study, the more do we understand how difficult it is to avoid falling into errors; and, in speaking to me of several writings which he had composed, he told me that they were only essays which by no means deserved to see the light. In the midst of the conversation, as I was still urging him, he rose and went to look in a box for a manuscript with coloured designs, which he showed me, and which had for its object the explanation of the Mexican hieroglyphics. Having begged him to publish at least that work, he told me that it was only an essay, still imperfect, and that his intention was to recast it completely. This excursion to America suggested to me the idea of putting a new question to him. I had collected at Florence, particularly with relation to bibliography, several translations of the whole Bible, or certain portions of the sacred books, in different foreign languages. Some of these translations were into languages spoken by North American savages; and in looking through them I had been struck with the measureless length[435] of most of the words of these tongues. Since the opportunity presented itself naturally, I asked M. Mezzofanti what he thought of those words, and whether the men who spoke languages apparently so calculated to put one out of breath, did not seem to be endowed with peculiar organs. Immediately taking down a book written in one of those languages, the celebrated linguist showed me practically how, in his opinion, the savages managed to pronounce these interminable words, without too much trouble. For fear of making mistakes, I cannot venture, after twenty-five years, to reproduce this explanation from memory. According to my usual practice, I had written out, on my return home, the conversation which I had just had with the celebrated linguist, and if I still possessed that part of my journal you would find there almost the exact words of the Abbé Mezzofanti; but those papers having been taken away from me by people who, under a pretext as ridiculous as odious, despoiled me, after the revolution of 1848, of all that I possessed at Paris, I must confine myself to mentioning the fact of the explanation which was given to me, without being able to tell you in what that explanation consisted.