On the 13th November, 1825, Pecchio wrote a letter to Panizzi, for the purpose of introducing a certain Miss E ****, telling him that he ought to appear as a _Narcissus_ to captivate the young lady. Panizzi’s health, however, seemed at this time to fail him, and this he attributed to the severity of the winter season, which, as before stated, invariably affected him in a remarkable decree.
Possibly this may have been one cause of his indisposition. The Count, however, with some acuteness in deciding on symptoms, remarks: “_The loss of one’s country is a wound which never heals; it is one of those pains which slowly destroy our own existence without our perceiving it_.”
Sufficient space has, however, been allotted to Panizzi’s friends, and it is now time to return to Panizzi himself. His celebrity as a teacher of Italian and lecturer on that language was established at Liverpool. Before dilating upon his peculiar aptitude in this direction we must mention one feature in his character which will pre-eminently raise him in the estimation of all discerning readers. Miss Martin, one of his former pupils, knew him as a political exile in the time of his penury; nevertheless, she well recollects and bears witness to his most high-spirited disinterestedness in pecuniary matters—in fact, his singular disregard of money.
The lectures on the Italian language, at which this lady was present, were delivered by him in the years 1824 and 1825 in English; they had been inaugurated by Mr. Roscoe, and were given at the Royal Institution, Liverpool, where, strange to say, no record of them has been kept.
The following anecdote related by Miss Martin may serve to illustrate the earnestness of his addresses. In reciting some of the lines of the “_Gerusalemme Liberata_,” where the anxious Crusaders first catch sight of the sacred city of Jerusalem:—
“Ecco apparir Gerusalem si vede, Ecco additar Gerusalem si scorge; Ecco da mille voci unitamente Gerusalemme salutar si sente.—”
his eager eye glanced at the wall at the side of the lecture-room with such realistic animation, and with such power over his hearers, that some of the audience turned to gaze on the vacant space as though the veritable towers and walls of Jerusalem had been thereon depicted.