As a specimen of this general manner of the Discourse, I shall translate the concluding paragraphs,—the exhortation to the study of Greek literature with which the professor takes leave of his audience.
“And still shall these studies flourish, my dear young friends, perpetuated by you under the guidance of the instructions which Father Emanuel bequeathed to us. His method, which, in the acquisition of the language, rather exercises the reason than burdens the memory, and which makes good sense the chief basis for the right interpretation of an author, will assuredly conduct to the desired end that ardour which, on this solemn occasion, you feel renewed within you: an ardour so great that, had I to-day spoken solely of the difficulties and obstacles in the path of learning, it would, nevertheless, give you strength and courage to encounter and overcome them. Well, therefore, may we have confidence in you, and believe that you will preserve to your native land the fame achieved by your forefathers in Grecian studies. These studies are the special inheritance of our countrymen. In Italy the muses of Greece sought an asylum, when they fled before the invader from their ancient glorious abode. Learned Greeks were at that period dispersed through our principal cities, where, establishing schools, they found munificent patrons and zealous pupils. In Rome Grecian literature enjoyed the generous patronage of Nicholas V.; and around Cardinal Bessarion were gathered men of vast erudition, who renewed the lustre of the old Athenian schools, cultivating a wiser philosophy, however, than the ancients employed; and, thanks to the precious volumes accumulated by those two illustrious Mæcenases and by the princes of Italy; thanks to the skill of the masters and the aptitude and excellence of Italian genius, Grecian literature, conjointly with Latin, quickly attained the highest pitch of cultivation amongst us, ushering in the golden age of Italian letters. A countless series of names distinguished in this branch of learning presents itself before me: but I delight rather to consider in prospect the future series which begins in you. Be not disturbed by any fear that the pursuit to which I am exhorting you will hinder the profounder study of the sciences. Alas, very different are the thoughts, very different, indeed, the cares which distract the mind of youth and turn its generous fervour aside, miserably disappointing the bright hopes that were formed of it. No: theologians, lawyers, philosophers, physicians, mathematicians, all men of science and learning, have ever found in the Greek literature their most agreeable solace. Many of the sciences had, in Greece, early reached a high degree of perfection; others made a noble beginning in that country; most of them are embellished with titles borrowed from its language; and all of them have recourse to Greek when they wish, with precision and dignity, to denominate, and thereby to define, the objects of their consideration. ‘These studies,’ says one who owed much of his eloquence to the industry with which he cultivated them, ‘furnish youth with profitable and delightful knowledge; they amuse maturer years; they adorn prosperity, and in adversity afford an asylum from care; they delight us in the quiet of home, and are no hindrance in affairs of the gravest moment; they discover for us many a useful thing; for the traveller they procure the regard of strangers, and, in the solitude of the country, they solace the mind with the purest of pleasures.’ Let your main study, then, be the sterner sciences; Greek shall follow as a faithful companion, affording you useful assistance therein as well as delightful recreation. And thus, thinking of nothing else, having nothing else at heart, than religion and learning, let the expectations of your friends and of your country be fulfilled in you. Thus shall you correspond with the paternal designs of our best of princes, His Holiness, the Sovereign Pontiff, who, in his munificence and splendour, daily enlarges the dignity of this illustrious University, promoting, by wise provisions, your education and your glory. And, whilst you vigorously prosecute the career so well begun, while your love for Greek increases with the increasing profit you derive from it, I, too, will exult in your brilliant, progress. To this I will look for a monument, truly durable and immortal, of my dear Father Emanuel, to whom I feel myself bound by eternal gratitude; since gratitude, reverence, and devotion are surely due to them who, by example and by precept, point out to us the road to virtue and to learning, inviting and exhorting us, with loving solicitude, to direct our lives to praiseworthy pursuits and to true happiness.”[385] (pp. 22-26.)
