The writer in question is a German tourist, named Kephalides, professor in the University of Breslau,[361] who (as may be inferred from his alluding to the Congress of Vienna, as just opened) visited Bologna in the October or November of 1814. “The Professor Abate Mezzofanti,” writes this traveller, who met him in the Library, “speaks German with extraordinary fluency, although he has never been out of Bologna. He is a warm admirer, too, of the literature of Germany, especially its poetry; and he has stirred up the same enthusiasm among the educated classes in Bologna, both gentlemen and ladies.”[362] We learn incidentally, too, from this writer’s narrative, that German was among the languages which Mezzofanti taught to his private pupils. In a rather interesting account of an interview which he had with old Father Emmanuel Aponte, (one of Mezzofanti’s first instructors,) and with the celebrated lady-professor of Greek, so often referred to, Clotilda Tambroni, Kephalides mentions that the youth whom Mezzofanti sent to conduct him to Aponte was one of his own pupils, who had just begun to “lisp German.” Strangely enough, nevertheless, Kephalides does not allude to any other of Mezzofanti’s languages, nor even to his general reputation as a linguist of more than ordinary attainments. In the commencement of the year 1815, the chief Librarianship of the University became vacant by the death of Father Pompilio Pozzetti. Pozzetti was one of the congregation of the _Scuole Pie_, and in earlier life had been Librarian of that Ducal Library at Modena, which Tiraboschi has made familiar to every student of Italian literature. From the time of his appointment as Prefect of the Bologna Library, a close intimacy had subsisted between him and Mezzofanti; and on the latter’s being named his assistant, this intimacy ripened into a warm friendship. Mezzofanti was at once appointed as his successor, on the 25th of April, 1815.[363] In the letter in which (May 15th,) he communicated his appointment to his friend, Pezzana, who held the kindred office at Parma, he speaks in terms of the highest praise of his predecessor and of the services which he had rendered during his tenure of office, and deplores his death as a serious loss to the institution. The revenue of this office, which he held conjointly with his professorship, (although both salaries united amounted to a very moderate sum)[364] placed the Abate Mezzofanti in comparatively easy circumstances, and for the first time above the actual struggle for daily bread. That he still continued, nevertheless, to instruct pupils in private, need hardly be matter of surprise, when it is remembered that, as we have seen, the support of no less than ten individuals was dependent upon his exertions.[365] Indeed, once released from the sordid cares and excessive drudgery of tuition to which his earlier years had been condemned,—