Charles William Russell — The Life of Cardinal Mezzofanti excerpt 2

On the curious question as to the system pursued by the Cardinal in the study of languages, I regret to say that little light seems now obtainable. The variety of systems employed by students is endless. The eccentric linguist, Roberts Jones, described in the Introductory Memoir, as soon as he had an opportunity of comparing the vocabulary of a new language with those which he had already studied, proceeded by striking out of it all those words which were common to it with any of the languages already familiar to him, and then impressing on his memory the words which remained. M. Antoine d'Abbadie told me that, in the unwritten languages with which he had to deal, his plan was to write out, with the aid of an interpreter, a list of about five hundred of the leading and most indispensable words, and a few conversational forms; and then to complete his stock of words "by the assistance of an intelligent child who knew no language but the one which he was studying; — because children best understand, and most readily apprehend, an imperfectly conveyed meaning." Some students commence with the vocabulary; others, with the structural forms of a language. With some the process is tedious and full of labour: others proceed with almost the rapidity of intuition. In comparing the various possible systems, it has not unnaturally been supposed that the process which, in Cardinal Mezzofanti, led to results so rapid and so extraordinary, might be usefully applied, at least in some modified form, to the practical study of languages, even on that modest scale in which they enter into ordinary education. But unfortunately, even if such a fruit could be hoped from his experience, it does not appear that the Cardinal possessed any extraordinary secret, or at least that he ever clearly explained to any of his visitors the secret process, if any, which he employed. One thing at least is certain, and should not be forgotten by those who are always on the look out for short roads to learning, that, whatever may have been his system, and however it may have quickened or facilitated the result for him, it did not enable him to dispense with the sedulous and systematic use of all the ordinary appliances of study, and especially of every available means for the acquisition of vocabularies, and of practice in their exercise. It is true he told M. Libri that he found the learning of languages "less difficult than is generally thought: that there is but a limited number of points to which it is necessary to direct attention; and that, when one is master of these points, the remainder follows with great facility; " adding that “when one has learned ten or a dozen languages essentially different from each other, one may, with a little study and attention, learn any number of them.” But he also stated to Dr. Tholuck "that his own way of learning new languages was no other than that of our school-boys, by writing out paradigms and words, and committing them to memory.” Dictionaries, reading books, catechisms, vocabularies, were anxiously sought by him, and industriously used. The society and conversation of strangers was eagerly — in one less modest and simple it might almost appear obtrusively — courted, and turned to advantage. A constant and systematic habit of translation and composition both in prose and verse was maintained. In a word, nothing can be clearer than that with Mezzofanti, as with the humblest cultivators of the same study, the process of acquiring each new language was, if not slow, at least laborious; and that, with all his extraordinary gifts, the eminence to which he attained, is in great part to be attributed to his own almost unexampled energy, and to the perseverance with which he continued to cultivate these gifts to the very latest day of his life. He understood thoroughly, as all who have ever attained to eminence have understood, the true secret of study — economical and systematic employment of time….Mezzofanti made it a rule, even amid his most frequent and most distracting occupations, to turn to account every chance moment in which he was released from actual pressure. No matter how brief or how precarious the interval, his books and papers were generally at hand. And even when no such appliance of study were within reach his active and self-concentrated mind was constantly engaged. He possessed a rare power of self-abstraction, by which he was able to concentrate all his faculties upon any language which he desired to pursue, to the exclusion of all the others that he knew. In this respect he was entirely independent of books… But Mezzofanti's power of mental study was even more wonderful. He had the habit of thinking when alone in each and all of his various languages in succession; so that, without the presence of a second individual, he almost enjoyed the advantage of practice in conversation! The only parallel for this extraordinary mental phenomenon that I know, is a story which I have somewhere read, of a musician who attained to great perfection as an instrumental performer, although hardly ever known to touch an instrument for the purpose of practice. This man, it is said, was constantly practising in his mind; and his fingers were actually observed to be always in motion, as though engaged in the act of playing. On the other hand, it is certain that Mezzofanti's power of acquiring languages was mainly a gift of nature. It is not easy to say in what this natural gift consisted. Among the faculties of the mind chiefly employed