This discussion regarding the Irish language naturally suggested a similar inquiry as to the Cardinal’s knowledge of the kindred Gælic. The Rev. John Strain, who knew him in 1832, when he first came to Rome, informs me that in that year he had no knowledge whatever of the Gælic language. He got a friend of Mr. Strain’s to repeat some sentences in it for him, and expressed a wish to procure some books for the purpose of learning it. I find from the catalogue of his library that he did procure a few Gælic books: and Rev. John Gray of Glasgow, who was a student of the Propaganda till the year 1841, informs me that he at that time knew the language, but spoke it very imperfectly.[529] An American gentleman whom I met one day in the Cardinal’s ante-chamber, showed me an impromptu English couplet which his eminence had just written for him, on his asking for some memorial of their interview. I am not able now to recall this distich to memory; but it is only one of numberless similar tokens which the Cardinal presented to his visitors and friends. One of his favourite amusements consisted in improvising little scraps of verse in various languages, for the most part embodying some pious or moral sentiment, which he flung off with the rapidity of thought, and without the slightest effort. Few of those which I have seen, indeed, can be said to exhibit much poetical genius. There is but little trace of imagination in them, and the sentiments, though excellent, are generally commonplace enough. But while, considered as a test of command over the languages in which they are written, even the most worthless of them cannot be regarded as insignificant, there are many of them which are very prettily turned, and display no common power of versification. It is difficult to recover scraps like these, fragmentary of their own nature, and scattered over every country of the earth. I have sought in vain for oriental specimens, although the Cardinal distributed numbers of them to the students of the Propaganda at their leaving college. In a sheet of autographs prefixed to this volume will be found verses in sixteen different languages. A few others are given in the appendix. I shall jot down here two or three specimens of his classical epigrams which have fallen in my way. Most of them arose out of the very circumstance of his being asked for such a token of remembrance. For instance, on one occasion when the request was addressed to him _in Greek_, he wrote: Ἑλλάδος ἠρώτας ἐμε ῥήμασιν. Ἑλλάδος ἁυδήν Ἐκχὲω, οὐδ’ ἄλλην χρή ἀπαμειβόμενον. Οὐ φθόγγος φθόγγοισιν ἀμείβεται, εί μὴ ὁμοῖος, Ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ συμφώνων γίγνεται ἁρμονίη. Νῦν δέ τίνα Γνώμην δώσω ἀιτοῦντι; τιν ἄλλην Ἡ—— ’Θεὸν ἐν πάσῃ, δὲι φιλέειν κραδίῃ.’ So again, when a visitor begged him to write _his name_ in an album, he gave, instead, this pretty couplet. Pauca dedi—nomen. Tu sane pauca petisti, Assiduus sed ego te rogo plura—preces.