We must now inquire who these unfortunate poets were, that crowd of poets, poetica turba, — with their pleasant literature, amena letteratura, whom the advent of honest Adrian unsettled

The Poets.

and put to flight in a manner, and with results, so feelingly lamented by the Cavalier-jesuit Tirabosch. These gentle shepherds, or rather these flaunting Rochesters, must interest us since they interest a Jesuit. Andrès, a sterner Jesuit, has expressed, as we have heard (p. 28), an opinion, founded on facts, not at all favourable to the intrinsic worth of the Leonine poets most in favour, with whom not to sympathise, only befits "a Flemish pope nursed in scholastic subtleties," according to the cavalier Tirabosch.

Their chief was Pietro Bembo, a first-rate scholar and admirable correspondent, as appears by his numerous letters on all manner of subjects and to all manner of persons. As secretary to Leo X., he is unsurpassed in his official despatches, composed Leonis Decimi nomine, in the name of the pope; as an intellectual voluptuary in retirement, he was equalled by many in his Ansolani or Conversations on Love, composed in the name of Cupid, or Venus, or any other goddess spiritual or human, which last Pietro Bembo lacked not for adoration. For some reason dissatisfied with his patron, Bembo retired from Leo's Roman court and took up his residence at Padua, accompanied by his mistress La Morosina, who remained with him to the time of her death, in 1535. Being then in his sixty-fifth year,

in Belvidere il Laocoonte per una cosa eccellente e mirabile, disse: Sunt Idola Antiquorum. Di modo che dubito molto un dì non faccia quel che si dice aver fatto gia S. Gregorio, e che di tutte queste statue, viva memoria della grandezza e gloria Romana, non faccia calce per la fabrica di S. Pietro."—Lettere di Principe, t. i.; Tirabosch. t. vii. P. i. 20, et seq.

it is possible that "for the residue of his life nothing of conduct or composition unfitting the sacred profession could be imputed to Bembo," as we are assured;1 but eleven of his sonnets remain, attesting and bewailing La Morosina, whom it is said he regarded as his legitimate wife. She has the merit of having inspired Bembo with more pathos by her death than by the influence of her charms during life; these sonnets surpass all his other writings. La Morosina gave him a daughter and two sons, one of whom entered the church, and distinguished himself by his literary acquirements, for Bembo paid particular care to the education of his children. Devoted to his studies and pleasures, and enjoying, in the midst of his literary friends, the revenues derived from his church preferments, he seemed determined to avoid the temptations of the Roman court; but in 1539, Pope Paul III. (the friend of Alexander VI., and patron of the Jesuits), made him a cardinal, and invited him to Rome, to be highly favoured by the pontiff (who "passed over" his former life), to be enriched with many wealthy benefices (two bishoprics among the rest), to meet once more many of his old associates, and finally, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, quietly to end his days in 1547.2

Bembo was perhaps the best moral specimen that the "poetic crowd" could boast. "All the poets, with scarcely an exception, all the literary men of that age resident in Rome, and even honoured with prelacies, with dignities, and offices in the church, were infected with the same vice, or, as may be said, besmeared with the

Dublin Review, xxxix. p. 40.

2 Rosc. ii. 144, 145; Bemb. Epist. Fam. L. Ep. vi. 66, 67; Lett. Vulg. ii.; lib. ii. Ep. 14; Feller, Biog. Univ.; Bayle, Bembo: Sismond. i. 426, et seq.

same pitch,―tinti della pece medesima." 1 Dismissing his dissolute life, even dismissing that remarkable incredulity so inconsistent with his profession, and of which, like many of the day, he made no secret, it will be only necessary to observe that the licentious poems of his youth were not likely to be "passed over" by Adrian, as they were by Leo, and subsequently by Paul III. of Jesuit memory.3

One more specimen of the poetic crowd dispersed

1"Tutti quasi i poeti, tutti i letterati di quella età, comechè residenti in Roma, et insigniti ancora di prelature, di dignità, e di ufficj nella chiesa, erano infetti dello stesso vizio, o come altri direbbe, tinti della pece medesima.”Bossi, Ital. v. vii. 268.

