The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-25 00:00:00

SPAIN.

The Epoca of Madrid gives the following not
very favourable picture of the state of affairs in
Spain :—" The Cabieet of the Duke of Valencia on
ascending to power finds the questions of Santo
Domingo and Peru still open ; the former, the causi
of tremendous outlays and innumerable sacrifices
which have perturbed very materially the finances
of the country, and the latter ready at any moment
to bring on the cont!ngencies of a war; the question
of the recognition of Italy still pending, and the affair
of the Neapolitan archives not yet closed. The
aspect of effairs caused by the late France-Italian
Convention adds, not a little, to its embarrassments.
The state of the interior is not more cheering;
the policy of the country is swayed by factions ;
the Progressista party is determined to adhere to
its non-voting programme, and is daily entering
more and more blindly into the dangerous path
in which—after its lamentable circular of the 20th
of August—it will fiad itself; the Democratic
party, arrogant and threatening, is enveloped in a
revolutionary atmosphere, drawing towards it the
ill-advised Progressistaa ; Parliament rendered
powerless to continue its high functions after it
voted the law of ' Parliamentary incompatibilities;'
the Treasury calling for energetic, urgent, and
salutary meaeures to free it from the pressure it is
labouring under, and which the Credit Laws, passed
by Senor Salaverria, were unable to remove; thc-
financial crisis, aggravated by the continuation of
the American war and the agitations in Catalonia
caused by want of work reducing hundreds of the
labouring class to misery; the monetary crisis em
barrassing commerce and sowing disquietude among
all classes, and public opinion deeply agitated."

CARDINAL MEZZOFANTI, the wonderful speaker
of two.and-seventy different languages, when asked
(says a critic in the .Examiner) how he came to acquire so
unprecedented a range of knowledge, attributed the fact to
his employment as foreigners' confessor at Bologna in 1798
and the following years. I constantly met there," he
said, "Hungarians, Slavonians, Germans, and Bohemians,
who had been wounded in battle, or invalided during the
campaign ; and it pained me to the heart that from the want
of means of communicating with them, I was uuablo to
confess those among them who were Catholics or to bring
back to the Church those who were separated from her
communion, In such cases, accordingly, I used to apply
myself with all my energy to the study of the languages of
the patients, until I knew enough to make myself under-
stood." Whenever a stranger, whose speech was not
know to him, came for confession, ho made him first repeat,
once or twice, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Com-
mandments, and other portion of the Romish ritual. In
that way, by the aid of his wonderful memory, which
retained everything once committed to it, he ob-
tained a ground - work of words from which to
build. He analysed them and measured them by
the corresponding words in other, languages. A few
conversations, in which ho guessed at the meaning of new
words as they arose, and then verified it by himself using
them, gave him knowledge enough to be able to perform his
religious duties. "At length, through the grace of God,
assisted by my private studies and by a retentive memory,
I came to understand, not merely the generic languages of
the nations to which the several invalids belonged, but
even the peculiar dialects of their various provinces."
Once, at a later date, the Crown Prince, now King of Swe-
den, paid him a visit. They at first talked in the Swedish
tongue, which Meznfanti spoke fluently; but when the
Prince continued the conversation in one of the provincial
dialectf, the priest had to declare himself ignorant of it.
On the following day they met agiain, and then .slczzo-
fanti commenced speaking in the dialect in question.
"From whom, in the name of all that is wonderful,
have you learnt it P" asked the astonished Prince, "From
your Royal Highness," was the answer. "Your sen-
tences yesterday supplied me with a key to all that is
peculiar in its forms ; and I am only translating the
common words into those forms."

NEWSPAPERS FOR ltussiA.—Tha Postma3ter•
General has issued an order, in which. he states that, seve-
ral instances having lately occurred in which newspapers
sent from this country to Russia have been returned in
consequence of the regulations of the Russian Post Office
with regard to the transmission of newspapers not having
been complied with, the public are again informed that it i h
forbidden to introduce into Russia, through the post, poli-
tical newspapers, and that the only means by which persons
residing in Russia can obtain such newspapers from the
United Kingdom is by subscribing for them at one of the
Russian post offices. The admission into Russia of news-
papers not of a political character is only permitted in those
eases whero they aro addressed to the house of some estab-
lished