It will easily be inferred from this, that, among etymologies, he was especially attracted by those which involved a play upon words:—if they admitted a pun so much the better. He was much amused by Herr Fleck’s suggestion, that the name Mezzofanti, was derived from Ἑν μέσῳ φαίνεται; and Cardinal Wiseman told me that once, after learnedly canvassing the various etymologies suggested for Felsina, the ancient name of his native city, Bologna, he laughingly brought the discussion to a close by suggesting that probably it was _Fé l’asina_, (the ass made it.) Probably it was to this taste he was indebted for that familiarity with Hudibras—a writer, otherwise so unattractive to a foreigner—which took Mr. Badeley by surprise. CHAPTER XVI. [1843-1849.] In the midst of the honours and occupations of his new dignity, Cardinal Mezzofanti sustained a severe affliction in the death of his favourite nephew, Monsignor Minarelli—the _Giuseppino_ (Joe) so often commemorated in his early correspondence. This amiable and learned ecclesiastic instead of accompanying his uncle to Rome, where the most brilliant prospects were open to him, preferred to pursue the quiet and useful career of university life, in which he had hitherto been associated with him in Bologna. By successive steps, he had risen to the Rectorate of the University; and in recognition of his services to that institution, the honorary dignity of a prelate of the first class in the Roman Court—popularly styled _del mantelletto_—had been conferred on him by the Pope. The Cardinal, as is plain from his own letters and those of his Bologna friends, was warmly attached to him. While he lived in Bologna Giuseppe was his friend and companion, rather than his pupil; and the young man’s early death was felt the more deeply by him, from the congeniality of tastes and studies which had always subsisted between them. The Cardinal’s sister, Teresa, (mother of the deceased prelate,) although she was ten years his senior, was still living in their old home at Bologna, and he continued to correspond with her up to the time of his death. His letters to her are all exceedingly simple and unaffected—so entirely of a domestic character, and without public interest, that, if I translate one of them here—the latest which has come into my hands—it is merely as a specimen of the warmth and tenderness, as well as deeply religious character of the Cardinal’s affection for his sister and for her children.