POLYGLOT CARDINAL
The late Sir Denison Ross is reputed to have been "proficient in forty-two languages" and would seem therefore to deserve a place among the great polyglots, comparable even with Cardinal Mezzofariti, who became librarian of the Vatican in 1833, says the "Manchester Guardian." The cardinal coufc 1 read, write, and speak in nearly- a hundred tongues, and it was his boast, amjply justified, that he could converse in. their own language with visitor? from almost any country in the world Byron, who met Mezzofanti before he i*went to the Vatican, referred to him
as "a monster of languages, a walking polyglot who ought to have existed at the Tower of Babel to act as universal interpreter." Having tested him in every language of which he liimself had a smattering, the poet found Mezzofanti could "astound me."
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 6
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138POLYGLOT CARDINAL Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 6
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