was unquestionably a linguist of great acquirements. His “Complete Linguist,” consisting of grammars of ten languages, was published when he was but twenty-five years old; and throughout his entire career, eccentric as it was, he appears to have persevered in the same studies. John Henley was born at Melton Mowbray, in 1692, and graduated in the University of Cambridge. He took orders, and obtained some notoriety as a preacher; but his great theatre of display was his so-called “Oratory,” where he delivered orations or lectures on a variety of topics, religious, political, humorous, and even profane. It was on one of these occasions that he drew together a large congregation of shoemakers, by the promise of showing them “the best, newest, and most expeditious way of making shoes,” which he proceeded to illustrate by holding out a boot and cutting off the leg part! Henley died in 1756.[182]
What Henley was in the learned languages, the distinguished statesman Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville, was in the modern. With all his brilliant qualities as a debater, and all his great capacity for public affairs, Carteret combined the learning and the accomplishments of a finished scholar. Swift said of him that “he carried away from Oxford more Greek, Latin, and philosophy, than became a person of his rank.” He spoke and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and even Swedish; and one of the first causes of the jealousy with which Walpole regarded him, was the volubility with which he was able to hold converse in German with their common master, George the First.
But Henley and Carteret stand almost alone among the English scholars of the early half of the seventeenth century; and the first steady impulse which the study of languages received in England, may be chiefly traced to the attractions of the honourable and emolumentary service of the East India Company. What the diplomatic ambition of France in the Levant effected among the scholars of that country, the commercial enterprise of the merchant princess of England achieved in her Indian territory; and the splendid rewards held out to practical Oriental scholarship, gave an impulse to the study of Eastern languages on a more liberal and comprehensive scale.[183] It is in great part to this, that we are indebted for the splendid successes of Sir William Jones, of Marsden, of Colebrooke, of Craufurd, of Lumsden, of Leyden, and still more recently, of Colonel Vans Kennedy.
The first of these, William Jones, was the son of a school-master, and was born in London, in 1741. He was educated at Harrow, where he exhibited an early taste for languages,[184] and was especially distinguished in Greek and Latin metrical composition. In 1764, he entered the University of Oxford, where he learned Arabic from a Syrian whose acquaintance he chanced to form. To this he soon after added Persian; and in 1770, he performed the very unusual feat of translating the history of Nadir Shah into French. In the following year he published his Persian Grammar, which took the general public as much by surprise, by the beauty and eloquence of the poetical translations which accompanied the copious examples that illustrated it, as it excited the admiration of scholars by the simplicity and practical good sense of its technical details. He soon afterwards applied himself to the language and literature of China; which, however, he never made a profound study, as about this time (1770), feeling the precariousness of a purely literary profession, he took steps to have himself called to the English bar, and for the following twelve years devoted himself with all his characteristic energy, and with marked success, to its laborious and engrossing duties. During the same period he endeavoured unsuccessfully to obtain a seat in Parliament; but in 1783, he accepted the appointment of Judge in the supreme court at Calcutta, and repaired to India in the same year. His attention to the duties of his office, is said to have been most earnest and exemplary. But, in the intervals of duty, he travelled over a great part of India; mixed eagerly in native society; and had acquired a familiarity with the history, antiquities, religions, science, and laws of India, such as had never before been attained by any European scholar, when, unhappily for the science to which he was so thoroughly devoted, he was cut off prematurely in the year 1794, at the early age of forty-seven. During a life thus laborious, and in great part spent in pursuits utterly uncongenial with linguistic studies, Sir William Jones had nevertheless amassed a store of languages which had seldom, perhaps never, been equalled before his time. Fortunately too, unlike most of the linguists whom we have been enumerating, he himself left an autograph record of these studies, which Lord Teignmouth has preserved in his interesting Biography. In this paper, he describes the total number of languages with which he was in any degree acquainted to have been twenty-eight; but he further distributes these into classes according to the degree of his familiarity with each. From this curious memorandum, it appears that he had studied critically eight languages, viz:—English, Latin, French, Italian, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit; eight others he had studied less perfectly, but all were intelligible to him with the aid of a Dictionary, viz:—Spanish, Portuguese, German, Runick, Hebrew, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish; twelve others, in fine, he had studied least perfectly; but he considered all these attainable; namely Tibetan, Pali, Palavi, Deri, Russian, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Welsh, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese.[185]
Now, as Lord Teignmouth[186] describes him as perfectly familiar with Spanish, Portuguese, and German, three languages which he has himself placed on the list of languages, “less critically studied, but intelligible with the aid of a dictionary,” it may fairly be believed that this estimate is, to say the least, a sufficiently modest one; and that his acquaintance even with the languages of the third class was by no means superficial, we may infer from another memorandum preserved by Lord Teignmouth from which we find that he had studied the grammars of two at least of the number, namely: Russian and Welsh. His biographer, however, unfortunately enters into no details as to his power of speaking languages; but he is said by the writer of the notice in the Biographie Universelle to have spoken eight languages as perfectly as his native English.
In contrast with successes so brilliant as these, the comparatively humble career of the other British Orientalists named in conjunction with Sir William Jones, will appear tame and uninteresting. William Marsden was born in Dublin, 1754; and, after having completed the ordinary classical studies, was sent out to Bencoolen in the island of Sumatra, at the early age of sixteen. The extraordinary facility which he exhibited for acquiring the Malay languages led to his rapid advancement. He was named first under-secretary, and afterwards chief secretary of the Island; and, before his return in 1779, he had accumulated the materials for the exceedingly valuable work on Sumatra which he published in 1782. Marsden held several important appointments after his return,[187] and he employed every interval of his official duties in literary pursuits. He was a thorough master of Sanscrit, and all its kindred languages; but he must be described, nevertheless, rather as a book-learned, than a practical linguist. His Essay on the Polynesian or East Insular languages, tracing their connexion with each other, and their common relations with Sanscrit, is still a standard source of information on this interesting ethnological question.
Henry Thomas Colebrooke,[188] well known by his numerous contributions to Oriental literature, especially in the Asiatic Journal, was also an official of the East India Company, whose employment he entered, while still very young, as a civil servant. Colebrooke was well versed, not only in the Indian languages, but also in those of the Hebrew and cognate races; and his early education in France gave him a greater familiarity with French and other modern tongues than is often found to accompany the more profound linguistic studies.
