I explain this by his ignorance of all _realities_. He remembered words and their sounds and significations almost instinctively; but he lived upon reminiscences: he never had an original thought. I understood from one of his learned colleagues, (a Roman Prelate,) that it was the same with his theology; there was no acuteness in his divinity, although he knew well St. Thomas and other scholastics. As to Biblical Criticism, he had no idea of it. His knowledge of Greek criticism too was very shallow. In short, his linguistic talent was that of seizing sounds and accents, and the whole (so to say) idiom of a language, and reproducing them by a wonderful, but equally special, memory. I do not think he had ever his equal in this respect. But the cultivation of this power had absorbed all the rest. Let it, however, never be forgotten that he was, according to all I have heard from him, a charitable, kind Christian, devout but not intolerant, and that his habitual meekness was not a cloak, but a real Christian habit and virtue. Honour be to his memory.” There is a part of this criticism which is unquestionably just: but there are also several of the views from which I am bound to dissent most strongly, and to which I shall have occasion to revert hereafter. Meanwhile, that the Cardinal paid more attention to these inquiries than Mr. Kip and M. Bunsen suppose, will appear from the testimony of the Abbé Gaume, author of the interesting work, “_Les Trois Rome_.” “I had often met the illustrious philologer,” says M. Gaume, “at the Propaganda, where he used to come to spend the afternoon. Kind, affable, modest, he mixed with the students, and spoke by turns Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Chinese, and twenty other languages, with a facility almost prodigious. When I entered, I found him studying Bas-Breton, and I have no doubt that in a short time he will be able to exhibit it to the inhabitants of Vannes themselves. His eminence assured me of two points. The first is the fundamental unity of all languages. This unity is observable especially in the parts of speech, which are the same or nearly so in all languages. The second is the trinity of dialects in the primitive language;—a trinity corresponding with the three races of mankind. The Cardinal has satisfied himself that there are but three races sprung from one common stock, as there are but three languages or principal dialects of one primitive language;—the Japhetic language and race; the Semitic language and race; and the Chamitic language and race. Thus the unity of the human kind and the trinity of races, which are established by all the monuments of history, are found also to be supported by the authority of the most extraordinary philologer that has even been known.