About this time the Father General Jabalot died suddenly, and Padre Olivieri, commissary-general of the Inquisition, was appointed to the office. This man formed a third party in the Order, being little friendly towards Jabalot, and a decided enemy to Velzi. Olivieri was an example of what a man of little talent, but of laborious habits, can accomplish. He was slow and dull of comprehension, yet, by dint of application to books, he had made himself master of the Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Arabic languages: he understood German, and read the English newspapers daily, and all this without masters, by indefatigable study day and night. Of the Hebrew and Chaldee languages he had been for some years professor in the Sapienza at Rome, and of the Greek elsewhere. Indeed, I never saw his equal for tenacity of purpose in anything he undertook; he was capable of sitting day and night over a single volume. On one occasion, having returned on foot from Turin to Rome, in 1815, as soon as he came to the Minerva, tired, hungry, and covered with dust, the first thing he asked for was the Timæus of Plato, in Greek, to examine certain passages which he had recollected as he was walking. Such was the singular character now elected Father General of the Dominicans. The storm lowered more and more; the government of the Order was bound up with that of the Inquisition, and whoever was not friendly to that institution was sure to be persecuted. These changes happened between Easter and Pentecost, 1834. I had preached the Lent sermons at Monte Fiascone, whither the worthy Cardinal Velzi had invited me. "O my good Achilli," said he to me one day, "I perceive that this Order of ours will become a real disorder. The Father General Jabalot was a weak man; he has allowed a world of abuses to be introduced. The Father General Olivieri is an austere and obstinate man, and one who knows nothing of the government of a fraternity, however small; besides which, accustomed for years only to the cells and dungeons of the Inquisition, a heartless being such as he is will, I foresee, destroy every good regulation, and finish by ruining everything. I advise you by all the friendship I entertain for you, not to remain in Rome, nor to accept any appointment which obliges you to reside in the Minerva. Keep aloof till we see how things are likely to go on; if you like to come here, my house, my seminary, and everything you may desire, shall be at your disposal."