Matthew Lumsden was born in Aberdeenshire in 1777, and went as a mere boy to India, where his brother had an appointment in the service of the Company. Lumsden’s knowledge of Hindostani and of Persian led to his being employed first as translator in the criminal court, and afterwards as professor in Fortwilliam College, where he remained till 1820. His skill in Persian and Arabic is attested by several publications upon both, chiefly elementary; but he can hardly be classed with the higher Orientalists, much less with linguists of more universal pretensions.
Lord Cockburn, in the lively section of his amusing “Memorials of his Own Time” which he devotes to the singular and unsteady career of John Leyden, says that M’Intosh, to whom “his wild friend” was clearly a source of great amusement, used to laugh at the affected modesty with which Leyden “professed to know but seventy languages.”[189] It is plain that M’Intosh considered this an extreme exaggeration; but there can be no doubt, nevertheless, that Leyden was a very extraordinary linguist. This strange man, whose name will perhaps be remembered by the frequent allusions to it in the early correspondence of Sir Walter Scott, was born of a very humble family at Denholm in 1775. Though his education was of the very lowest order, yet Scott relates that “before he had attained his nineteenth year, he confounded the doctors of Edinburgh by the portentous mass of his acquisitions in almost every department of knowledge.”[190] Having failed very signally in the clerical profession, to which he was brought up by his parents, he embraced that of medicine; and, after undergoing a more than ordinary share of the privations and vicissitudes of literary life such as it then existed, he went to Madras in 1803 in the capacity of assistant surgeon in the East India Company’s service. The adoption of this career decided the course of his after studies. He had learned, while yet a mere youth, preparing for the university, Hebrew and Arabic. He afterwards extended his researches into all the chief languages of the East, Sanscrit, Hindustani, and many other minor varieties of the Indian tongues. He was also thorough master of Persian. His career as Professor of Hindustani at Calcutta was more successful than that of any European scholar since Sir William Jones. Having also studied the Malay language, from which he made several translations, he was induced to accompany Lord Minto on the Java expedition in 1811, where he was cut off after a short illness in the same year, too soon, unhappily, to allow of his turning to full account the important materials which he had collected for the comparative study of the Indo-Chinese languages.
The well-known evangelical commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, born in 1760, of very humble parentage, at Magherafelt, in the County of Londonderry, in the north of Ireland, and for a long course of years the most distinguished preacher of the Methodist communion, enjoyed a high reputation among his followers as a linguist; but his studies had been confined almost entirely to the Biblical languages. The same may be said of the Rev. Dr. Barrett, vice-provost of Trinity College, Dublin, who is known to Biblical students as the editor of the Palimpsest MS. of the Gospels, and of the celebrated Codex Montfortianus.
But there is more of curious interest in the career of a very extraordinary individual, Richard Roberts Jones, of Aberdarvan, in Carnarvonshire, who, if not for the extent of his attainments, at least for the exceedingly unfavourable circumstances under which they were acquired, deserves a place among examples of the “pursuit of knowledge under difficulties.” A privately printed memoir of this singular character, by Mr. Roscoe, who took much interest in him, and exerted himself warmly in his behalf, contains several most curious particulars regarding his studies and acquirements, as well as his personal habits and appearance. Mr. Roscoe first met him in 1806, and described him to Dr. Parr as “a poor Welsh fisher-lad, as ragged as a colt, and as uncouth as any being that has a semblance of humanity. But beneath such an exterior,” he adds, “is a mind cultivated, not only beyond all reasonable expectation, but beyond all probable conception. In his fishing boat on the coast of Wales, at an age little more than twenty, he has acquired Greek, Hebrew, and Latin; has read the Iliad, Hesiod, Theocritus, &c.; studied the refinements of Greek pronunciation; and examined the connection of that language with Hebrew.” An attempt was made to raise him to a position more befitting his acquirements. But his habits were of the rudest and most uncleanly. “He loved to lie on his back in the bottom of a ditch. His uncouth appearance, solitary habits, and perhaps weak intellect, made him an object of ridicule and persecution to the children of the district; and, he often carried an iron pot on his head to screen him from the stones and clods which they threw at him. He wore a large filthy wrapper, in the pockets and folds of which he stowed his library; and his face, covered with hair, gave him a strangely uncouth appearance; although the mild and abstracted expression of his features took from it much of its otherwise repulsive character.” Mr. Roscoe gives a very curious account of an interview between Dr. Parr and this strange genius, in 1815, in the course of which Jones “exhibited a familiarity with French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee.” He described too, for Dr. Parr, his mode of acquiring a new language, which consisted in carefully examining its vocabulary, ascertaining what words in it corresponded with those of any language which he had previously learned, and having struck such words out of the vocabulary, proceeding to impress the remaining words upon his memory, as being the only ones which were peculiar to the new language which he sought to acquire. It may easily be believed that Jones’s irreclaimably uncouth and eccentric habits defeated the efforts made by his friends to place him in a condition more befitting his acquirements. Clothes with which their thoughtfulness might replace his habitual rags, in a few days were sure to present the same filthy and dilapidated appearance. When a bed was provided for him, he chose to sleep not upon, but under it; and all his habits bespoke at once weakness of mind and indisposition, or perhaps incapacity, to accommodate himself to the ordinary usages of other men.
Dr. Thomas Young, although his fame must rest chiefly upon his brilliant philosophical discoveries, (especially in the Theory of Light), and on his success in deciphering and systematizing the hieroglyphical writing of the Egyptians, as exhibited in the inscriptions of the Rosetta Stone and in the funereal papyri, cannot be passed over in a history of eminent British linguists. Young was born at Milverton in Somersetshire, in 1773. His mind was remarkably precocious. He had read the whole Bible twice through, besides other books, before he was four years old. In his seventh year he learnt Latin; and before he left school in his thirteenth year, he added to this Greek, French, and Italian. Soon after his return from school, he mastered Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Persian; and, in all those languages, as well as in his own, his reading (of which his journals have preserved a most minute and accurate record), was so various and so vast, as almost to exceed belief. Having embraced the medical profession, he passed two years in different German Universities, during which time he not only extended his knowledge of learned languages, but also became perfect master of German;—not to speak of various other acquisitions, some of them of a class which are seldom found to accompany scholastic eminence, such as riding two horses at the same time, walking or dancing on the tight rope, and various other feats of harlequinade! Of his skill in the ancient Egyptian language, as well as its more modern forms, in which he rivalled, and as his English biographer, Dr. Peacock, seeks to show,[191] surpassed, Champollion and Lepsius, it is unnecessary to speak: and it is highly probable that, having learned Italian while a mere youth,[192] he also made himself acquainted with Spanish, and perhaps Portuguese.