Soon after the death of Father Aponte, Mezzofanti had the further grief of losing his friend, the celebrated Signora Clotilda Tambroni, who, although considerably older than he, had been, as we have seen, his fellow pupil under Father Aponte, and with whom he had ever afterwards continued upon terms of most intimate friendship. Like Mezzofanti, the Signora Tambroni was, after the publication of the concordat, reinstated in the Greek professorship from which she had been dispossessed at the occupation of Bologna by the French. She was an excellent linguist, being familiar with Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, and English,[386] and a poetess of some reputation, not only in her own, but also in the learned languages.[387] The Breslau professor, already referred to, Herr Kephalides, was much interested by her conversation; and that the interest which she created did not arise merely from the unusual circumstance of a lady’s devoting herself to such studies, but from her own unquestioned learning and ability, is attested by all who knew her. “It was a pleasant thing,” says Lady Morgan,[388] “to hear her learned coadjutor [Mezzofanti] in describing to us the good qualities of her heart, do ample justice to the profound learning which had raised her to an equality of collegiate rank with himself, without an innuendo at that erudition, which, in England, is a greater female stigma than vice itself.”
The lively but caustic authoress just named, visited Italy in 1819-20. In her account of Bologna she devotes a note to the Abate Mezzofanti, under whose escort, (which she recognises as a peculiar advantage,) she visited the library and museum of the University.
“The well-known Abate Mezzofanti, librarian to the Institute,” she writes, “was of our party. Conversing with this very learned person on the subject of his ‘forty languages,’ he smiled at the exaggeration, and said, that although he had gone over the outline of forty languages, he was not master of them, as he had dropped such as had not books worth reading. His Greek master, being a Spaniard, taught him Spanish. The German, Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian tongues he originally acquired during the occupation of Bologna by the Austrian power; and afterwards he had learned French from the French, and English by reading and by conversing with English travellers. With all this superfluity of languages, he spoke nothing but Bolognese in his own family. With us, he always spoke English, and with scarcely any accent, though I believe he has never been out of Bologna. His tone of phrase and peculiar selection of words were those of the ‘Spectator;’ and it is probable that he was most conversant with the English works of that day. The Abate Mezzofanti was professor of the Greek and Oriental languages under the French: when Buonaparte abolished the Greek professorship, Mezzofanti was pensioned off. He was again made Greek professor by the Austrians, again set aside by the French, and again restored by the Pope.”[389]
Like most of Lady Morgan’s sketches, this account of Mezzofanti, although interesting, is not free from inaccuracies. Thus she falls into the common error already noticed, that Mezzofanti up to this time “had never been out of Bologna,” and a still more important mistake as to the cause of his first deprivation of his professorship. He was dispossessed of this professorship, (which, it may be added, was not of Greek but of Arabic,) not because the professorship was suppressed, but because he declined to take the oaths to the new government. The account of his second deprivation is also inaccurate; and the assertion that he never cultivated any languages except those which “had books worth reading,” we shall see hereafter, to be entirely without foundation.
The statement too, that “he spoke only Bolognese in his own family” is an exaggeration. With the elder members of the family—his father, his mother, and his sister, Signora Minarelli—it was so; and there was a cousin of his, named Antonia Mezzofanti, a lively and agreeable old dame, and a frequent guest at the house of his sister, to whom he was much attached, and with whom he delighted to converse in the pleasant dialect of Bologna. But the children of his sister were all well educated, and, like the educated classes throughout all the provincial cities of Italy, habitually spoke the common and classical Italian language. Even after Mezzofanti came to Rome, when questioned as to the number of languages that he spoke, he often used jestingly to reply: “fifty, and Bolognese.”[390]
Very nearly at the same time with Lady Morgan’s interview, Mezzofanti was visited by a tourist far more competent to form a just opinion of the extent of his attainments—M. Molbech, a Danish scholar, author of a Tour in Germany, France, England, and Italy. I shall close the chapter with his testimony. It is chiefly valuable, in reference to his own language, the Danish, in which he had an opportunity of fully testing Mezzofanti’s knowledge, in an interview of nearly two hours’ duration. It is clear, too, from the very tone of his narrative, that, while he carried away the highest admiration for the extraordinary man whom he had seen, he was by no means disposed to fall into that blind and indiscriminate eulogy of which other less instructed and more imaginative visitors have been accused.