inding opportunity for jests in
observing those who came to the shop. This custom became so notorious
that the very persons who were hit by these sharp speeches joined in
the laugh at them, and felt no resentment; so that, if any one wished
to say a hard thing of another, he did it under cover of the person of
Master Pasquin, pretending that he had heard it said at his shop,--at
which pretence every one laughed, and no one bore a grudge. But,
Master Pasquin dying, it happened, that, in improving the street, this
broken statue, which lay half imbedded in the ground, serving as a
stepping-stone for passengers, was taken up and set at the side of the
shop. Making use of this good chance, satirical people began to say
that Master Pasquin had come back. The custom soon arose of attaching
to the statue bits of writing; and as it had been allowed to the
tailor to say everything, so by means of the statue any one might
publish what he would not have ventured to speak.[2]

Thus did Hercules or Alexander change his name for that of Pasquin,
and soon became almost as well known throughout Europe under his new
designation as under his old. If the statue were not dug up, as is
said, until the sixteenth century, its fame spread rapidly; for,
before Luther had made himself feared at Rome, Pasquin was already
well known as the satirist of the vices of Pope and Cardinals, and as
a bold enemy of the abuses of the Church.

But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is
its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected
series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the
popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording
indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and
of the regard in which they held their rulers. The free speech, which
was prohibited and dangerous to the living subjects of the temporal
power of the Popes, was a privilege which, in spite of prohibition,
Pasquin insisted upon exercising. Whatever precautions might be taken,
whatever penalties imposed, means were always found, when occasion
arose, to affix to the battered marble papers bearing stinging
epigrams or satirical verses, which, once read, fastened themselves in
the memory, and spread quickly by repetition. He could not be
silenced. "Great sums," said he one day, in an epigram addressed to
Paul III., who was Pope from 1534 to 1549, "great sums were formerly
given to poets for s