I had a letter of introduction from a mutual friend, and, intending to leave it for him in the course of the day, I had put it into my reticule, whence I immediately drew it and gave it to him. He knew the hand-writing at a single glance, and, with great good breeding, put it unopened into his pocket, saying something too flattering for me to repeat, in which the remark, that a good countenance was the best recommendation, was neatly turned. He presented his companion to me, who happened to be the Abbé Scandalaria, then staying on a visit to him, and who speaks English remarkably well. My party were not a little surprised to see me rejoin them, accompanied by and in conversation with two strangers. When I presented them to my new acquaintances, they were much amused at the recital of my unceremonious encounter and self-introduction to Mezzofanti, who not only devoted a considerable portion of the day to us, but promised to spend the evening at our hotel, and invited us to breakfast with him to-morrow. The countenance of the wonderful linguist is full of intelligence, his manner well-bred, unaffected and highly agreeable. His facility and felicity in speaking French, German, and English, is most extraordinary, and I am told it is not less so in various other languages. He is a younger man than I expected to find him, and, with the vast erudition he has acquired, is totally exempt from pretension or pedantry.”[419] An adventure with Mezzofanti, quite similar to Lady Blessington’s, befel a party of Irish ecclesiastical students on their way to Rome in the very same year. They arrived at Bologna late in the afternoon, and, as they purposed proceeding on their journey early on the following morning, they were unwilling to lose the opportunity of seeing and conversing with the celebrated professor. Accordingly they repaired to the university library; but, as might be expected at so late an hour, they found the library closed and the galleries silent and deserted. After wandering about for a considerable time, in search of some one to whom to address an inquiry, they at last saw an abate of very humble and unpretending appearance approach. The spokesman of the party begged of him, in the best Latin he could summon up at the moment, to point out the way to the library. “Do you wish to see the library?” asked the abate without a moment’s pause, in English, and with an excellent accent. The student was thunderstruck. “By Jove, boys,” he exclaimed turning to his companions, “this is Mezzofanti himself!” It _was_ Mezzofanti; and, on learning that they were Irish, he addressed them a few words in their native language, to which they were obliged to confess their inability to reply. One of the number, however, having learned the language from books, Mezzofanti entered into a conversation with him on its supposed analogies with Welsh.