in acquiring language — perception, analysis, judgment, and memory — by some it has been placed in his intuitive quickness of perception — by others in his memory— and by others, in his power of analysing the leading inflexional and structural characteristics by which each language is distinguished. Others place it in some mysterious delicacy of his ear, which detected in each language a sort of rhythm or systematic structure, and thus supplied a key to all its forms But no one of these characteristics, taken singly, even in its very highest development, will account for a success so entirely unexampled. Almost all great linguists, it is true, have been remarkable for their powers of memory; but there are many examples of such memory, unaccompanied by any very peculiar excellence in the gift of languages. Still less can it be ascribed exclusively to any quickness of perception, or any perfection of analytic or synthetic power. Perhaps there is no form in which these powers are so wondrously displayed, as in the curious phenomena of mental arithmetic. And yet I am not aware that any of the extraordinary mental calculators has been distinguished as a linguist. On the contrary, many of them have been singularly deficient in this respect. Mr. George Biddor, one of the latest, and in many respects most creditable, examples of this faculty, confesses his entire deficiency in talent for literature or language; and Zachariab Dase, whose performances as a calculator almost exceeded all belief, could never master a word of any foreign language except a little German. But in Cardinal Mezzofanti we meet not only each of these qualities, but most perfect and perfectly balanced union of them all. His memory in itself would have made him an object of wonder. Quick and tenacious to a degree certainly not inferior to any recorded example of the faculty, it was one of the most universal in its application of which any record is preserved; embracing every variety of subject not alone the vocabularies and forms which he acquired, but every kind of matter to which it was directed; history, poetry, and even persons and personal occurrences. But there was, above all, one characteristic in which it was distinguished from almost all other memories. Some of those qualities already named were possessed by other individuals in an equal, if not a greater or more striking, degree. Henderson, the player, was said to be able to repeat the greater part of the most miscellaneous contents of a newspaper after a single reading; and the mental arithmetician just named, Zachariah Dase, after dipping his eye over a row of twelve figures, could repeat them backwards and forwards, and in every other order, and could multiply them instantaneously by one or two figures at pleasure. Some memories too possessed this faculty entirely independent of the judgment or the reasoning powers. Pere Menestrier was able to repeat a long jumble of unmeaning names after hearing them but once, and the young Corsican mentioned by Padre Menocchio could do the same, even after the lapse of an entire year ! But the perfection of Mezzofanti's memory was different from all these, and consisted in its extraordinary readiness. Sir W. Hamilton, in one of his notes on Eeid, happily reviving an old view of Aristotle, distinguishes between memory and reminiscence— between spontaneous and elaborated memory — memory of intuition, and memory of evolution. In Mezzofanti the latter hardly appears to have had a place. His memory seems to have acted by intuition alone. It was not only a rare capacity for storing up and retaining the impressions once made upon it, no matter how rapid and how various, but a power of holding them distinct from each other and ready for instant use. And thus, over the vast and various assortment of vocabularies which he possessed, he enjoyed a control so complete, that he would draw upon each and all at pleasure, as the medium for the expression of his thoughts; — just as the experimentalist, by the shifting of a slide, can change, instantaneously and at will, the colour of the light with which he illuminates the object of exhibition. Dugald Stewart tells the case of a young woman who could repeat an entire sermon after a single hearing, and whose sole trick of memory consisted in connecting in her mind each part of the discourse with a part of the ceiling. It would almost seem as if the memory of Mezzofanti had some such local division into compartments, in which the several vocabularies could) as it were, be stored apart and through which his mind could range at pleasure, culling from each the objects or words which it desired, no matter how various or how unconnected with each other. With such a memory as this to guide its action, and to supply the material for its operation, the extraordinary and almost intuitive power of analysis — something in its own order like what Wollaston called in William Phillips, the "mathematical sense" — which Mezzofanti possessed, and which enabled him at once to seize upon the whole system of a language — form, structure, idiom, genius, spirit — led by a process which it is easy to understand, to the wonderful results which this great linguist accomplished. Memory supplied the material with unfailing abundance and regularity. The analytic faculties were the tools which the mind employed in operating upon the material thus supplied for the use. Such appears to have been the mental process. But for the practical power of speaking the languages thus mastered in theory, Mezzofanti was also indebted to his singularly