of his successor, and published with approval at Rome.  In this we are told that at the time of his death a marvellous prodigy was observed; for that, when his corpse was borne on a bier from Monte Cavallo to the Vatican, at the moment of a violent storm of wind and rain, not a drop of water fell upon it, but the bier remained perfectly dry, and the torches with which it was accompanied were none of them extinguished.  What wonder, that, after this, it is added, “that his memory is venerated in many places at Rome"?[14] Of all the troublesome race of panegyrists, the Roman variety is the most ingenious and the least to be trusted.

When Bishop Burnet was travelling in Italy, in the year 1686, the doctrines of the Spanish priest Molinos, the founder of the famous sect of Quietists, had lately become the object of attack of the Jesuits and of suspicion at the Papal Court.  His system of mystical divinity is still of interest from its connection with the lives of Fenelon and Madame Guyon, if not from its intrinsic character.  Like most other mystical doctrines, his teachings seem to have been open to the charge, that, while professedly based on the highest spirituality, they had a direct tendency to encourage sensuality in its most dangerous form.  Molinos was at first much favored at Rome and by the Pope himself; but at the time of Burnet’s journey he was in the custody of the Holy Office, while his books were undergoing the examination which finally led to the formal condemnation of sixty-eight propositions contained in them, to the renunciation of these propositions by their author, and to his being sentenced to perpetual imprisonment Burnet relates that it happened “in one week that one man had been condemned to the galleys for somewhat he had said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos was clapt in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in this, that men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness.  The Pasquinade upon all this was, “Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo, impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all’ Sant Uffizio.  Eh! che bisogna fare?” “If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we stay quiet, the Inquisition.  Eh! what must we do, then?”

With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar talent.  Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for rebuke.  Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained.  “Do you wonder,” said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his changes of character, “do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a new figure?  It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the falling back of men.  He who would be pious must depart from Rome.”

  “Praeteriens, forsan miraris, turba, quotannis
  Cur me Roma novam mutet in effigiem. 
  Hoc urbis mores varios, hominumque recessus
  Indicat:  ergo abeat qui cupit esse pius.”