The discontent and turbulence which marked the closing years of the reign of Pius VII. had in great measure subsided under the impartial but vigorous administration of Leo XII.; nor was the short pontificate of his successor, Pius VIII. who succeeded on the 31st of March, 1829, interrupted by any overt expression of popular discontent. It was well known, nevertheless, throughout this whole period, that an active secret organization was in existence, not alone in the Papal States, but in Naples, in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, in the minor principalities of Parma, Piacenza, and Modena, and indeed throughout the entire of Italy. Everywhere throughout Italy, too, in addition to these secret associations, still subsisted a remnant of the old French or Franco-Italian party, who, while they submitted to the existing state of things, and offered no resistance to the established regime, concealing their discontent, and cautiously repressing their aspirations after the cherished vision of a “united and independent Italy,” yet were notoriously dissatisfied with the domestic governments, and lost no opportunity of embarrassing their administration. Of this, in the Papal States, Bologna had long been the centre. The Abate Mezzofanti had never taken any part in political affairs; but his principles were well known, and his antecedents had long marked him out as an ardent and devoted adherent of the Papal rule. Personally inoffensive and amiable as he was, therefore, he was on these grounds, distasteful to certain members of the anti-papal party. But by the great body of his fellow-citizens he was regarded as a man of thoroughly honourable principles; and we shall see that in a crisis of great delicacy and importance he was selected as one of their delegates to the court of Gregory XVI. It is to these political animosities that allusion is made in the following extremely interesting account of Mezzofanti. It is from the pen of the distinguished historian of the mathematical sciences in Italy, M. Libri; whose name is in itself sufficient to stamp with authority any statement bearing upon a subject in which he has proved himself a master. For this most interesting communication I am indebted to the good offices of Mr. Watts, to whom it was addressed by M. Libri, in reply to an inquiry kindly made on my behalf by that gentleman. M. Libri’s letter is in English, and the purity of its language and elegance of its style are in themselves no slight evidence of his competence to pronounce upon Mezzofanti’s accomplishments as a linguist, no less than as a mathematician. M. Libri’s meeting with Mezzofanti occurred at Bologna early in 1830, in the course of a literary tour in which M. Libri was then engaged.