in all the countries before
named, the datany or dispatching of bulls, the triennial subsidies,
annats, and other ecclesiastical rights, mount to an unknown sum; and
it is a common saying here, that as long as the pope can finger a pen,
he can want no pence. Pius V, notwithstanding his expenses in
buildings, left four millions in the Castle of Saint Angelo in less
than five years; more, I believe, than this Gregory XV will, for he
hath many nephews; and better is it to be the pope's nephew, than to
be a favorite to any prince in Christendom.

Touching the temporal government of Rome, and oppidan affairs, there
is a pretor and some choice citizens, which sit in the Capitol. Among
other pieces of policy, there is a synagog of Jews permitted here--as
in other places of Italy--under the pope's nose, but they go with a
mark of distinction in their hats; they are tolerated for advantage of
commerce, wherein the Jews are wonderful dexterous--tho most of them
be only brokers and Lombardeers; and they are held to be here as the
cynic held women to be--_malum necessarium_....

Present Rome may be said to be but a monument of Rome past, when she
was in that flourish that St. Austin desired to see her in. She who
tamed the world, tamed herself at last, and falling under her own
weight, fell to be a prey to time; yet there is a providence seems to
have a care of her still; for tho her air be not so good, nor her
circumjacent soil so kindly as it was, yet she hath wherewith to keep
life and soul together still, by her ecclesiastical courts, which is
the sole cause of her peopling now; so that it may be said, when the
pope came to be her head, she was reduced to her first principles; for
as a shepherd was founder, so a shepherd is still governor and
preserver.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 64: From the "Familiar Letters," the date of this letter
being "Venice, 25th June, 1621."]

[Footnote 65: Now written Bucentaur, the state ship of the Venetian
republic. The ceremony of "espousing the sea" dates from the twelfth
century. The last of the Bucentaur ships of Venice was destroyed by
Napoleon in 1798. It was the third that had been built for Venice.]

[Footnote 66: From the "Familiar Letters."]

[Footnote 67: The historian who lived early in the fourth century
A.D.]

[Footnote 68: King John, in 1213, had made peace with the Pope (who
had deposed him) by consenting to hold his kingdom in fief for the
Pope and to pay to him an annual t