The few notices of the Abate Mezzofanti which we have met up to this period, are derived almost exclusively from Bolognese, or at least Italian sources. During the long continental war, the ordinary intercourse with Italy was, in great part, suspended, and few tourists, especially of the literary class, visited the north of Italy. But the cessation of hostilities in the spring of 1814, re-opened the long interrupted communication, and the annual stream of visitors to Rome and Naples again began to flow, with its wonted regularity, through the cities of the north. Few of the tourists who published an account of their travels at this date failed to devote some of their pages to one who had now become one of the chief “sights” of his native city. It is hardly necessary to say, that, in some instances, these accounts are but the echoes of popular fame, and exhibit the usual amount of ignorance, credulity, and superficial information, which characterise “travellers’ tales.” But very many, also, will be found to contain the judgment of acute, learned, and impartial observers; many of them are the result of a careful and jealous scrutiny of Mezzofanti’s attainments, made by critics of indisputable capacity; most of them will be admitted to be of unquestionable value, as to one point at least—Mezzofanti’s familiarity with the native language of each particular traveller; and all, even the least solid among them, are interesting, as presenting to us, with the freshness of contemporary narrative, the actual impressions received by the writer from his opportunities of personal intercourse with the great linguist. I have collected from many sources, published[360] and unpublished, a variety of these travellers’ notices, which I shall use freely in illustrating the narrative of the remaining years of the life of Mezzofanti. I shall be careful, however, in all that regards the critical portion of the biography, and especially in estimating the actual extent of Mezzofanti’s linguistic attainments, only to rely, for each language, on the authority of one who, either as a native, or at least an unquestioned proficient in that particular language, will be admitted to be a perfectly competent judge in its regard. The autumn of the year 1814 supplies one such notice, which is remarkable, as the first direct testimony to Mezzofanti’s proficiency in speaking German. He had learned this language in boyhood; and it is clear from his letters to De Rossi, and from the books to which he freely refers in that correspondence, that he was intimately acquainted with it as a language of books. But in this year we are able for the first time to test his power of speaking German by the judgment of a native.