Another of his visitors, while at Bologna, has put on record a testimony to the same effect, which, although it does not expressly allude to Mezzofanti’s speaking the language, yet evidently supposes his acquaintance with it, and which moreover is interesting for its own sake. I allude to Dr. W. F. Edwards, of Paris, author of an able and curious essay addressed to the historian, Amedée Thierry, “On the Physiological Characters of the Races of Man, in their Relation to History.” In this essay, while combating the popular notion, that in England the ancient British race has been completely displaced by the various northern conquerors who have overrun the country, Dr. Edwards alleges in support of his own work, which he heard expressed by Mezzofanti, and which, although founded on purely philological principles,[451] he regards as a singular confirmation of his own physiological deductions.
“I owe,” he says, “to the celebrated Mezzofanti, whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Bologna, an example of what I have been urging; and I am glad to repeat it here for more reasons than one. You will see in it a further confirmation of the conclusion regarding the Britons of England, which I have deduced from sources of a very different kind. If there is any characteristic which distinguishes English from the other modern languages of Europe, it is the extreme irregularity of its pronunciation. In other languages, when you have once mastered the fundamental sounds, you are enabled, by the aid of certain general rules, to pronounce the words with a tolerable approach to accuracy, even without understanding the meaning. In English you can never pronounce until you have actually learned the language. Mezzofanti, in speaking to me of Welsh, traced to that language the origin of this peculiarity of the English. I had no necessity to ask him through what channel. I knew, as well as he, that the English could not have borrowed from the Welsh; and that, before the Saxon invasion, the Britons had spoken the same language which afterwards became peculiar to Wales. Thus of his own accord and without my seeking for it, he gave me a new proof, entirely independent of the reasons which had already led me to the conviction that, despite the Saxon conquest, the Britons had never ceased to exist in England. They had for centuries been deemed extinct; and yet he recognises their descendants, so to speak, by the sound of their voice, as I have recognised them by their features! What more is needed to establish the identity?”
In the marked conflict between these testimonies and the strong adverse opinion expressed by Mr. Ellis, “that the Cardinal was unable to keep up or even understand a conversation in the language of the Cymry,” nay that “he could not even read an ordinary book with facility,” I have had inquiries made through several Welsh friends, the result of which, coupled with the authorities already cited, satisfies me that Mr. Ellis was certainly mistaken in his judgment. The belief that Mezzofanti knew and spoke Welsh appears to be universal. Mr. Rhys Powel, a Welsh gentleman who was personally acquainted with him, often heard that he understood Welsh, and I have received a similar assurance from a Welsh clergyman of my acquaintance. Mr. Rhys Powel, mentions the name of the late Mr. Williams of Aberpergwin, as having “actually conversed with the Cardinal in Welsh,” during a visit to Rome some time before his eminence’s death; and a short composition of his in that language, which I submitted to two eminent Welsh scholars, is pronounced by them not only correct, but idiomatic in its structure and phraseology.
With such a number of witnesses, entirely independent of each other, and spread over so long a period, attesting Mezzofanti’s knowledge of Welsh, I can hardly hesitate to conclude that Mr. Ellis’s impression to the contrary must have arisen from some accidental misunderstanding, or perhaps from one of those casual failures from which even the most perfect are not altogether exempt. The concluding paragraph of Dr. Edward’s notice is interesting, although upon a different ground.
“It is to be regretted,” he adds, “that a man who surpasses all others by his prodigious knowledge of languages, should content himself with what is but an evidence of his own learning, and should conceal from the world the science upon which that learning is founded. It is not to his prodigious memory and the, so to say, inborn aptitude of his mind for retaining words and their combinations, that he owes the facility with which he masters all languages, but to his eminently analytical mind, which rapidly penetrates their genius and makes it its own. I collect from himself that he studies languages, rather through their spirit than through their letter. What do we know of the spirit of languages? Almost nothing. But if Mezzofanti would communicate to the world the fruit of his observations, we should see a new science arise amongst us.”[452]
It will be recollected that Flemish was one of the minor languages which he acquired during his residence at Bologna. From the time of his settling at Rome, his opportunities of practice in this and the kindred dialect of Holland, were almost of daily occurrence. One of the earliest appears to have been afforded by his intercourse with a young student of the Germanic College, the abbé Malou, since one of the most distinguished of the Catholic literatî of Belgium,[453] for several years Professor of Scripture in the University of Louvain, and now Bishop of Bruges. Monseigneur Malou has been good enough to note down for me his recollections of his intercourse with Mezzofanti, in so far as they relate to his native language.
“During my stay in Rome (1831-35), I conversed several times in Flemish with Cardinal Mezzofanti, and I was thus enabled to ascertain that he understood our language thoroughly. He spoke to me of the works of Cats and Vondel, two distinguished Flemish poets, which he had read. Nevertheless, I fancied that I perceived his vocabulary to be rather limited. He often repeated the same words and phrases. He spoke with a Brabant accent, for he had learned Flemish from some young men of Brussels, who studied at the University of Bologna, in which his Eminence was at that time Librarian. Monsignor Mezzofanti, after I had spoken, remarked of himself, that I, being a Fleming, did not speak as they do in Brabant; and hence he had a difficulty in catching some of my expressions, which he requested me to repeat. It is, therefore, not quite correct to say, that he knew our different dialects; but, if he had had occasion to learn them, he could, without doubt, have done so with great ease.
Some days before my departure from Rome, in May, 1835, I met this learned dignitary in the sacristy of S. Peter’s. He at once accosted me in Flemish; and, when I had replied, he upbraided me with having forgotten my mother tongue, for I mixed up with it, he said, some German words. The reproach was well founded: for I had passed about three years in the German College, where I had learned a little German, and had had meanwhile no occasion to speak Flemish. Such a reproof from an Italian, who thus gave lessons in Flemish to a Fleming, struck me as exceeding droll, and amused me not a little. This anecdote shows what minute attention the learned Cardinal paid to the boundary lines of kindred tongues.
I have heard Mezzofanti, in the course of one evening, speaking Italian, English, German, Flemish, Russian, French, and the Sicilian and Neapolitan dialects of Italian.”[454]
This poverty of his Flemish vocabulary, however, disappeared with practice. Another learned Belgian ecclesiastic, Monsignor Aerts, who subsequently to the sojourn of M. Malou in Rome, resided there for many years, as Rector of the Belgian College, reports as follows of Mezzofanti’s Flemish, such as he found it in 1837 and the following year.