In answer to a similar request at another time, he replied— Accipe quod poscis—nomen. Scribatur ut ipsum In cœlo, ad Dominum tu bone funde preces. On being presented on New Year’s day with a pair of spectacles by his friend, Dr. Peter Trombetti, of Bologna, he wrote:— Deficit heu acies oculorum! instante senecta; Deficit;—at comis lumina tu duplicas. Lumen utrumque mihi argento dum nocte coruscat Haud mihi qui dederit decidet ex animo. A similar present at the next New Year elicited the following:— Cum vix sufficiunt oculi mihi nocte legenti, Ecce bonus rursum lumina tu geminas. Prospera ut eveniant multis volventibus annis, Cuncta tibi, par est me geminare preces. To another of his Bolognese friends, the Canonico Tartaglia, now rector of the Pontifical seminary, who begged some memorial, he sent the following pretty epigram:— Sæpe ego versiculos heic dicto, stans pede in uno; Carmina sed fingo nulla linenda cedro. Qualiacumque cano velox heu dissipat aura! Unum de innumeris hoc mihi vix superest, Mittimus hoc unum interea. Exiguum accipe donum Eternæ veteris pignus amicitiæ. Any one who has ever tried to turn a verse in any foreign tongue, will agree with me in regarding the rapidity with which these trifles were written, as one of the most curious evidences of the writer’s mastery over the many languages in which he is known to have indulged this fancy. The really pretty Dutch verses—verses as graceful in sentiment as they are elegant in language—in reply to Dr. Wap’s address, were penned in Dr. Wap’s presence and with great rapidity. Father Legrelle’s Flemish verses were dashed off with equal quickness. The American of whom I spoke told me that the Cardinal wrote almost without a moment’s thought. It was the same for the lady mentioned by Dr. Wap, although the subject of these verses arose during the interview; and even the Persian stanza which he wrote for Dr. Tholuck, and which “contained several pretty ἐνθυμήσεις,” cost him only about half an hour! How many of those who consider themselves most perfect in French, Italian, or German, have ever ventured even upon a single line of poetry in any of them? I must not omit another circumstance which I myself observed, and which struck me forcibly as illustrating the singular nicety of his ear, and still more the completeness with which he threw himself into all the details of every language which he cultivated;—I mean his manner and accent in pronouncing Latin in conversation with natives of different countries. One day I was speaking to him in company with Guido Görres, when he had occasion to quote to me Horace’s line. Si paulum a summo decessit, vergit ad imum:— which he pronounced quite as I should have pronounced it, and without any of the peculiarities of Italian pronunciation. He turned at once to Görres, and added— “Or, as you would say: Si _pow_lum a _soomm_o _det_sessit, ver_ghit_ ad imum,”