quick and delicate organization of ear and tongue. It might seem that the former of these organs could only enter as a very subordinate element, and in a purely mechanical way, into the faculty of speech. Indeed the French journals of the past month, (February, 1858,) contain an account of a deaf and dumb man, M. Moser, who (of course entirely unaided by ear,) has mastered, besides Greek and Latin, no fewer than fourteen modem languages. But, strange as this may seem, it is certain that in Mezzofanti's case the ear, in addition to its direct and natural use in comprehending and catching up the sounds of languages, and appreciating all their delicate varieties and shades, (in which it is admitted to have been ready and infallible beyond all precedent,) had a nobler, and as it were, more intellectual function; that its office was a thing of mind as well as of organization; that he possessed as it were, an inner and higher sense distinct from the material organ; and that the impressions which this sense conveyed helped him to the structure and the philosophical character of language, as well as to its rhythm, its vocal sounds, and its peculiar intonations. It is difficult to explain the exact mental operation, by which this curious result was attained; but the Cardinal himself repeatedly declared his consciousness of such an operation, and ascribed to it, in a great degree, the rapidity and the ease with which he overcame what to others form the main difficulty in the study of a language, and with which, having once made the first step in each language, he mastered, as if by intuition, all the mysteries of its structural system. Another element of his wonderful talent was his genuine enthusiasm and the unpretending simplicity of his character….There was no pretension about Mezzofanti; nor had he anything of that morbid intellectual sensitiveness which shrinks from the first blunders to which a novice in a foreign language is exposed, and which restrains many from the attempt to speak, by the very apprehension of failure. Children, as is well known, learn to speak a language more rapidly than their elders. I cannot doubt that Mezzofanti's childlike simplicity and innocence, were among the causes of his wonderful success as a speaker of many tongues. It was not to be expected that a man so eminent in one absorbing pursuit should have made a very distinguished figure in general literature or science. Among the many laudatory reports of him which are contained in this volume, a few will be found which hardly concede to him even a second-rate place as a scholar, still less as a philologer. In some of the literary circles of Rome, Mezzofanti was not popular. M. Libri alludes to one source of unfriendly feeling in his regard. There is another which may perhaps have already struck the reader. From some of the facts noticed in the Introductory Memoir and from other incidental allusions, the reader will have observed a certain tendency on the part of philologers to depreciate the pursuit of linguists, and to undervalue its usefulness; and it is precisely from the philologers that this low estimate of Mezzofanti proceeds. It is only just, how ever, to Baron Bunsen, who is preeminently the head of the German school of that science, to admit that he carefully draws the distinction between the two branches of the study of language — that of the linguist, and that of the philologer. And although the natural preference which a student unconsciously gives to his own favourite pursuit, no doubt leads him to attach little value to what Mezzofanti knew, and to dwell more on what in his opinion he did not know, yet it must be said that he gives him full credit for his unexampled power as a linguist. The Baron's recollections, nevertheless, contain a summary of the strictures upon the literary character of Mezzofanti, which were current during his lifetime — that his learning was merely superficial — that in the phrase of the late Mr. Francis Hare, " with the keys of the knowledge of every nation in his hand, he never unlocked their real treasures; " that in all the countless languages which he spoke he " never said anything;" that he left no work or none of any value behind him; that he was utterly ignorant of philology; that his theology was mere 'scholasticism; that he had no idea of Biblical criticism, and that even as a critical Greek scholar, he was very deficient. It would be a very mistaken zeal for the honour of Cardinal Mezzofanti to deny the literal truth of several of these criticisms. Most of the branches of knowledge in which he is here represented as deficient, are in themselves the study of an ordinary life. To have added them all to what he really did possess, would have been a marvel far exceeding the greatest wonder that has ever been ascribed to him; nor was any one more ready than the modest Cardinal himself, not merely to admit many particulars in which his learning was defective, but even to disparage the learning which he actually possessed. He confessed over and over again, that he was no philologer — that he was nothing but "an ill bound dictionary." He expressed his regret to Guido Gorres, that he had begun his studies at a time when this science was not cultivated. He lamented the weakness of his chest and other constitutional infirmities, which prevented him from writing. He deplored to Cardinal Wiseman, that, when he should be gone, he would have left behind him no trace of what he knew. But, notwithstanding his own modest estimate of himself, I think enough will be found in the testimonies of