After writing these lines, he asked me if there were any mistakes in them, and, if so, if I would be good enough to point them out to him. I then noticed the word _fraaj_ in the first line, knowing he would reply that the letter _i_ at the end of a word should be replaced by a _j_. The _aa_ in _taalen_, in the fourth line, he justified by a reference to the Flemish grammar which he used at the time. As for the _d_ in the preposition _med_, which occurs in the same line, he contended that this was the proper orthography of the word, as it was an abbreviation of _mede_. I would have been greatly surprised at all this, if I had not previously had occasion to admire the delicate ear which this giant of linguistic learning possessed for the subtleties of pronunciation, and the wonderful perspicacity of his orthographical system: especially as he had expressed to me his just disapprobation of the foreign words which some of our countrymen are letting slip into their conversation. He had already given proof to another traveller from Holland that he was perfectly acquainted with the difference between the words _nimmer_ and _nooit_, so that he hardly ever used one for the other.” Side by side with the Dutch traveller’s sketch, may be placed a still more lively account of Mezzofanti by another visitor of the Vatican, the poet Frankl, a Bohemian by birth, but chiefly known by his German writings. This sketch, besides the allusion to Mezzofanti’s skill in the poet’s native language, Bohemian, contains a slight, but not uninteresting specimen of Mezzofanti’s German vocabulary, and, moreover, illustrates very curiously the attention which he seems always to have given to the general principles of harmony, and his acquaintance with the metrical capabilities of more than one ancient and modern language. The Signor Luzatto, to whose introductory letter Frankl refers, was a friend of Mezzofanti—a distinguished Italian Jew—himself an accomplished linguist, and well known to oriental scholars by his contributions to the _Archives Israelites_, and by a work on the Babylonian Inscriptions. “Having furnished myself,” writes Herr Frankl, “with a letter of introduction from Luzatto of Padua, I went to the Vatican Library, of which Mezzofanti was the head. His arrival was looked for every moment; and I occupied the interval by examining the long, well lighted gallery of antiquities which is outside, and which also leads into the halls that contain the masterpieces of ancient art in marble. I was in the act of reading the inscription upon one of the many marble slabs which are inserted in the wall, when a stranger who, except myself, was the sole occupant of the gallery, said to me; ‘Here comes Monsignor Mezzofanti!’