Dr. Pritchard, who may be regarded as the founder of the English school of ethnography, can hardly, notwithstanding, be strictly called a linguist. If we except the Celtic languages, and Greek, Latin, and German, most of his learning regarding the rest is taken at second-hand from Adelung and others. Nevertheless, the linguistic section of his “Researches into the Physical History of Mankind,” is a work of very great value. M. Bunsen pronounces it “the best of its kind; infinitely superior, as a whole, to Adelung’s Mithridates”;[193] and Cardinal Wiseman, in his masterly lecture “On the Natural History of the Human race,” not only gives Pritchard the credit of being “almost the first who attempted to connect ethnography with philology,” but even goes so far as to say that it will henceforth “be difficult for any one to treat of this theme without being indebted to Dr. Pritchard for a great portion of his materials.”[194]
Of the school of living British linguists I shall not be expected to speak at much length; but there are a few names so familiar to the scholars of every country that it would be unpardonable to pass them over entirely without notice.
The work just quoted, from the very time of its publication in 1836, established the reputation of Dr. (now Cardinal) Wiseman, still a very young writer, as a philologist of the first rank. His latest writings show that, through all the engrossing duties in which he has since been engaged, he has continued to cultivate the science of philology.[195] The Cardinal is, moreover, a most accomplished linguist. Besides the ordinary learned languages, he is master not only of Hebrew and Chaldee, but also of Syriac (of his scholarship in which his Horæ Syriacæ is a most honourable testimony), Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit. In modern languages he has few superiors. He speaks with fluency and elegance French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Portuguese; and in most of these languages he has frequently preached or lectured extempore, or with little preparation.
The interesting discoveries of Colonel Rawlinson and of Dr. Hincks, and Dr. Cureton’s very important Syriac publications, have associated their names with the linguistic as well as the antiquarian memories of this age. Nor are there many English Orientalists whose foreign reputation is so high as that of Mr. Lane. But I am unable to speak of the attainments of any of these gentlemen in the other families of language.
By far the most noticeable names in the list of living linguists of British race are those of Sir John Bowring, now Governor at Hong-Kong, Professor Lee of Cambridge, and the American ex-blacksmith, Elihu Burritt. All three, beyond their several degrees of personal merit, possess a common claim to admiration, as being almost entirely self-educated. John (now Sir John) Bowring, as I learn from a Memoir published about three years since,[196] before he had attained his eighteenth year, had learned Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Dutch. He is said to have since added to his store almost every language of Europe;—Russian, Servian, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian, Slovakian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Lettish, Finnish, and even Basque; and he is further described as familiar with all the provincial varieties of each; for instance, of the various offshoots of German, and of the several dialects of Spanish which prevail in Catalonia, Valencia and Galicia. Dr. Bowring’s later career brought him into familiarity with Arabic and Turkish; and his still more recent successes in China and in Siam and its dependencies are equally remarkable. It is not so easy to offer an opinion as to the degree of Sir John Bowring’s acquaintance with each of the languages which are ascribed to him. His interesting poetical translations from Russian, Servian, Bohemian, and other languages of Europe, are rather a test of elegant literary tastes than of exact linguistic attainments; nor am I aware to what more direct ordeal his various attainments have been subjected. It were to be wished that the Memoir from which these particulars are derived had entered more into detail upon this part of the subject. But, even making every allowance for possible exaggeration, it seems impossible to doubt the claim of Sir John Bowring to a place in the very highest rank of modern linguists.
Dr. Samuel Lee is perhaps even a still more extraordinary example of self-education. He was born in the very humblest rank in the village of Longnor in Shropshire, and, after having spent a short time in the poor-school of his native village, commenced life as a carpenter’s apprentice, when he was but twelve years old. In the few intervals of leisure which this laborious occupation permitted, Mr. Jerdan states[197] that, without the least assistance from masters, he taught himself Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldee; having contrived, from the hoardings of his scanty wages, to procure a few elementary books in these and other languages. On his marriage, however, he was forced to sell the little library which he had accumulated, in order to provide for the new wants with which he found himself encompassed: and for a time his struggle after learning was suspended; but his extraordinary attainments having begun to attract notice, he was relieved from the uncongenial occupation which he had hitherto followed, and appointed master of a school at Shrewsbury. In the more favourable position which he had thus obtained, he soon extended his reading to Arabic, Persian, and Hindustani. In 1813 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where it is worthy of note that he distinguished himself no less in science than in languages, and took his degree with much credit. He was afterwards appointed superintendent of the Oriental press of the British and Foreign Bible Society, for which body he has not only edited the Arabic, Persian, Coptic, Hindustani, Malay, and other versions of the Bible, but has also translated, or superintended the translation, of many tracts in these various languages. When Mr. Wheaton, an American traveller, (brother of the well-known American jurist of that name) visited Professor Lee, he found him acquainted with no less than “sixteen languages, in most of which he was able to write.”[198] Neither this writer, however, nor Mr. Jerdan, informs us as to the extent of Dr. Lee’s attainments in speaking foreign languages.
The list of linguists of the British race may be closed not unworthily with the still more remarkable name of Elihu Burritt, who, though born in America (in 1811,) is descended of an English family, settled in Connecticut for the last two centuries. The circumstances of Burritt’s father, who was a shoemaker, were so narrow, that the education of Elihu, the youngest of five sons, was entirely neglected. When his father died, Elihu, then above fifteen years old, had spent but three months at school; and, being altogether dependent on his own exertions for support, he was obliged to bind himself as an apprentice to the trade of blacksmith. Fortunately, however, an elder brother who was a schoolmaster, settled in the same town before the term of Elihu’s apprenticeship expired; and as the latter had carefully devoted each spare moment of his laborious life to reading every book that came within his reach, he gladly availed himself, as soon as he became his own master, of his brother’s offer to take him as a pupil for half a year, which was all the time he could hope to spare from his craft. During that time, brief as it was, Elihu “became well versed in mathematics, went through Virgil in the original, and read several French books.” Having thus laid the foundation, he returned to his trade, resolved to labour till he should have acquired the means of completing the work; and, in the strong passion for knowledge which devoured him, he actually engaged himself to do the work of two men, in order that, by receiving double wages, he might more quickly realize the desired independence. Yet, even while he was thus doubly tasked, and while his daily hours of labour were no less than fourteen, he contrived to give some time in the mornings and evenings to Latin, French, and Spanish; and he actually procured a small “Greek grammar, which would just lie in the crown of his hat, and used to carry it with him to read during his work—the casting of brass cow bells, a task which required no small amount of attention!”
