The Daily National Whig

Mezzofanti. At Rome has died Cardinal Mezzofanti-the celebrated Mezzofanti, known throughout Europe for his extraordinary power in the acquisition of languages, down even to the minutest differences of dialect and shades of patois, which procured for him from Byron the name of the "Polyglot." His power of assimilation in this respect was something like divination; and he is likened to those mental prodigies known as "calculating children," who to the astonishment of consummate mathematicians, leap as it were at a bound, without education, to conclusions implying the intricate processes of the particular science. At Rome, where the Propaganda entertains and trains missionaries for and from all parts of the world, and where all living languages are currently spoken, Cardinal Mezzofanti conversed with each man in his own tongue and idiom. Curious things are spoken of this remarkable yet seemingly mechanical gift of his. "If," it is said, "he were addressed for the first time in a language or dialect new to him, he listened with a wonderful power of attention, decomposed the sounds in his mind, searched for the analogies, and sought out the roots. In a short time all was clear to him; he was master of the lexicon and the grammar of the hitherto unknown tongue."