda. In the absence of other data for judging of his skill as a linguist, these fragments, trifling though they be, are of considerable interest; and I had hopes of being able to form a little collection of them, as a contribution to the enquiry regarding him. Unfortunately my search for these remains, trivial and fugitive as most of them must have been, has been very unsuccessful. I am only able to add a few to those which appear in the sheet of fac-similes, or which have been already incidentally introduced in the course of the narrative.
The short pieces recited at the Propaganda Academy, being the property of the pupils themselves, are not preserved in the college archives. I have only succeeded in obtaining four of these pieces:—two from Rome, a Greek Anacreontic Ode, and a couple of stanzas in the Grisons dialect; and two in Angolese from the Rev. Charles Fernando, Missionary Apostolic in Ceylon.