is system of mystical
divinity is still of interest from its connection with the lives of
Fenelon and Madame Guyon, if not from its intrinsic character. Like
most other mystical doctrines, his teachings seem to have been open to
the charge, that, while professedly based on the highest spirituality,
they had a direct tendency to encourage sensuality in its most
dangerous form. Molinos was at first much favored at Rome and by the
Pope himself; but at the time of Burnet's journey he was in the
custody of the Holy Office, while his books were undergoing the
examination which finally led to the formal condemnation of
sixty-eight propositions contained in them, to the renunciation of
these propositions by their author, and to his being sentenced to
perpetual imprisonment Burnet relates that it happened "in one week
that one man had been condemned to the galleys for somewhat he had
said, another had been hanged for somewhat he had writ, and Molinos
was clapt in prison, whose doctrine consisted chiefly in this, that
men ought to bring their minds to a state of inward quietness. The
Pasquinade upon all this was, "_Si parliamo, in galere; si scrivemmo,
impiccati; si stiamo in quiete, all' Sant Uffizio. Eh! che bisogna
fare?_" "If we speak, the galleys; if we write, the gallows; if we
stay quiet, the Inquisition. Eh! what must we do, then?"

With the changes of times and the succession of Popes, new material
was constantly afforded to Pasquin for the exercise of his peculiar
talent. Each generation gave him fresh subject for laughter or for
rebuke. Men quickly passed away, but folly and vice remained. "Do you
wonder," said Pasquin, once, in his early days, referring to his
changes of character, "do you wonder why Rome yearly changes me to a
new figure? It is because of the shifting manners of the city, and the
falling back of men. He who would be pious must depart from Rome."

"Praeteriens, forsan miraris, turba, quotannis
Cur me Roma novam mutet in effigiem.
Hoc urbis mores varios, hominumque recessus
Indicat: ergo abeat qui cupit esse pius."

During the eighteenth century Italy did not abound in poets or wits,
and Master Pasquin seems to have shared in the dulness of the times.
Toward its end, however, when Pius VI. was building the palace under
the corner of which the statue was to find shelter, the marble
representative of the tailor watched his proceedings with sharp
observation. Long ago he had rebuked the nepoti