“Don Ubaldo Fabiani is just about to return to Modena, after a sojourn of three months here, the entire of which he has passed in the midst of books. It would be impossible for me to describe to you the assiduity, avidity, and perseverance, with which I have seen him apply to his studies; but I can safely say that the fruit which he has derived from them has even exceeded the labour, as he unites with unwearied diligence a ready wit and a peculiar aptitude for this branch of learning. The principal object of his attention has been the sacred Hebrew text; but he has also applied himself to Chaldee, and in the end to the Rabbinical Hebrew—in all cases with most rapid progress. Had his time not been so limited, he had intended to devote himself also to Arabic—a language which has of late become so necessary an appliance of the polemics of sacred Scripture. But I have every confidence that he will do this also, when he shall return another year to Bologna; and I shall be more than willing to accompany him in this study also. I am much indebted to you for having given me an opportunity of forming the acquaintance of so worthy an ecclesiastic. I have to thank you also for your learned publications, which you were kind enough to send me, and which, in the midst of all my varied occupations, are a source of real pleasure to me. Forgive my irregularity and tardiness as a correspondent; or rather do you return good for evil, by writing to me the more frequently. You will thus do what is most grateful to your devoted friend.” Fabiani had hardly reached Modena when he was seized with fever—the terrible _perniciosa_ of the Italian summer and autumn—and was carried off after an illness of a few days, at the early age of twenty-four. As soon as the melancholy news reached Bologna, Mezzofanti wrote once more to his friend Cavedoni. _Bologna, November 12, 1829._ “Death has snatched Don Ubaldo from us! Alas, how much have we lost in him!—how miserably have we seen all the hopes which we placed in him, cut off in a single moment! What might we not have expected from a young ecclesiastic, so entirely devoted to piety and to letters!