“Say whence, Alecto, has this peace shone forth? wherefore so suddenly has the noise of battle ceased?  Alexander is dead.”

The rule of Borgia’s successor, Pius iii., lasting only twenty-seven days, afforded little opportunity to the play of indignant wit; but the nine years’ reign of Julius ii., which followed, was a period whose troubled history is recorded in the numerous epigrams and satires to which it gave birth.  The impulsive and passionate vigor of the character of Julius, the various fortunes of his rash enterprises, the troubles which his stormy and rapacious career brought to the Papal city, are all more or less minutely told.  The Pope began his reign with warlike enterprises, and as soon as he could gather sufficient force he set out to recover from the Venetians territory of which they had possession, and which he claimed as the property of the Papal state.  It was said, that, in leading his troops out of Rome, he threw into the Tiber, with characteristic impetuosity, the keys of Peter, and, drawing his sword from its sheath, declared that henceforth he would trust to the sword of Paul.  The story was too good to be lost, and it gave point to many epigrams, of which, perhaps, the one preserved by Bayle is the best:—­

  “Cum Petri nihil efficiant ad proelia claves,
     Auxilio Pauli forsitan ensis erit.”

  “Since the keys of Peter profit not for
  battle, perchance, with the aid of Paul,
  the sword will answer."[5]

Julius was the first of the Popes of recent times to allow his beard to grow, and Raphael’s noble portrait of him shows what dignity it gave to his strongly marked face.  The beard was also regarded traditionally as having belonged to Saint Paul.  “For me,” the Pope was represented as saying, “for me the beard of Paul, the sword of Paul, all things of Paul:  that key-bearer, Peter, is no way to my liking.”

  “Huc barbam Pauli, gladium Pauli, omnia Pauli: 
     Claviger ille nihil ad mea vota Petrus.”

But the most savage epigram against Julius was one that recalled the name of the great Roman, which the Pope was supposed to have adopted in emulation of that of Alexander, borne by his predecessor:—­

  “Julius est Romae.  Quid abest?  Date, numina, Brutum. 
     Nam quoties Romae est Julius, illa perit.”

  “Julius is at Rome.  What is wanting? 
  Ye gods, give us a Brutus!  For
  when Julius is at Rome, the city is lost.”

Pasquin became a recognized institution, as we have said, under Leo X., and was taken under the protection of the Roman people.[6] His popularity was such as to lead to consequences of which he himself complained.  He was made the vehicle of the effusions of worthless versifiers, and he was forced to cry out, “Woe is me! even the copyist fixes his verses upon me, and every one bestows on me his silly trifles.”

The application of these verses was alike appropriate to the life of the Pope, or to the reigns of Alexander VI., Julius ii., and the one just beginning.