many unsuspected witnesses embodied in this Memoir, to show that the depreciating strictures, to which I have here alluded, are grievously exaggerated. Cardinal Mezzofanti certainly was not a scientific philologer; but the Abbe Gaume's memorandum proves that, while he had little taste for the mere speculative part of the subject — for those Cloud-built towers by ghostly masons wrought. Oh shadowy thoroughfares of thought — he was fully sensible of the true use of the science, and had not neglected the study, especially in its most important aspect — its bearing upon religious history…. Far more unjust, however, are Mr. Hare's remark about the keys, and the still more disparaging saying, quoted by Baron Bunsen, which describes Mezzofanti as, "with all his forty-two languages, never saying anything." The numberless reports of visitors at every period of his life, from Mr. Stewart Rose, in 1817, downwards, which are detailed in this volume, put entirely beyond question both his capacity and his actual attainments in general literature. Each visitor, for the most part, found him well acquainted with the literature of his own country. Very many of them (as Baron Glucky de Stenitzer for Hungary) bear witness to his familiarity with their national histories. His conversation with M. Lihri, "on the most difficult points in the history of India” evinced a mind of a very different calibre from what these supercilious criticisms suppose: and, from the historian of the Mathematical Sciences, it is no ordinary compliment towards one with whom these can have been but a subordinate study, that, without a moment's preparation, (the subject having been only casually introduced by M. Libri,) he "spoke for half an hour on the astronomy and mathematics of the Indian races, in a manner which would have done honour to a man whose chief occupation had been tracing the history of the sciences." I must dissent strongly, also, from the disparaging opinion that M. Bunsen expresses as to the Cardinal's capacity for the more strictly professional sciences of Biblical criticism and Theology....it is most unjust to Mezzofanti to say that "he had no idea of the subject. One of his earliest literary friends was the great Biblical scholar and critic, De Rossi. While he was still professor at Bologna, the Abate Cavedoni, of Modena, spoke with high praise of his ability as a biblical critic. The Abate Mellini, professor of Scripture in Bologna, gratefully acknowledges the assistance which he derived from him in reference to the versions of the Bible: and Cardinal Wiseman, who will not be suspected of under-valuing any branch of Biblical science, told me that, although it is quite true that Mezzofanti had no love for the German critics, and though he never was a professed critic himself, he was nevertheless quite conversant with the science, and understood its history and its principles, and the divisions of MMS., recensions, families, &c., perfectly well. As to Theology, his reputation in Rome was not high. Yet his attainments, especially in moral theology, were considered respectable. The readers of Sir W. Hamilton will not look on the charge of "scholasticism" as any very grave disparagement; but I must add that neither did Mezzofanti neglect the modern divines, even those outside of Italy. With Guido Gorres he spoke of Mohler’s well-known Symbolik, although it was at that period but little known beyond the limits of Germany. As a preacher, Mezzofanti, though earnest and impressive, never was in any way remarkable. He confined himself chiefly to the duty of catechetical instruction; and in Rome his only efforts as a preacher, were the short and simple exhortations addressed to children at the time of admitting them to their first Communion — a duty of the ministry which was especially dear to him. The truth is, that all these criticisms of Mezzofanti, and the impressions as to the superficial character of his acquirements which they embody, have emanated for the most part from casual visitors, who saw him but for a brief space, and whose opportunity of testing his knowledge was probably limited to a few questions and answers, in a language not his own; the main object of the visit being, not to sound the depth or accuracy of his knowledge in itself, but merely the fluency and correctness of his manner of speaking the language in which the visitor desired to try him. Whereas, on the contrary, those who bear witness to the solidity of his information and the vast range of his knowledge, are those who knew him long and intimately; who met him as a friend and companion, not as an object of curiosity, and of wonder; and whose estimate of him was founded upon the impressions of familiar and everyday intercourse — the only safe test of character or of acquirements. There is more truth in the strictures upon Mezzofanti as a writer. In this respect, indeed, he is known very little; for his only published composition, the Panegyric of Father Aponte, and the fugitive poetical exercises in the appendix of this Memoir, can hardly be said to place him in the category of authors. Unhappily, indeed, the spirit of authorship is, with many, a question rather of temperament than of ability. In some it is the very breath of their life — an actual necessity of existence. To others it is a barren and ungrateful labour — undertaken with reluctance, and pursued without satisfaction. Southey used to say that he never felt fully master of himself and of all his unclouded faculties, till he found himself seated at his desk. The current of his thoughts never