Note 425 — Chapter VIII · [1828-1830.]

There is another circumstance of Dr. Tholuck’s narrative which it is not easy to reconcile with the account already cited (p. 239,) from M. Molbech’s Travels;—namely, that “when addressed in Danish he replied in Swedish,” since the former was the only language in which, during an interview of about two hours, Mezzofanti conversed with M. Molbech. In order to remove all uncertainty as to this point, I have had inquiry of M. Molbech in person, through the kind offices of the Rev. Dr. Grüder, a learned German Missionary resident at Copenhagen, who himself knew Cardinal Mezzofanti, and whose testimony to the purity and fluency of his Eminence’s German conversation I may add to the many already known. M. Molbech reiterates and confirms all the statements made by him in his ‘Travels.’ He has even taken the trouble to forward a note in his own hand-writing, referring to the page in the Transactions of the Philological Society, which contains M. Watts’s translation from his book. He adds, that when in 1847, his son waited upon the Cardinal in Rome, for the purpose of presenting him some of M. Molbech’s works, he found his Eminence’s recollection of the interview perfectly fresh and accurate as to all its details.