Sextus Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon
his being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was one night dressed in
a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was
forced to wear foul linen because his laundress was made a princess.
This was a reflection upon the Pope's sister, who, before the
promotion of her brother, was in those mean circumstances that
Pasquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in
Rome, the Pope offered a considerable sum of money to any person
that should discover the author of it. The author, relying upon his
holiness's generosity, as also on some private overtures which he
had received from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the
Pope gave him the reward he had promised, but, at the same time, to
disable the satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut
out, and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an
instance. Every one knows that all the kings of Europe were his
tributaries. Nay, there is a letter of his extant, in which he
makes his boast that he had laid the Sophi of Persia under
contribution.
Though in the various examples which I have here drawn together,
these several great men behaved themselves very differently towards
the wits of the age who had reproached them, they all of them
plainly showed that they were very sensible of their reproaches, and
consequently that they received them as very great injuries.
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