With the little store which he thus toilfully accumulated, he betook himself to New Haven, the seat of Yale College, although without a hope of being able to avail himself of its literary advantages. Here too he worked almost unaided. He took lodgings at an inn frequented by the students, though too poor to enter the university; and in the course of a few months, by unremitting study, he read through the whole Iliad in Greek, and had made considerable progress in Italian and German, besides extending his knowledge of Spanish and French. Having obtained, soon afterwards, a commercial appointment, he was partially released, for a space, from the mechanical drudgery in which he was so long engaged; and, as he was thus enabled to devote a little more time to his favourite studies, he contrived to learn Hebrew, and made his first advance towards a regular course of Oriental reading. But this interval of rest was a brief one; after a very mortifying failure, he was at last compelled to return once more to the anvil, as his only sure resource against poverty. Still, nevertheless, he toiled on in his enthusiastic struggle for knowledge. Even while engaged in this painful drudgery, “every moment,” says Mrs. Howitt,[199] “which he could steal out of the four-and-twenty hours was devoted to study; he rose early in the winter mornings, and, while the mistress of the house was preparing breakfast by lamplight, he would stand by the mantel-piece, with his Hebrew Bible on the shelf, and his lexicon in his hand, thus studying while he ate; the same method was pursued at the other meals; mental and bodily food being taken in together. This severe labour of mind, as might be expected, produced serious effects on his health; he suffered much from headaches, the characteristic remedy for which were two or three additional hours of hard forging, and a little less study.”
An extract from his own weekly Diary, which Mrs. Howitt has preserved, tells the story of his struggle still more touchingly:—“Monday, June 18, headache; forty pages Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, sixty-four pages French, eleven hours forging. Tuesday, sixty-five lines of Hebrew, thirty pages of French, ten pages Cuvier’s Theory, eight lines Syriac, ten ditto Danish, ten ditto Bohemian, nine ditto Polish, fifteen names of stars, ten hours forging. Wednesday, twenty-five lines Hebrew, fifty pages of astronomy, eleven hours forging. Thursday, fifty-five lines Hebrew, eight ditto Syriac, eleven hours forging. Friday, unwell; twelve hours forging. Saturday, unwell; fifty pages Natural Philosophy, ten hours forging. Sunday, lesson for Bible class.”
Through these and many similar difficulties, has this extraordinary man found his way to eminence. Without attempting to chronicle the stages of his progress, it will be enough to state that a writer of last year describes him as at present acquainted with eighteen languages, besides his native English, viz:—Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Ethiopic, Italian, French, Spanish, German, Danish, Irelandic, Esthonian, Bohemian, and Polish.[200] He is author of several works, and was for some time Editor of a Journal entitled “The Christian Citizen.”
As in the case of Dr. Lee, no attempt is made, in either of the biographies of Burritt which I have consulted, to define with exactness the degree of his knowledge of each among the various languages which he has learned; but if his proficiency in them be at all considerable, his position among linguists must be admitted to be of the very highest; and as he is still only in his forty-sixth year, it would be difficult to predict what may be the limit of his future successes.
The extraordinary capacity of the Slavonic races for the acquisition of foreign languages, has long been a subject of observation and of wonder. In every educated foreign circle Russians and Poles may be met, whom it is impossible to distinguish, by their language, or even by their accent, from the natives of the country: and this accomplishment is frequently found to embrace the entire range of the polite languages of Europe. In the higher native Russian society, it is rare to meet one who does not speak several languages, besides his own. Every candidate for public office in Russia, especially in connexion with foreign affairs, must be master of at least four languages, French, German, English, and Italian; and in the Eastern governments of the empire, are constantly to be found employés, who, to the ordinary stock of European languages, add an equal number of the dialects of the Asiatic races subject to the Czar.
In most cases, however, this facility in the use of foreign languages enjoyed by the natives of Russia and Poland, is chiefly conversational, and acquired rather by practice than by study; and, among the numbers who, during the last three centuries, must be presumed to have possessed this gift in an eminent degree, very few appear to have acquired a permanent reputation as scholars in the higher sense of the name.
Unfortunately, too, even were it otherwise, the materials for a history of Russian linguists are extremely scanty. Not one of those who have written upon Slavonic Literature, appears to have adverted to this as a distinct branch of scholarship; Slavonic scholars, too, have met but imperfect justice from the writers on general biography; and thus, especially for one to whom the native sources of information are inaccessible, the rare allusions which can be gleaned from the general history of Slavonic literature supply but an uncertain and imperfect guide,[201] even did opportunities present themselves for pursuing the inquiry.
It would be unpardonable, nevertheless, to pass the subject over in silence; and I can only renew in especial reference to this part of the memoir, the claim for indulgence with which I entered upon this Essay.
Christianity, and with it the first seeds of civilization, reached Russia from Constantinople; and it is not unlikely that the friendly and frequent intercourse which subsisted between the two courts under the first Christian Dukes of Muscovy, Vladimir and Jaroslav, may have led to a considerable interchange of language between the members of the two nations. The many foreign alliances, too, with Constantinople, Germany, Hungary, France, England, Norway, and Poland, which were formed by the children of Jaroslav, may, perhaps, have tended to familiarize his subjects, or at least his court, with some of the languages of Southern and Western Europe. But no record of this—the one bright period in early Russian history—has been preserved, from which any particulars can be gleaned.
The division of Jaroslav’s dominions between his sons at his death, (in 1054,) plunged the Russian nation into a series of civil wars and into the barbarism to which such wars lead, from which it did not begin to emerge till the sixteenth century; and, although a few translations (chiefly theological), from Greek and Latin, were made during this period, yet, from the interruption of all intercourse with foreign countries, it may be presumed that (with the exception, perhaps, of a few enterprising individuals, like the merchant Nikitin,[202] who, in the fifteenth century, traversed the entire East, and penetrated as far as Tibet,) the natives of an empire so completely isolated concerned themselves little about any language beyond their own.
Macarius, who was Metropolitan of Moscow in the middle of the sixteenth century, did something to promote the introduction of foreign letters into Russia,[203] and many translations, not only from the Greek and Latin fathers, but also from the classical writers, were made under his direction. A still greater impulse must have been given to this particular branch of study by the new policy introduced by the Czar Boris Feodorowitsch Godounoff, who not only invited learned foreigners to his court, but sent eighteen young nobles of Russia to foreign countries to study their arts, their literature and their languages.[204]
The results of this more liberal policy, however, had hardly begun to be felt, when the troubles which followed the well-known revolution of Demetrius the Impostor, revived for a time the worst forms of barbarism in the Empire.
