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Show LINGUISTIC IMIOOIOIB8. I .am-1 )leu Who Mnater rlfly DICTar-ant DICTar-ant Toifan, When ouo cousldsrs the difficulty ot acquiring even a nodding acquaint-snro" acquaint-snro" with two or three languages, It teems utmost Incredible that eomo men should be able to apeak with all tha . fluency of native lu twenty, and even fitly, strauge tongues It la only a tew mouths alnco Ur tlotttleh Loltncr, the most famous linguist at this genera Hon. died at ttonu In Herman) Dr Leltiier, whu ntteii as Interprtter to an army In the Crimean war could speak with equal faclllt) In no fewer thtu fifty UniiiMge, and mauy of Ibo moro aliatruae eastern tnuguca he knew ns Intimately as his native Herman. Hut there have been phenomenal linguists In all ages, from the far-uwa days of Mltbrldates, kliiR of Pontiu, who could contcrae with tho subjects In each of their twenty-flvn tongues; and from tho daya of Cleopatra, who never used n Interpreter In her rclttlons with tho worlds ambassadors I'lco della Mlrandolu, n learned Italian ot the fifteenth century was eloquent In twenty-two languages and M Pul-gence Pul-gence Fresnel was familiar with twenty, twen-ty, and In the seventeenth century Nicholas Rchmld a Herman peasant, translated the Lord's l'rayer Into as man langunges us there are weeks lu a )ear The greatest linguist of all time, however was Cardinal Mettofan-tl, Mettofan-tl, wbo died half a century ago Mrzto-fautl'a Mrzto-fautl'a linguistic rango was so treat tnat he could have conversed tn a different dif-ferent tongue eury week for two ycara without exhausting his vocabulary. In all ho was fimlllar with 114 languages and dialects, and In most ot them ho rould speak with such accuracy and purity of accent that he might have been, and often was, mistaken for a native. |