ld be easy to multiply anecdotes, shewing the enthusiasm with
which Mezzofanti entered on the study of language after language. He
sought out new tongues with an insatiable passion, and may be said to
have never been happy but when engaged in the mastering of words and
grammars. No degree of bad health interrupted his pursuit. Till the
day of his death, he was engaged in his darling task: life closed on
him while so occupied. He died just as he had acquired a thorough
proficiency in Californian--a singular instance of the power of mind
exercised on a favourite subject, and shewing what may be accomplished
when men set their heart on it. The career of this remarkable
linguist, however, cannot be considered exemplary. We would recommend
no person to plunge headlong into an absorbing passion for any
accomplishment. Mezzofanti was a curiosity--a marvel--the wonder of
the world of letters; and it is chiefly as such that a notice of him
here will be considered interesting.

CURIOSITIES OF POSTHUMOUS CHARITY.

The curious observer, in his rambles about town, is occasionally
struck with some singular demonstrations for which he is at a loss to
account. Sometimes they assume a benevolent form, and sometimes they
have a holiday-making aspect, yet with a touch of the lugubrious. In
London, or in some one of the thriving towns lying within a score of
miles of it, he strolls into a church, where he sees a number of
loaves of bread piled up at the back of the communion-table, or
ranged, as they are in a baker's shop, upon shelves against the wall.
It is a pleasant sight, but apt to be somewhat puzzling. Perhaps he
saunters into a country church-yard, and there finds amongst the rank
grass and moss-grown and neglected memorials of the silent multitude,
one trim and well-tended monument, uninvaded by cryptogamia, free from
all stain of the weather, and the surrounding grassy sward neatly mown
and fenced in, it may be, with budding willow branches or a circle of
clipped box. Or he finds his way through a suburban village, blocked
up some fine morning by a crowd of poor women and girls, clustered
round the door of a retired tradesman or the curate of the place, from
which three or four at a time emerge with gratified looks, and go
about their business, while others enter in their turn. Such
demonstrations as these, and we might mention many others, have their
origin in certain charitable dispositions and bequests, many of which