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Among the lions of Rome during the last twenty years, not the least attractive, especially for literary visitors, was the celebrated Cardinal Mezzofanti.
He must betray no weakness, but a character which I should describe as a compound of the best parts of those of Cardinal Richelieu, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Prince Metternich, and Mezzofanti, the latter to carry on the native language part of the business; and he must cast those customers out, not only from his house; but from his yard; and adhere to the "No admittance except on business" principle.
Even exceptional command of language does not imply the possession of ideas to express; Mezzofanti, the master of fifty-eight languages, had less to say in them than Shakespear with his little Latin and less Greek; and public life is the paradise of voluble windbags.
"Miss Dexter doubtless believes that praise of a pupil reflects credit on the skill of the teacher. Unfortunately for her flattering estimate of me, I must disclaim all polyglot proclivities, and have no intention of eclipsing Mezzofanti, Max Muller, or Giovanni Pico Mirandola.
He had the linguistic gift which soon after made the young carpenter Mezzofanti of Bologna famous and a cardinal. But the gift would have been buried in the grave of his penury and his circumstances had his trade been almost any other, and had he not been impelled by the most powerful of all motives.
His fame, nevertheless, began to extend to foreign countries. Among many distinguished foreigners to whose acquaintance his extraordinary faculties as a linguist became a passport, was the celebrated Russian general, Suwarrow; and with him Mezzofanti long maintained the most friendly relations.
We would recommend no person to plunge headlong into an absorbing passion for any accomplishment. Mezzofanti was a curiosity a marvel the wonder of the world of letters; and it is chiefly as such that a notice of him here will be considered interesting. The curious observer, in his rambles about town, is occasionally struck with some singular demonstrations for which he is at a loss to account.
His father was a poor carpenter; and the eminence to which, by his own unassisted exertions, Mezzofanti, without once leaving his native city, attained in the exercise of the faculty of language which is ordinarily cultivated only by the arduous and expensive process of visiting and travelling in the different countries in which each separate language is spoken is not the least remarkable of the many examples of successful 'pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, which literary history supplies.
It is observed by the author of an interesting paper read a few weeks since at a meeting of the Philological Society, that, taking the account of the linguistic accomplishments of King Mithridates even in the most exaggerated form in which it is given by the ancients, who represent him as speaking the languages of twenty-two nations, it fades into insignificance in contrast with the known and ascertained attainments of Mezzofanti.
A Russian traveller, who published in 1846 a collection of Letters from Rome, writes of Mezzofanti: 'Twice I have visited this remarkable man, a phenomenon as yet unparalleled in the learned world. He spoke eight languages fluently in my presence. He expressed himself in Russian very purely and correctly. Even now, in advanced life, he continues to study fresh dialects.
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