The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti [pp. 645-661]

The Life of Cardinal Hezzofanti.6
University, made the priest unfavourable to the proposal.
When the Emperor made the Pope his prisoner, and occupied
Rome with his troops, Mezzofanti, quiet as he had kept himself
with his bookshelves and lectures, was not overlooked in the
proscription which swept even literary men if they did not bow
the knee. He was not expelled, but the Oriental Professorship
was extinguished, and the incumbent put upon a pension. He
again received private pupils, and found another library to
catalogue. In 1812 he was appointed deputy librarian of the
University, with whose collections the French had incorporated
the library of the Institute. In 1815 he became the chief
librarian.
When the Pope was on his return from exile, (1814,) he
passed through Bologna, and invited Mezzofanti to accompany
him to Rome, and take the office of Secretary of the Propaganda. This position was likely to attract a scholar, on account
of the great variety of languages spoken in that vast missionary
institution, and to attract an ecclesiastic, from the fact of the
office being regarded as in the line of promotion to the cardinalship. But even Rome, and the importunity of a Pontiff,
could not draw the student from Bologna; and he more gladly
accepted the restoration which the Pope now had it in his power
to effect, of his chair of Oriental Languages.
Dr. Russell has collected into his pages a number of testimonies from the printed travels of tourists of various countries,
for the purpose of showing in some detail, from different witnesses, the wonderful extent of the attainments reached by the
perseverance of this insatiable student, in his favourite specialty. A professor in the University of Breslau testifies to
the fluency of his German. He read before the Bologna
Academy, a paper on the Wallachian language, another on
that of the seven parishes of Vicenza, and a third on a Mexican
manuscript. An English author found him not only fluent and
correct in the standard language of England, but familiar with
the provincial dialects, so as to be able to give ludicrous specimens of the brogue of Yorkshire and Somersetshire. The same
visitor found him at home in Welsh. Another literary Englishman heard him tried in Turkish and modern Greek. Lord
Byron declared, that he exhausted upon this "monster of
VOL. XXX.-NO. IV. 83
1858.]
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