The elevation (in 1613,) of the family of Romanoff to the throne, in the person of the Czar Michael, by restoring a more settled government, contributed to advance the cause of letters. The monk Beründa Pameva, published about this time a Slavo-Russian Lexicon, which exhibits in its etymologies an acquaintance with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.[205]
A school was founded at Moscow by the priest-monk Arsenius, for the study of Greek and Latin, in 1643, one of the scholars of which, Theodore Rtischtscheff, founded a society for translating works from foreign languages in 1649; and another school of still more wide-spread influence was opened in the Monastery of Saikonosspassk, in 1682. It is worthy of remark, nevertheless, that the first Russian grammar, that of Ludolf,[206] was printed, not at any native press, but in the University of Oxford.
One of the members of the Translation Society alluded to above, the monk Epiphanius Slawinezki, appears to have been regarded by his contemporaries as a linguist of notable attainments. He published a Greek, Latin, and Slavonic Dictionary, and commenced a Slavonic translation of the Bible from the original Greek, which was cut short by his death in 1676; but there is no reason to believe that he was acquainted with any of the Oriental languages; and the inference to be drawn from the reputation which he enjoyed on so slight a foundation, is far from creditable to the linguistic attainments of his time.
It is only from the reign of Peter the Great that the history of this, as of all other branches of Russian enlightenment, may be properly said to commence. Independently of the encouragement which Peter held out to foreign talent to devote itself to his service, the grand and comprehensive scheme of the academy which he planned under the direction of Leibnitz, contained a special provision for the department of languages.[207] And although it was not formally opened until after Peter’s death, by the Empress Catherine I. (1725), the influence of the policy in which it originated, had made itself felt long before. The Czar’s favourite, Mentschikoff, who from an obscure origin (1674-1729) built up the fortunes of what is now one of the greatest houses of Russia, was master of eight languages, most of which he spoke with perfect fluency. Demetrius Kantemir, (1673-1723), father of the celebrated poet of that name, deserves also to be noticed. He was descended of a Turkish family, and held the office of Hospodar of Moldavia; but he prized his literary reputation more than his rank. He appears to have been a scholar in the highest sense of the name, and was familiarly acquainted, not only with the living languages which are so easily acquired by his countrymen, but with several of the learned languages, both of the East and the West.[208] The poet, his son Antiochus Demetrjewitsch, is also described as “master of several languages, ancient and modern.”[209] The same may be inferred regarding the great traveller, Basilius Gregorowitsch Barskj, who was born at Kiew, in 1702. He must necessarily have acquired, during his long and adventurous wanderings in Europe and the East, a familiarity with many of the languages of the various countries through which he journeyed, although he was prevented from turning it to account upon his return to Russia by his premature death in 1747.[210]
Basilius Nikititsch Tatisscheff, one of the youths sent abroad by Peter the Great, for the purpose of studying in the foreign universities, enjoyed a considerable reputation as a linguist.[211] The History of Russia which he compiled, supposes a familiarity with several Asiatic, as well as European languages; but, as it is not improbable that part of the materials which he employed in this history were translated for his use by assistants engaged for the purpose, it may be doubted whether this can be assumed as a fair test of his own capabilities. The linguistic attainments of the celebrated poet Lemonossoff,[212] although considerable, form his least solid title to fame. His history is so full of interest, that its incidents, almost utterly unvarnished, have supplied the narrative of one of the most popular of modern Russian novels. Born (1711) in a rude fisher’s hut in the wretched village of Denissowka on the shore of the Frozen Ocean, he rose by his own unassisted genius not only to high eminence in science, but to the very first rank in the literature of his native country, of which he may truly be described as the founder; and, although he does not seem to have made languages a special study, he deserves to be noticed even in this department. He was perfect master of Greek, Latin, French, and German; and possessed with other ancient and modern languages, an acquaintance sufficient for all the purposes of study. The attainments of his contemporary, Basilius Petrowitsch Petroff, (1736) were perhaps more profound. He was a scholar of the celebrated convent of Saikonosspassk; and having attracted notice by an ode which he composed for the coronation of the Empress Catherine, he was employed, through the influence of Potemkin, at the English and several other European courts. Through the opportunities which he thus enjoyed, he became one of the best linguists of his day, and we may form an estimate of his zeal and perseverance from the circumstance of his having learned Romaic after his sixtieth year.[213] Gabriel, Archbishop of St. Petersburg, (1775-1801) and one of the most distinguished pulpit orators of Russia, is also mentioned as a very remarkable linguist.[214] His success, however, lay chiefly in modern languages.
The most eminent scholars engaged in the philological and ethnological investigations undertaken by the Empress Catherine II. were foreigners; as, for example, Pallas, and Bakmeister. Some, however, were native Russians, but few details are preserved regarding them. Of Sujeff, who accompanied Pallas in the expedition to Tartary and China, and who translated the journals of the expedition into Russian,[215] I have not been able to obtain any particulars. I have been equally unsuccessful as to the history of Theodore Mirievo de Jankiewitsch, the compiler of the alphabetical Digest of Pallas’s Comparative Vocabulary, described in a former page; but it can scarcely be doubted, from the very nature of his task, that he must have been a man of no ordinary acquirements as a linguist, at least as regards the vocabularies of language.
During the present century a good deal has been done in Russia for the cultivation of particular families of languages. The “Lazareff Institute,” founded at Moscow in 1813,[216] by an Armenian family from which it takes its name, comprehends in its truly munificent scheme of education not only the Armenian, Georgian, and Tartar languages, but also the several members of the Caucasian family.[217] An Oriental Institute[218] on a somewhat similar plan was established at St. Petersburg in 1823. Another was opened at the still more favourable centre of languages, Odessa, in 1829; and a fourth, yet more recently, at Kazan, the meeting point of the two great classes of languages which practically divide between them the entire Russian Empire.[219] Individual scholars, too, have taken to themselves particular branches of the study, some of them with very remarkable success. Timkoffsky, the well-known missionary in China,[220] and Hyacinth Bitchourin, who was head of the Pekin Russian Mission from 1808 to 1812, have contributed to popularize the study of Chinese.[221] Igumnoff of Irkutsch published a useful dictionary of the Mongol: Giganoff, and more recently Volkoff, a dictionary of the Tartar languages; of which Mirza Kazem-Beg, professor of the Turkish and Tartar languages at St. Petersburg, has compiled an excellent grammar. The same service has been rendered to the language of Georgia and its several dialects by David Tchubinoff.[222] The numerous philological writings of Goulianoff, too, and, more lately, Prince Alexander Handjeri’s Dictionnaire Français, Arabe, Persan, et Turc,[223] have established a European reputation.
