abundant. The pontificate of Sixtus V., from 1585 to 1590, was full of
material for his wit. The only man in Rome who did not tremble under
the rod with which this hard old monk ruled his people and the Church
was the free-spoken marble jester. The very morning after the election
of Sixtus, Pasquin appeared with a plate of toothpicks, and to the
question of Marforio, what he was doing with them, he replied, "I am
taking them to Alexandrino, Medicis, and Rusticucci," the three
cardinals who had been most active in securing the Papacy for the new
Pope. The point of the joke was plain to the Romans: it meant that his
adherents, instead of gaining anything by their efforts, had been
deceived, and would have nothing to do now but to pick their teeth at
leisure.

Leti, in his entertaining and gossipping life of this most merciless
of Popes, tells a story of another pasquinade, which exhibits the
temper of Sixtus. One morning Pasquin appeared clothed in a very dirty
shirt, and, upon being asked by Marforio, why he wore such foul linen,
replied, he could get no other, for the Pope had made his washerwoman
a princess,--meaning thereby the Pope's sister, Donna Camilla, who had
formerly been a laundress, but was now established with a fortune and
a palace. "This stinging piece of raillery was carried directly to his
Holiness, who ordered a strict search to be made for the author, but
to no purpose. Upon which he stuck up printed papers in all the public
places of the city, promising, upon the word of a Pope, to give the
author of the pasquinade a thousand pistoles and his life, provided he
would discover himself, but threatened to hang him, if he was found
out by any one else, and offered the thousand pistoles to the
informer." Upon this the author was simple enough to make confession
and to demand the money. Sixtus paid him the sum, and then, saying
that he had indeed promised him his life, but not freedom from