“If any one should imagine,” he writes, (in the Historisch-Politische Blätter,[516] of which, conjointly with Dr. Phillips, he was editor,) “that all the honours which he has received have produced the slightest effect upon his character or disposition, he is grievously mistaken. Under all the insignia of the cardinalate, Mezzofanti is still the same plain, simple, almost bashful, good-natured, conscientious, indefatigable, active priest that he was, while a poor professor, struggling by the exercise of his talents, in the humblest form, to gain a livelihood for the relatives who were dependant on his exertions. Although his head is stored with so many languages, it has never, as so frequently occurs to the learned, shown the least indication of lightness. As Prefect of the House of Catechumens he is merely of course, charged with the supervision of their instruction; but he still discharges the duty in person, with all the exactness of a conscientious schoolmaster. He visits the establishment almost every day, and devotes a considerable part of his income to the support of its inmates. In like manner he still, as Cardinal, maintains with the Propaganda precisely the same relations which he held as a simple prelate. Although he is not bound thereto by any possible obligation, he devotes every day to the students of that institution, in summer an hour, in winter an hour and a half. He practises them and also himself in their several languages, and zealously avails himself of the opportunity thus afforded him, to exhort them to piety and to strengthen them in the spirit of their calling. It is scarcely necessary to say that these youths regard their disinterested friend and benefactor with the most devoted affection.... When I spoke to him, one day, about his relations with the pupils, he said to me, ‘It is not as a Cardinal I go there; it is as a student—as a youth—(giovanetto.)’...