[42] A melancholy instance of the capriciousness of this sort of reputation, and of the unhappiness by which, in common with many other gifts, it is often accompanied, is recorded in the Paris journals of the early part of this year. A man apparently about fifty years old, named Tinconi, a native of Constantinople, was found dead at his lodgings in the Rue des Vieux Augustins, having perished, as it afterwards appeared, of hunger. This ill-fated man was possessed of an ample fortune, and had held high diplomatic appointments; and, besides being well-versed in ancient and modern literature, he spoke not fewer than ten languages, and knew several others! Yet almost the only record of his varied accomplishments is that which also tells the story of his melancholy end!
[43] See his life by Pococke, prefixed to the translation of his work De Termino Vitæ. 1699.
[44] See Dr. Paul De Lagarde’s learned dissertation, “De Geoponicon Versione Syriacâ” (p. 3, Leipsig, 1855). This dissertation is an account of a hitherto unknown Syriac version of the “Scriptores Rei Rusticæ” which Dr. De Lagarde discovered among the Syriac MSS. of the British Museum. He has also transcribed from the same collection many similar remains of Syriac literature, partly sacred, partly profane, which he purposes to publish at intervals. Some of the former especially, as referring to the Ante-Nicene period, are, like those already published by Mr. Cureton, of great interest to students of Christian antiquity, although the same drawback—doubt as to their age and authorship—must affect the doctrinal value of them all.
[45] This laborious and prolific writer, whose works fill nearly 20 volumes, is said to have used the same pen for no less than forty years, and to have been thrown almost into despair upon its accidental destruction at the end of that period.
[46] Some of these visited the English universities. Of one among the number, named Metrophanes Critopulus, who was sent by Cyrillus Lucaris to be indoctrinated in Anglican Theology, and who lived at Oxford at the charge of archbishop Abbott, a very amusing account is given by the disappointed prelate in a letter quoted by Neale (History of Alexandria, II., 413-5.) He turned out “an unworthy fellow,” “far from ingenuity or any grateful respect,” a “rogue and beggar,” and in other ways disappointed the care bestowed on him.
[47] One specimen may suffice, which is furnished by Mr. Neale: “Collavi (I have collated) sua notata cum textu Bellarmini.” Neale, II., p. 402. The Easterns seldom seem at home in the languages of Europe; Italian, and still more French orthography, is their great puzzle. I have seen specimens of Oriental Italian which, for orthography, might rival “Jeames’s” English, or the French of Augustus the Strong.
[48] Panagiotes was a native of Scio, and was known in his later life under the sobriquet of “the Green Horse,” in allusion to a local proverb, that “it is easier to find a green horse than a wise man in Scio.” The appellation was the highest tribute that could be rendered to the prudence and ability of Panagiotes; but it is also a curious confirmation of the evil repute, as regards honesty, in which the islanders of the Egean were held from the earliest times. The reader will probably remember the satirical couplet of Phocylides about the honesty of the Lerians, which Porson applied, in a well-known English parody, to the Greek scholarship of Herrmann.
————Λέριοι κάκοι ὄυκ ὁ μὲν ὅστδ’ όυ
Πάντες πλήν Προκλέους και Πρόκλεης Λέριος.
[49] An elaborate account of them will be found in Neumann’s Versuch einer Geschichte der Armenischen Literatur. Leipzig, 1836. On the exceeding importance of the Armenian language for the general study of the entire Indo-Germanic family, see the extremely learned essay, Urgeschichte der Armenier, ein Philologischer Versuch. (Berlin, 1854.) It is published anonymously, but is believed to be from the pen of the distinguished Orientalist named in page 22.