[328] This book is still in the Mezzofanti Library. It is entitled Anthologia Persiana: Seu selecta e diversis Persicis Auctoribus in Latinum translata, 4to. Vienna, 1778. See the “Catalogo della Libreria del Card. Mezzofanti,” p. 109.
[329] Bodoni was the printer of De Rossi’s “Epithalamium” of Prince Charles Emmanuel, in twenty-five languages, alluded to in page 33. I should say however, that some of his classics,—especially his “Virgilii Opera,” although beautiful specimens of typography, have but little critical reputation.
[330] “Grammatica Linguæ Mauro-Arabicæ, juxta vernaculi Idiomatis Usum.” 4to. Vienna, 1800. See the “Catalogo della Libreria Mezzofanti” p. 14.
[331] “Institutiones Linguæ Turcicæ, cum Rudimentis parallelis Linguarum Arabicæ et Persicæ.” 2 vols. 4to. Vienna, 1756. “Catalogo,” p. 36.
[332] An intended reprint of the edition of the Divan, which was published at Calcutta, 1791.
[333] Probably the “Lexicon Hebraicum Selectum;” or the “Dissertation on an edition of the Koran,” both of which were published at Parma, in 1805. See “Catalogo della Lib. Mezzofanti,” p. 17 and p. 40.
[334] It was on occasion of one of Volta’s demonstrations that Napoleon made the comparison which has since become celebrated. “Here, doctor,” said he, to his physician Corvisart, pointing to the Voltaic pile; “here is the image of life! The vertebral column is the pile: the liver is the negative, the bladder, the positive pole.” See Whewell’s Inductive Sciences, III. 87.
[335] For instance among the books which he asks the Count in this letter to send, are the works of “l’immortale Haüy”—the celebrated Abbé Haüy, who after Romè de l’Isle, is the founder of the science of Crystallography, and who at this time was at the height of his brilliant career of discovery. (Whewell’s “Inductive Sciences” III. 222.) Haüy’s works were intended for his friend Ranzani.
[336] He alludes to the Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana. Joseph Assemani’s nephew, Stephen Evodius, compiled a catalogue of the Oriental MSS. at Florence.
[337] The exact title is “Geschichte der Scherifen, oder der Könige des jetzt regierendes Hauses zu Marokko.” It was published, not at Vienna, as this letter supposes, but at Agram, in 1801.