The present Prefect Apostolic of the Arctic Missions, who is a convert from the Russian Church, is said to be a very extraordinary linguist. Even before he entered upon his missionary charge, in which, of course, the circle of his languages is much enlarged, he habitually heard confessions, at Paris, in six languages.
Perhaps also it may be permitted to enumerate among Russian linguists three eminent literary men who have long been resident at St. Petersburg, and who, although not natives of Russia, may now be regarded as naturalised subjects of the Empire—Senkowsky, Gretsch and Mirza Kazem-Beg.
The first is by birth a Pole;[224] but having early attained to much eminence as an Orientalist, and having travelled with some reputation as an explorer in Syria and Egypt, he obtained the Professorship of Oriental languages in the university of St. Petersburg, in which he has since distinguished himself by an important controversy with the celebrated Von Hammer. Senkowsky, since his residence in St. Petersburg, has made the Russian language his own, and is one of the most prolific writers in the entire range of modern Russian literature. His grammar of that language is among the most intelligible to foreigners that has ever been issued. With most of the languages of Europe, he is said to be perfectly familiar, and his attainments as an Orientalist are of the very highest rank. He is a corresponding member of the Asiatic Societies of most of the capitals of Europe, and publishes indifferently in Polish, Russian, German, and French.
Gretsch, the editor of the well-known St. Petersburg Journal, “The Northern Bee,” is perhaps less profound, but equally varied in his attainments. Although a German by birth, he writes exclusively in Russian, and is the author of the best and most popular extant history of Russian literature; of which Otto’s Lehrbuch der Russischen Literatur, although apparently an independent work, is almost a literal translation.[225]
Mirza Kazem-Beg is of the Tartar race, but a native of Astracan, where his father, a man of much reputation for learning, had settled about the commencement of the century. Soon after the establishment of the professorship of the Turkish and Tartar languages at Kazan, Kazem-Beg was selected to fill it; and, after some time, he was removed to the same chair in the University of Petersburg, which he still holds. Besides the ordinary learned languages, he is acquainted with the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, and Turkish, as well as those of the Tartar stock; and he is described as perfect master of the modern European languages, especially French, Italian, German, and English. The last named language he speaks and writes with great ease and elegance, and has even published some translations into it, as, for example, the “Derbend-Nâmeh.”[226]
The reputation of the Poles as linguists is equally high. So far back as the election of Henry de Valois, Choisnin, who accompanied Henry to Poland, says that of the two hundred Polish nobles who were then assembled, there were hardly two who did not speak, in addition to their native Polish, German, Italian, and Latin.[227] So universal was the knowledge of the last named language that, with perhaps a pardonable exaggeration, Martin Kromer alleges that there were fewer in Poland than in Latium itself who did not speak it.[228]
Nevertheless, few names present themselves in this department which have left any permanent trace in history. Francis Meninski, the learned author of the Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium,[229] was not only a profound scholar in most of the ancient and modern languages, but, from his long residence in the East, and from the office of Oriental Interpreter which he held, first in the Polish and afterwards in the Imperial service, must be presumed to have spoken them freely and familiarly. But Meninski was a native of Lorraine, and by some is believed to have been originally named Menin, and only to have adopted the Polish affix, ski, on receiving from the Diet his patent of naturalization and nobility.
Among the early Polish Jesuits were many accomplished classical and Oriental linguists, but in the absence of any particulars of their attainments, it would be uninteresting to enumerate them. In later times the names of Groddek and Bobrowski may be mentioned as philologers, if not as linguists. The learned Jesuit historian, John Christopher Albertrandy, also, possesses this among many other lilies to fame. He was a most laborious and successful collector of materials for Polish history, in search of which he explored the libraries of Italy, from whence he carried home, after three years of patient research, a hundred and ten folio volumes of extracts copied with his own hand! From Italy he proceeded to Stockholm and Upsala, where many important documents connected with the time of John III. and Sigismond III. are preserved: and here, being, from some unworthy jealousy, only permitted to inspect the desired documents on the condition of not making notes or copies in the library, his prodigious memory enabled him on his return each evening to his apartments, to commit to writing what he had read during the day, and the collection thus formed amounted to no fewer than ninety folio volumes![230] Albertrandy’s historical works are very numerous; and when his labours in this department are remembered, his success as a linguist will appear almost prodigious. Besides Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, he knew most of the modern languages, French, English, Italian, German, and Russian, and spoke the majority of them with ease and propriety.
The well-known Polish General, Wenceslaus Rzewuski, devoted the later years of his busy and chequered career to literary, and especially to linguistic, pursuits. He is said to have spoken the learned tongues as well and as freely as his native Polish, and to have been master, moreover, of all the leading modern languages of Europe. The great Oriental Journal published at Vienna, Fundgruben des Orients, which is really what its title implies, a mine of Oriental learning, was for many years under his superintendence.
The Russo-Polish diplomatist, Count Andrew Italinski, is another example of the union of profound scholarship with great talents for public affairs. Born in Poland about the middle of the eighteenth century, Italinski visited in the successive stages of his education, Kiew, Leyden, Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Berlin, and acquired the languages of all those various countries. Being eventually appointed to the Russian embassy in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, he became even more perfect in Italian. In addition to all these languages, he was so thoroughly master of those of the East, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, &c., as to challenge the admiration even of the Easterns themselves.[231]
It is perhaps right to add that the eminent Orientalist of St. Petersburg, Senkowsky, although a Russian by residence and by association, is not only, as I have already stated, of Polish birth, but is, moreover, one of the most popular writers in his native language.
Our notice of Bohemian linguists must be even more meagre.
The early period of Bohemian letters presents no distinguished name. From the extraordinary activity which the Bohemians exhibited in translating the Bible in the fifteenth century, it might be supposed that the study of Greek and Hebrew had already taken root in the schools of Prague. But out of the “thirty-three copies in Bohemian of the entire Bible, and twenty-two of the New Testament,”[232] which are still extant, translated during that period, not one was rendered from the original languages. Blakoslav, the first translator of the Bible from Greek (in 1563) is said to have been a man of “profound erudition.” The same is said of George Strye a few years later; and the Jesuits Konstanj, Steyer, and Drachovsky, are also entitled to notice.