flowed freely except through his pen. On the contrary, Magliabecchi — the living library — the helluo librorum — never could prevail on himself to publish a single line ! Unfortunately for science, Mezzofanti was of the latter class. Partly from constitutional delicacy, and especially from weakness of the chest, the effort of writing was to him irksome and even injurious. Partly too, no doubt, the same constitutional tendency of mind which rendered speaking easy and attractive, indisposed him for the more toilsome — to him positively distressing — mode of communicating his thoughts by writing. Except for the purposes of private study, therefore, he seldom wrote more than some fugitive piece; and, even when he was prevailed on to write at greater length, he was seldom sufficiently satisfied with his own performances to permit them to be made public. Several, even of these essays which were read by him in the learned societies of Bologna and Rome, are known to have been destroyed by himself before his death; including some which, from their title and subject, might naturally have been expected to afford some insight into the character of his mind, and his capacity for dealing with the philosophy of language. Accordingly, the small figure which he made as a writer, and the little trace which he has left behind him of the vast stores of languages which he had laid up during life, have led to an undue depreciation of his career, as objectless and unprofitable, whether to himself or to his fellow-men. Whatever be the truth of this estimate, no one was more painfully sensible of it than the Cardinal himself. Many of his expressions of regret have been already recorded; but only those who knew him intimately, could know the depth and sincerity of his repinings. Still, although it is not possible to avoid sharing in this regret, he would be very exacting, indeed, and would set up for himself a very terrible standard whereby to judge his own conduct, who could venture to pronounce such a career as Mezzofanti's empty or unprofitable. Even if we put aside entirely the consideration of his literary life, and test him by the rules of personal duty alone, the life of Cardinal Mezzofanti was a model of every virtue of the Christian and of the priest. Devout almost to scrupulousness, sincerely humble, simple in his habits, modest and unexacting in his own person, but spending himself unhesitatingly in the service of others; courteous, amiable, affectionate, warm in his friendships, he was known only to be loved, and he never forfeited a friendship which he once had formed. His benevolence was of the true Christian stamp — not a mere unreflecting impulse, but a sustained and systematic love of his fellow creatures. Although his charity was of the tenderest and most melting kind — although in truth, like Goldsmith's Vicar, His pity gave, ere charity began — although his alms, limited as were his means, were so prodigal as to earn for him the sobriquet of Monsignor Limosiniere “My Lord Almoner;” — yet it would be a great mistake to measure his benevolence by the actual extent of poverty which it relieved, or of the assistance it administered. His active spirit grasped every detail of this work of God — the care of the sick, the instruction of the young, the edification and enlightenment of the stranger; — nay, the very courtesies of social intercourse had for him all the sacred significance of a duty; and, while he never offended the sensibility of his companions by unseasonably obstructing their serious conversation, yet he never lost sight, even in his lightest hours, of the obligation of good example and edification which his position and character imposed upon him. And as regards the great pursuit of his literary life, which some have presumed to deny as empty word-knowledge," and unprofitable display, it must never be forgotten — even though we should be content to judge its value by the selfish standard of mere utility — that, for himself, one of its earliest and most attractive, as well as most endearing sources of interest, lay in the opportunity which it afforded him for the exercise of his sacred ministry and the only less sacred offices of charity and humanity; that many of its most precious acquisitions were gathered in these very exercises of religion and of benevolence; that his usual text books in each new language were the catechism and the Bible; and that his favourite theatre for the display of his gifts were the sick wards of the hospitals of Bologna, the Santo Spirit or the House of Catechumens at Rome, and the halls and camerate of the great Missionary College of the Propaganda. For myself, I cannot envy the moral and intellectual utilitarianism, which pauses to measure by so paltry a standard a great psychological phenomenon, such as Nature, in the most prodigal exercise of her powers, has never before given to man to see. As well might we shut our eyes to the glory of those splendid meteors which at intervals illumine the sky, because we are unable to see what cold and sordid purpose of human utility they may be made to subserve. I prefer to look to him with grateful and affectionate admiration, as a great example of the successful cultivation of one of the noblest of God's gifts to His creatures; — as the man who has approached nearest to the withdrawal of that barrier to intercommunion of speech which, in punishment of human pride, was set up at Babel; and of whom, more literally than of any other son of Adam, it may be said, that he could Hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind.