This first essay of the young poet was followed in the next year by a further publication, containing the Electra, the Antigone, and the Trachiniæ; and, a few years later, his master had the gratification of witnessing the successful completion of his favourite pupil’s task, by the publication of the entire seven tragedies of Sophocles, in 1823-4.[366]
One effect of Mezzofanti’s appointment as librarian was to separate him somewhat from his sister and her family. He occupied thenceforward the apartments of the librarian in the Palace of the University. But he still continued towards them the same affectionate protection and support. Hitherto he had himself in part superintended or directed the education of his nephews, and especially of his namesake Joseph, a youth of much promise, whose diligence and success fully requited his uncle’s care. Joseph had made choice of the ecclesiastical profession; and, although falling far short of his uncle’s extraordinary gift, he became an excellent linguist, and was especially distinguished as a Greek and Latin scholar; so that his uncle had the satisfaction, when his own increasing occupations compelled him to diminish the number of his pupils, of finding the young Minarelli fully competent to undertake a portion of the charge.
His first public appearance at the Academy after he entered upon his new office, was for the purpose of reading, (July 11th, 1815,) a paper “On the Wallachian Language and its Analogies with Latin;”—a subject which has engaged the attention of philologers and historians from the days of Chalcocondylas, and which involves many interesting ethnological, as well as philological considerations.[367] As we shall find him, a few years later, astonishing a German visitor by his familiarity with this out-of-the-way language, it is worth while to note this essay, as an evidence that here, too, his knowledge was the result of careful study, and not of casual opportunity, or of sudden inspiration.
For a considerable time after he took charge of the Library, he seems to have been much occupied by his duties in connexion with it. The only letter which I have been able to obtain about this period, one addressed to Pezzana, March 5th, 1816, is entirely occupied with details regarding the library; and M. Manavit mentions that he not only obtained from the authorities a considerable addition to the funds appropriated to the purchase of books, but, moreover, devoted no trifling share of his own humble resources to the same purpose.[368] In the course of a few months, too, he was quite at ease in his new pursuit; and the familiarity with the contents of the library, and even of the position of particular books upon its shelves which he soon possessed, would, in a person of less prodigious memory, have been a subject of wonder. His nephew, Cavaliere Minarelli of Bologna, was present on one occasion when Professor Ranzani, while passing an evening in the librarian’s apartments, happened to require some rare volume from the library; and, though it was dark at the time, Mezzofanti left the room without a light, proceeded to the library, and in a few moments returned with the volume required.
In July, 1816, Mezzofanti read at the Academy an essay “on the Language of the Sette Communi at Vicenza,” which has been spoken of with much praise. This singular community—descended from those stragglers of the invading army of Cimbri and Teutones which crossed the Alps in the year of Rome, 640, who escaped amid the almost complete extermination of their companions under Marius, and took refuge in the neighbouring mountains—presents, (like the similar Roman colony on the Transylvanian border,) the strange phenomenon of a foreign race and language preserved unmixed in the midst of another people and another tongue for a space of nearly two thousand years. They occupy seven parishes in the vicinity of Vicenza,[369] whence their name is derived; and they still retain not only the tradition of their origin, but the substance, and even the leading forms of the Teutonic language; insomuch that Frederic IV., of Denmark, who visited them in the beginning of the last century, (1708,) discoursed with them in Danish, and found their idiom perfectly intelligible.[370]
This was a theme peculiarly suited to Mezzofanti’s powers. His essay excited considerable interest at the time, but unfortunately was never printed.
CHAPTER VI.
[1817-1820.]
Southey, in one of his pleasant gossiping letters to Bedford, tells that when M. de Sagrie was going to publish a French translation of Southey’s “Roderick,” his publisher, Le Bel, insisted upon having a life of the poet prefixed. M. de Sagrie objected; and at last, in order to get rid of the printer’s importunities, said that he knew nothing whatever of the life of Mr. Southey. “N’importe!” was the printer’s cool reply, “Ecrivez toujours, brodez! Brodez-la un peu; que ce soit vrai ou non, ce ne fait rien.”[371]
We have come to a part of Mezzofanti’s quiet and uniform life in which there are so few incidents to break the monotony of the uneventful narrative, that, at least in so far as its interest is concerned, his biographer is almost in the same condition with M. de Sagrie. The true purpose of this narrative, however—to exhibit the faculty rather than the man—seems to me to depend less on the accumulation of piquant anecdotes and striking adventures, than upon a calm and truthful survey of his intellectual attainments in the successive stages of his career. Instead, therefore, of having recourse to the device suggested by De Sagrie’s enterprising publisher, and supplying, by a little ingenious “broderie,” the deficiency of exciting incident, I shall content myself with weaving together, in the order of time, the several notices of Mezzofanti, by travellers and others, which have come within my reach; interspersing such explanations, incidents, illustrations, and anecdotes, as I have been able to glean, among the scanty memorials of this period which have survived. Fortunately, from the year which we have now reached, there exists a tolerably connected series of such sketches. They are, of course, from the most various hands—from authors