25/62 It is commonly said of Cardinal Mezzofanti that he could speak thirty and understand sixty. It is quite plain from the pages of _Lavengro_ itself that Borrow did not share Gregory XVI.'s high estimate of the Cardinal's mental qualifications, unrivalled linguist though he was. That a "word-master" so abnormal is apt to be deficient in logical sense seems to have been Borrow's deliberate opinion (with a saving clause as to exceptions), and I have often thought that it must have been Shakespeare's too, for does he not ascribe a command of tongues to the man who is perhaps the most consummate idiot in the whole range of Shakespearean portraiture? That quaffing and drinking will undo you: I heard my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in here to be her wooer. Who? |