buffoonery, that he was several times present at its being acted upon
the stage, and never expressed the least resentment of it. But, with
submission, I think the remark I have here made shows us that this
unworthy treatment made an impression upon his mind, though he had been
too wise to discover it.

When Julius Caesar was lampooned by Catullus, he invited him to a supper,
and treated him with such a generous civility, that he made the poet his
friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarine gave the same kind of treatment to
the learned Quillet, who had reflected upon his eminence in a famous
Latin poem. The cardinal sent for him, and, after some kind
expostulations upon what he had written, assured him of his esteem, and
dismissed him with a promise of the next good abbey that should fall,
which he accordingly conferred upon him in a few months after. This had
so good an effect upon the author, that he dedicated the second edition
of his book to the cardinal, after having expunged the passages which had
given him offence.

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
rec