Note 32 — MEMOIRS OF EMINENT LINGUISTS.

Venice was long remarkable for her encouragement of skill in living languages. It was a necessary qualification for most of her diplomatic appointments; and, while Latin, in Europe, was still the ordinary medium of diplomatic intercourse, we find a Venetian ambassador to England, in 1509, Badoer, capable of conversing like a native in English, French, and German.—See an interesting paper, “Venetian Dispatches,” in the Quarterly Review, vol. xcvi. p. 369.