Court were in an
Emulation who should first introduce him to his Holiness. [1] What added
to the Expectation his Holiness had of the Pleasure he should have in
his Follies, was, that this Fellow, in a Dress the most exquisitely
ridiculous, desired he might speak to him alone, for he had Matters of
the highest Importance, upon which he wanted a Conference. Nothing could
be denied to a Coxcomb of so great hope; but when they were apart, the
Impostor revealed himself, and spoke as follows:

Do not be surprized, most holy Father, at seeing, instead of a Coxcomb
to laugh at, your old Friend who has taken this way of Access to
admonish you of your own Folly. Can any thing shew your Holiness how
unworthily you treat Mankind, more than my being put upon this
Difficulty to speak with you? It is a degree of Folly to delight to
see it in others, and it is the greatest Insolence imaginable to
rejoice in the Disgrace of human Nature. It is a criminal Humility in
a Person of your Holiness's Understanding, to believe you cannot excel
but in the Conversation of Half-wits, Humorists, Coxcombs, and
Buffoons. If your Holiness has a mind to be diverted like a rational
Man, you have a great opportunity for it, in disrobing all the
Impertinents you have favour'd, of all their Riches and Trappings at
once, and bestowing them on the Humble, the Virtuous, and the Meek. If
your Holiness is not concerned for the sake of Virtue and Religion, be
pleased to reflect, that for the sake of your own Safety it is not
proper to be so very much in jest. When the Pope is thus merry, the
People will in time begin to think many things, which they have
hitherto beheld with great Veneration, are in themselves Objects of
Scorn and Derision. If they once get a Trick of knowing how to laugh,
your Holiness's saying this Sentence in one Night-Cap and t'other with
the other, the change of your Slippers, bringing you your Staff in the
midst of a Prayer, then stripping you of one Vest and clapping on a
second during divine Service, will be found out to have nothing in it.
Consider, Sir, that at this rate a Head will be reckoned never the
wiser for being Bald; and the ignorant will be apt to say, that going
bare-foot does not at all help on in the way to Heaven. The red Cap
and the Coul will fall under the same Contempt; and the Vulgar will
tell us to our Faces that we shall have no Authority over them, but
from