John Amos Komnensky, also, better known by his Latinized name, Comenius, a native of Komna in Moravia, (1592-1671) deserved well of linguistic science, not only by his own acquirements, but by his well-known work, the Janua Linguarum Reserata, which has had the rare fortune of being translated not only into twelve European languages, but into those of several Oriental nations besides. The Janua Linguarum, however, though it attracted much attention at the time, has long been forgotten.
It would be still more unpardonable to overlook the celebrated philologer, Father Joseph Dobrowsky, who, although born in Raab, in Hungary, was of a Bohemian family, and devoted himself especially to the literature and language of his nation. He had just entered the Jesuit society at Brunn at the moment of the suppression of the order. Repairing to Prague, he applied himself for a time to the study of the Oriental languages, but eventually concentrated all his energies on the history and language of Bohemia. His works upon Bohemian history and antiquities fill many volumes; and his Slavonic Grammar may be regarded as a classical work, not only in reference to his native language, but to the whole Slavonian family. Father Dobrowsky survived till the year 1829, engaged until the very time of his death in active projects for the cultivation of the language and literature of the country of his adoption.
But probably the most remarkable name among Bohemian linguists is that of Father Dobrowsky’s friend, the poet Wenceslaus Hanka, born at Horeneyes in 1791. Hanka’s love of languages was first stirred while he was tending sheep near his native village, by the opportunity which he had of learning Polish and Servian from some soldiers of these races being quartered upon his father’s farm. When he grew somewhat older, his parents, in order to save him from the chances of military conscription, (from which, in Bohemia, scholars are exempted) sent him to school; and he afterwards entered the University of Prague, and subsequently that of Vienna. On the foundation of the Bohemian Museum at Prague, he was appointed its librarian, through the recommendation of Father Dobrowsky; and from that time he devoted himself almost entirely to the antiquities, literature, and language of his native country. Besides his own original compositions, Hanka’s name has obtained considerable celebrity in connexion with the controversy about the genuineness of the early Bohemian poems known under the title of “Kralodvor,”—a controversy which, although it has ended differently, was for a time hardly less animated than those regarding the Ossian and Rowley MSS. in England. Notwithstanding the variety of Hanka’s pursuits, and his especial devotion to his own language, his acquisitions in languages have been most various and extensive. He is described in the “Oesterreichische National Encyclopædie” as “master of eighteen languages.”[233]
With the Slavonic race our Catalogue of Linguists closes. Many particulars regarding the eminent names which it comprises are, of necessity, left vague and undetermined. I should have especially desired to distinguish, in all cases, between mere book knowledge of languages and the power of writing, or still more of speaking, them. But unfortunately the accounts which are preserved regarding these scholars hardly ever enter into this distinction. Even Sir William Jones, though he carefully classified the languages which he knew, did not specify this particular; and in most other instances, the narrative, far from particularizing, like that of Jones, the extent of the individual’s acquaintance with each language, even leaves in uncertainty the number of languages with which he was acquainted in any degree.
The very distribution, too, which I have found it expedient to follow—according to nations—has had many disadvantages. But it seemed to be upon the whole the most convenient that could be devised. A distribution into periods, besides that it would have been difficult to follow out upon any clear and intelligible principle, would have been attended with the same disadvantages which characterize that according to nations; while the more strictly philosophical distribution according to ethnographical or philological schools, would have in great measure failed to illustrate the object which I have chiefly had in view. Several of the most eminent of the modern ethnographical writers, and particularly Pritchard, disavow all claim to the character of linguists; and the qualifications of many even of those whose pretensions seem the highest, have, when submitted to a rigid examination, proved far more than problematical.
There are many curious details, however, into which, if space permitted, it would be interesting to pursue this inquiry.
It might seem natural, for instance, to investigate the nature and extent of the Miraculous Gift of Languages—the γένη γλωσσῶν of St. Paul—whether that possessed by the Apostles and other early teachers of Christianity, or that ascribed in later times to the missionaries among the Heathen, and especially to the great Apostle of India, St. Francis Xavier. Materials are not wanting for such an investigation;[234] but as it can hardly be said to bear upon the subject of this Biography, I have reluctantly passed it by.
The history of Royal Linguists, too, might afford much amusing material for speculation. Mithridates, King of Pontus, as we have seen, spoke twenty-two languages. Cleopatra was mistress, not only of seven languages enumerated by Plutarch, but, if we may believe his testimony, of most other known languages of the time. The accomplished, but ill-fated, Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia, was familiar with Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Egyptian; and it may be presumed from the notion which prevailed among some Christian writers of her being a Jewess, that she was also acquainted with Hebrew or its kindred tongues.[235] Most of the Roman Emperors were able indifferently to speak Greek or Latin.
The mediæval sovereigns, with the exception of Frederic II., referred to in a former page,[236] and the great and learned Pope Sylvester II., better known by his family name Gerbert,[237] share, as linguists, the common mediocrity of the age. The learned Princess Anna Comnena does not appear at all distinguished in this particular; Charlemagne’s reputation rests on his acquaintance with Latin, and perhaps also Greek; and our own Alfred was regarded as a notable example of success, although there is no evidence that his linguistic attainments extended beyond a knowledge of Latin.
Very early, however, after the revival of letters, Matthias Corvinus, the learned and munificent King of Hungary, attained a rank as a linguist not unworthy of a later day. Besides the learned languages, he was also acquainted with most of the living tongues of Europe. Charles V. knew and spoke five languages.[238] Henry VIII. spoke four. Several of the Roman Pontiffs, particularly Paul IV., in other respects also a most remarkable scholar,[239] and the great Benedict XIV., were learned Orientalists, as well as good general linguists. The house of Stuart was eminent for the gift of tongues. The ill-fated Mary of Scotland spoke most of the European languages. James I., her son, with all his silly pedantry, was by no means a contemptible linguist. His grandson, Charles II., spoke French and Spanish fluently; and his brilliant grand-daughter, Elizabeth of Bavaria, who alone, according to Descartes, of all her contemporaries, was able to understand the Cartesian philosophy, was mistress, besides many scientific and literary accomplishments, of no fewer than six languages.[240] Christina of Sweden surpassed her in one particular. She knew as many as eight languages, the major part of which she spoke fluently.
