Joseph Mezzofanti.
Rome, den 17 April, 1837.’
After writing these lines, he asked me if there were any mistakes in them, and, if so, if I would be good enough to point them out to him. I then noticed the word fraaj in the first line, knowing he would reply that the letter i at the end of a word should be replaced by a j. The aa in taalen, in the fourth line, he justified by a reference to the Flemish grammar which he used at the time. As for the d in the preposition med, which occurs in the same line, he contended that this was the proper orthography of the word, as it was an abbreviation of mede. I would have been greatly surprised at all this, if I had not previously had occasion to admire the delicate ear which this giant of linguistic learning possessed for the subtleties of pronunciation, and the wonderful perspicacity of his orthographical system: especially as he had expressed to me his just disapprobation of the foreign words which some of our countrymen are letting slip into their conversation. He had already given proof to another traveller from Holland that he was perfectly acquainted with the difference between the words nimmer and nooit, so that he hardly ever used one for the other.”
Side by side with the Dutch traveller’s sketch, may be placed a still more lively account of Mezzofanti by another visitor of the Vatican, the poet Frankl, a Bohemian by birth, but chiefly known by his German writings. This sketch, besides the allusion to Mezzofanti’s skill in the poet’s native language, Bohemian, contains a slight, but not uninteresting specimen of Mezzofanti’s German vocabulary, and, moreover, illustrates very curiously the attention which he seems always to have given to the general principles of harmony, and his acquaintance with the metrical capabilities of more than one ancient and modern language. The Signor Luzatto, to whose introductory letter Frankl refers, was a friend of Mezzofanti—a distinguished Italian Jew—himself an accomplished linguist, and well known to oriental scholars by his contributions to the Archives Israelites, and by a work on the Babylonian Inscriptions.
“Having furnished myself,” writes Herr Frankl, “with a letter of introduction from Luzatto of Padua, I went to the Vatican Library, of which Mezzofanti was the head. His arrival was looked for every moment; and I occupied the interval by examining the long, well lighted gallery of antiquities which is outside, and which also leads into the halls that contain the masterpieces of ancient art in marble. I was in the act of reading the inscription upon one of the many marble slabs which are inserted in the wall, when a stranger who, except myself, was the sole occupant of the gallery, said to me; ‘Here comes Monsignor Mezzofanti!’
An undersized man, somewhat disposed towards corpulency, in a violet cassock falling to the ancle, and a white surplice which reached to the knee, came briskly, almost hurriedly, towards us. He carried his four-cornered violet cap in his hand, and thus I was better able to note his lively, though not striking features, and his grey hair still mingled with black. About his lips played a smile, which I afterwards observed to be their habitual expression. He appeared to be not far from sixty. When he came sufficiently near, I advanced to meet him with a silent bow, and he at once received me with the greeting in German, ‘Seyn Sie mir willkommen!’ (‘You are welcome.’)
‘I am surprised, Monsignor,’ I replied, ‘that you address me in German, although I have not spoken a word as yet.’ ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘a great many foreigners of all countries come to visit me, and I have acquired a certain routine—pardon me, I should have said a certain ‘knack,’ (die Routine—verzeihen sie, ‘die gewandtheit’ sollte ich sagen,—) of discovering their nationality from their physiognomy, or rather from their features.’
‘I am sorry, Monsignor,’ I replied, ‘that it is my ill fortune to belie this knack of yours. I am a native of Bohemia, although not of Bohemian race, and Bohemian is my mother tongue.’
‘To what nationality, then, do you belong?’ asked Mezzofanti in Bohemian, without a moment’s hesitation.”