[109] Feller’s Dict. Biograph., vol. X. p. 476.
[110] Perhaps I ought to mention Renaudot’s contemporary, the Jesuit, Father Claude Francis Menestrier, (1631-1704), who although not a great linguist, is at least notable for the rather rare accomplishment of speaking Greek with remarkable propriety and fluency, and still more for his prodigious memory, which Queen Christina of Sweden tried by a very singular ordeal. She had a string of three hundred words, the oddest and most unconnected that could be devised, written down without the least order or connexion, and read over once in Menestrier’s presence. He repeated them in their exact order, without a single mistake or hesitation!—Biographie Univ., Vol. XXVIII., p. 293.
A still more extraordinary example of this power of memory is related by Padre Menocchio (the well-known Biblical commentator, Menochius) of a young Corsican whom Muret met at Padua, and who was not only able to repeat in their regular order a jumble of words similar to that described above, but could repeat them backwards, and with various other modifications! The youth assured Muret that he could retain in this way 36,000 words, and that he would undertake to keep them in memory for an entire year! See Menocchio’s Stuore, Part III., p. 89. The Stuore is a miscellaneous collection, compiled by this learned Jesuit during his hours of recreation. He called the work by this quaint title (Ang. “Mats”) in allusion to the habit of the ancient monks, who used to employ their leisure hours in weaving mats, in the literal sense of the word. This fanciful title is not unlike that chosen by Clement of Alexandria for a somewhat similar miscellany, his Στρώματα [Tapestry], or perhaps the more literal one “Patchwork,” assumed by a popular writer of our own time.
[111] Many of the French missionaries in China, of course, were distinguished Chinese scholars. The Dictionary of Pere Amiot, for example, although not published till after his death, is still a standard work. It was edited by Langlés in 1789-90.
[112] For instance his Memoire dans le quel on prouve que les Chinois sont une Colonie Egyptienne; a notion which was warmly controverted by his fellow pupil, Deshauterayes. De Guignes argues from the supposed resemblance of the Chinese and Phœnician characters. His great Chinese Dictionary, with Klaproth’s supplement, (2 vols. fol., Paris, 1813-19) is in Mezzofanti’s Catalogue, p. 6.
[113] Although of French parents, Ruffin was born in 1742 at Salonica, where his father was living in the capacity of chief interpreter of France. Feller, vol XI., p. 163.
[114] Biogr. Univ. XIX., 172 (Brussels ed.)
[115] Biogr. Univ., vol. LXX., p. 189-200.
[116] Auguste Herbin, a few years Remusat’s senior (having been born at Paris 1783), was cut off in the very commencement of a most promising career as an Orientalist. He died in 1806, before he had completed his twenty-fourth year.
[117] M. Eugene Borè has been in Armenia what the two D’Abbadies have been in Abyssinia—at once a scholar and a missionary—the pioneer of religion and civilization, no less than of science.