Ma oime’! ch’ io son qual eco,
Che molti suoni asconde,
E languida da lungi al fin responde.
[503] The title is “All’ Ementissimo Signor Cardinale Giuseppe Mezzofanti, Bolognese, elevato all’ Onore della Porpora Romana, Applausi dei Filopieri, 8vo., Bologna, 1838.” A similar tribute from the pen of Doctor Veggetti, who had succeeded Mezzofanti as Librarian, appeared a short time before, entitled “Tributo di Lode a Giuseppe Mezzofanti, Bolognese, creato Cardinale il Giorno 12 Febbraro, 1838.” Bologna, 1838.
[504] Stolz, Biografia, p. 7.
[505] A bon-mot on occasion of Monsignor Mezzofanti’s elevation, which I heard from Cardinal Wiseman, and which is ascribed to the good old Cardinal Rivarola, is worth recording, although the point is not fully appreciable, except in Italian.
Mezzofanti, from his childhood, had worn ear-rings, as a preventive, according to the popular notion, against an affection of the eyes, to which he had been subject. Some one observed that it was strange to see a “Cardinal wearing ear-rings,” (chi porta orecchini.)
“Not at all,” rejoined Cardinal Rivarola, “Ci han da essere tanti uomini in dignità che portano orecchine (”long ears“—”asses ears,“) e perchè non ci ha da essere uno almeno chi porti orecchini? (ear-rings.) There are many dignitaries who have orecchine, (asses-ears), and why should not there be at least one with orecchini—ear-rings?”
[506] Perhaps it is not generally known that the brothers Antoine and Arnauld d’Abbadie, although French by name, fortune, and education, are not only children of an Irish mother, but were born, and spent the first years of childhood, in Dublin. M. Antoine d’Abbadie lived in Dublin till his eighth year. See his letter to the Athenæum, (Cairo, Nov. 15, 1848,) vol. for 1849, p. 93.
[507] The Journal Asiatique, passim; the Athenæum, 1839, 1845, 1849: the Geographical Society of France, and of England, &c.