Note 426 — Chapter VIII · [1828-1830.]

The reader will scarcely agree with this observation of Dr. Tholuck. The Quichua was one of the languages which, as the Dr. testifies, Mezzofanti only professed to know imperfectly. It must be remembered too, that, during his early years he had many and prolonged opportunities of intercourse with Father Escobar and other South American Jesuit missionaries, who had settled at Bologna, and from whom he may have acquired the language, much more solidly than he could be supposed to learn it from a few casual interviews such as Dr. Tholuck most probably contemplated.