[476] Letter of M. D’Abbadie, May 6, 1855.
[477] The Abate Matranga is often mentioned with high praise by Cardinal Mai in his prefaces. He is favourably known to Greek scholars besides by his Anecdota Græca, 2 vols. 8vo., Rome, 1850, consisting of the Allegoriæ Homericæ of Tzetzes, and many other remains of ancient scholiast commentators upon Homer, and of some unpublished Anacreontic poems of the Byzantine period.
[478] Moore (Diary, III. p. 183,) mentions him as “the Abate Meli, a Sicilian poet, of whom he had never heard before.” He is, nevertheless, a voluminous writer of pastorals, sonnets, ballads, and odes, sacred and profane. His largest poem, however, is an epic of twelve cantos on the History of Don Quixote, in ottava rima. After a little trouble it may be read without much difficulty by any one acquainted with the ordinary Italian, and is highly amusing. Meli’s works are collected into one vol. royal 8vo., Palermo, 1846.
[479] See account in Civiltà Cattolica (by F. Bresciani) vii., p. 569.
[480] See Adelung’s Mithridates, vol. iii, part iii, p. 186.
[481] Ibid, p. 187.
[482] Since the above was written, a case somewhat similar has been mentioned to me by the Rev Dr. Murray of Dublin, also a student of the Propaganda. A young Mulatto of the Dutch West Indian Island of Curaçoa, named Enrico Gomez, arrived about a fortnight before Epiphany, 1845. He spoke no language except the “Nigger Dutch,” of his native island. Mezzofanti took him into his hands, and before the day of Academy (the Sunday after Epiphany) he had not only established a mode of communication with him, but had learned his language, and even composed for him a short poetical piece, which Gomez recited at the Academy! A third case, of three Albanian youths, is mentioned in the Civiltà Cattolica, VII. p. 571.
[483] These youths are mentioned in “Shea’s Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes” (p. 387,) a work of exceeding interest and most carefully executed.
[484] Sketches in Canada, pp. 214-15.
[485] See his Memoire sur le Systeme Grammaticale, p. 97, also p. 306, and in the appendix passim.