2 Melchior Adam tells us (in Vit. Theol. p. 360) that Melancthon sent Sabinus to Bembo with a letter of introduction. During dinner, Bembo asked Sabinus what salary Melancthon had? what number of hearers? and what was his opinion concerning a future state and the resurrection? To the first, the reply was 300 florins a-year. The cardinal cried out-" Ungrateful Germany, to purchase at so low a price so many toils of so great a man!" The answer to the second question was, that Melancthon had usually 1500 hearers. "I cannot believe it," replied the cardinal. "I do not know of an university in Europe, except that at Paris, where one professor has so many scholars." Still Melancthon had frequently 2500 hearers. To the third question, Sabinus replied that Melancthon's works were a full proof of his belief in those two articles. "I should have a better opinion of him,” replied the cardinal, “if he did not believe them at all "-haberem virum prudentem, si hoc non crederet. Apud Bayle, Melancthon [P.]. See also Bembo [F.] for other assertions of the like nature. On being informed that Sadolet was about to write an explanation of the Epistle to the Romans, Bembo said to him, "Leave off these fooleries; they ill become a man of gravity-Omitte has nugas; non enim decent gravem virum tales ineptiæ." -Greg. Michel. Not. in Curios. Gaff. p. 111.

3 Scaliger reproaches him sharply for his licentious poems, particularly the Elegy beginning—

"Ante alias omnes, meus hic quos educat hortus,

Una puellares allicit herba manus."

I dare not mention the subject of the Elegy. In Scaliger's opinion--and all must agree with him-the poem "may be justly called a most obscene piece of wit, or a most witty piece of obscenity." "There are many pieces of his (Bembo) extant, written in a very licentious way, agreeably to the corrupt taste of the times, and to the humours of the master he served." This is De Thou's verdict. See Bayle, Bembo (E.); Scalig. Confut. Tab. Burdonum, p. 323.

He had
His life

by Adrian may be mentioned: Pietro Aretino, whose name has acquired an infamous celebrity. Extreme licentiousness is the characteristic of this poet, if he be worthy of the name. He sold his pen to reigning sovereigns, and gave them for their gold the most base and degrading flatteries. And yet, it is well known he wrote several devotional pieces; in the list of his works, among many abominations, appear the Life of Saint Catherine of Sienna, and a Paraphrase of the Penitential Psalms, which the author, an enemy to every religious faith and to all morals, wrote only because they brought him a larger sum of money. In spite of this profligacy of mind and heart, Aretino received from his contemporaries the epithet of Il Divino, the Divine! the effrontery to affix the title to his name. was sullied by every species of vice. Utterly without a sense of honour, personal chastisement was the only expedient capable of repressing his satirical venom; and that he frequently underwent at the hands of his enemies. On the other hand, in his dramatic pieces he paints undisguisedly the vices of the great as well as those of the people, and preserves, with singular truth and vivacity of colouring, the picture of the general dissoluteness of manners, and the loose principles of the age. "From no other source," says Sismondi, whose account of the man I have condensed, "from no other source can we obtain a more correct insight into that abandonment of all morals, honour and virtue, which marked the sixteenth century." This crowd-poet, Aretino, was the acknowledged friend of Leo X., and subsequently of Clement VII., and still later was recommended to Paul III. by his son, the Duke of Parma, as deserving a cardinal's hat, and had nearly attained

that distinction, on the death of Paul, from his successor Julius III. But it is evident that he could find no favour with Adrian VI.

Adrian's efforts at

reform.

The election of a man actually absent, and who was unknown to the cardinals and the Roman court, where he had never been, a man who was thought hostile to the Roman maxims and the licentious lives of the cardinals, so fixed attention, that Luther's movement was almost forgotten. He was even thought favourable to the Reformation; but nothing was further from his intention than giving encouragement to the movement in its widest acceptation. A conscientious believer in the doctrines of the Roman church, his ardent desire was to uphold it in its greatest integrity, and utterly to eradicate the thousand abuses by which it was befouled. He was consistently hostile to Luther's movement. His purity of intention and integrity of life gave him the title to this praise, whilst so many others concerned in the struggle had nothing but their corrupt desires and open vices to prompt resistance to a movement which threatened them with penury and ruin. Adrian longed

1 Sismondi, i. p. 433; Feller, Biog. Univ. See also Tiraboschi, t. vii, p. 11, I. iii. c. 86, for a slashing account of Aretino; the Jesuit seeming to forget that this "poet" was a friend of Leo X. He says that Clement VII. expelled him from Rome for some obscene sonnets. He called himself the Scourge of Princes, and asserts that his income, arising from presents that they made him, and solid cash, amounted to 25,000 crowns in eighteen years. Even Charles V., and Francis I., purchased his silence! Imagine the force of influence in those days. Remember the fact: it will explain how eagerly the services of the Jesuits were desired. Popes and sovereigns knew their danger from literary and other enemies, if they made such, or failed to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness. Aretino would not have been paid to keep silence on the characters and deeds of potentates, if his writings did not influence the people— then the "tools" of the great, to fight their battles and fill their pockets. 2 Sarpi, lib. i.