Nor are the courts of our own day without examples of the same acquirement. The late Emperor of Russia spoke five languages. Several of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, Queen Victoria, Alexander of Russia, and Napoleon III. among the number, enjoy the reputation of excellent linguists. The young Emperor of Austria is an accomplished classical scholar, and a perfect master of French, and of all the languages of his own vast empire—German, Italian, Hungarian, Czechish, and Servian! Prince Lewis Lucian Bonaparte is a distinguished philologer, as well as a skilful linguist. His “Polyglot Parable of the Sower” is an interesting contribution to the former science. Even the remote kingdom of Siam furnishes, in its two Royal brothers, the First and the Second King, an example more deserving of praise than would be a far higher success in a more favoured land. The First King, Somdetch Phra Paramendt Maha Mongkut,[241] has evinced a degree of intellectual activity, rare indeed among the potentates of the East. Besides the ancient language and literature of his own kingdom, and all its modern dialects and sub-divisions, he knows Sanscrit, Cingalese, and Peguan. From the Catholic missionaries, especially Bishop Pallegoix, he has learned Latin and also Greek, and from the American Baptists, English. His letters, though sometimes unidiomatical, are highly characteristic, and display much intelligence and ability. He is also well versed in European sciences, especially astronomy and mechanics. He has formed, moreover, a very considerable collection of astronomical and philosophical apparatus; has established printing and lithographic presses in the palace; and has imported steam machinery of various kinds from America. It is gratifying to add that his brother, the Second King, shares all his tastes, and is treading worthily in his footsteps.
A still more attractive topic would be the long line of Lady-Linguists.
It is not a little remarkable that, among the sovereigns who have distinguished themselves as linguists, the proportion of queens is very considerable. The three names, Cleopatra, Zenobia, and Christina of Sweden, unquestionably represent a larger aggregate of languages than any three of the king-linguists, if we exclude Mithridates.
Nor are the humbler lady-linguists unworthy this companionship. The nun Roswitha, of Gandesheim, still favourably known by her sacred Latin poetry, was also acquainted with Greek—a rare accomplishment in the tenth century. Tarquinia Molza, grand-daughter of the gifted, but licentious poet of the same name, knew Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as the ordinary modern languages. Elena Cornaro Piscopia knew Italian, Spanish, French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and even Arabic.[242] Nay, strange as it may seem in modern eyes, the university of Bologna numbers several ladies among the occupants of its pulpits. The beautiful Novella d’Andrea, daughter of the great jurist, Giovanni d’Andrea, professor of law in the University of Bologna in the 15th century, was wont to take her father’s place as lecturer on law; observing, however, the precaution of using a veil, lest her beauty should distract the attention of her pupils. Her mother Milancia, scarcely less learned, was habitually consulted by Giovanni on all questions of special difficulty which arose.[243] Laura Bassi held the chair of philosophy in more modern times.[244] Clotilda Tambroni, the last and not the least distinguished of the lady professors of Bologna, has, besides her literary glories, the honour of having suffered in the cause of loyalty and religion. Like her friend and fellow professor, Mezzofanti, she refused, on the occupation of Bologna by the French, to take the oaths of the new government, and was deprived of the professorship of Greek in consequence.
The learned ladies of Bologna are not alone among their countrywomen. The celebrated Dominican nun, Cassandra Fedele of Venice; Alessandra Scala of Florence; and Olympia Fulvia Morata of Ferrara, are all equally distinguished as proficients in at least two learned languages, Latin and Greek. Margherita Gaetana Agnesi, of Milan, was familiar with Latin at nine years of age; and, while still extremely young, mastered Greek and Hebrew, together with French, Spanish, and German. In the very meridian of her fame, nevertheless, she renounced the brilliant career which lay open to her, in order to devote herself to God as a Sister of Charity. Another fair Italian, Modesta Pozzo, born at Venice in 1555, deserves to be mentioned, although she is better known for her extraordinary powers of memory, than her skill in languages.[245] She was able to repeat the longest sermon after hearing it but once.
Nor are we without examples, although perhaps not so numerous, in other countries. Many Spanish and Portuguese ladies learned in languages, are enumerated by Nicholas de Antonio.[246] Dona Anna de Villegas, and D. Cecilia di Arellano, besides being excellent Latinists, were mistresses of French, Italian, and Portuguese.[247] To these languages D. Cecilia de Morellas added Greek as one of her accomplishments,[248] and D. Juliana de Morell, a nun of the Dominican order in the middle of the seventeenth century, in addition to these languages, was not only a learned Hebraist, but an acute and skilful disputant in the philosophy of the schools.[249]
The accomplished Anna Maria Schurmann, of whom Cologne is still justly proud, in addition to her numerous gifts in painting, sculpture, music, and poetry, was mistress of eight languages, among which were Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Ethiopic.
The brilliant, but eccentric Russian Princess Dashkoff, holds a still more prominent place in the world of letters. The early friend and confidant of the Empress Catherine, and (with a few alternations of disfavour,) the sharer of most of the literary projects of that extraordinary woman, the Princess Dashkoff had the (for a lady rare) honour of holding the place of President of the Russian Academy. When the Dictionary of the Academy was projected, she actually undertook, in her own person, three letters of the work, together with the general superintendence of the entire! The princess was not unfamiliar with the learned languages, some of which she not only spoke but wrote: but her chief attainments were in those of modern Europe. Her autobiographical Memoirs appear to have been written in French; and the English letters embodied in the work prove her to have possessed a thorough knowledge of that language also.
Some of our own countrywomen, if less showy, may perhaps advance a more solid title to distinction. The beautiful Mrs. Carter, translator of Epictetus, well deserves to be mentioned; and the amiable and singularly gifted Elizabeth Smith, is a not unmeet consort for the most eminent linguists of any age. “With scarcely any assistance,” writes her biographer, Mrs. Bowdler, to Dr. Mummsen,[250] “she taught herself the French, Italian, Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, and Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of Arabic and Persian.” Her translation of the Book of Job is a permanent evidence that her knowledge of Hebrew was of no ordinary kind.
Even the New World has supplied some names to this interesting catalogue. The Mexican poetess, Juana Inez de la Cruz, better known as the “Nun of Mexico,” (1651-95), a marvel of precocious knowledge, learned Latin in twenty lessons, when a mere girl; and quickly became such a proficient as to speak it with ease and fluency. Her acquisitions in general learning were most various and extensive; and when on one occasion, in her seventeenth year, forty learned men of Mexico were invited to dispute with her, she proved a match for each in his own particular department. All these accomplishments, notwithstanding, she had the humility to bury in the obscurity of a convent in Mexico, where she silently devoted herself for twenty-seven years to literature and religion. She died in 1695, leaving behind many works still regarded as classics in the language, which fill no less than three 4to. volumes, and have passed through twelve successive editions in Spain. All, with the exception of two, are on sacred subjects.[251]