ing, therefore, was by no means disagreeable to me. I produced the
hollands and glass from my tent, where Isopel Berners had requested me to
deposit them, and also some lump sugar, then taking the gotch {5a} I
fetched water from the spring, and, sitting down, begged the man in black
to help himself; he was not slow in complying with my desire, and
prepared for himself a glass of hollands and water with a lump of sugar
in it. After he had taken two or three sips with evident satisfaction,
I, remembering his chuckling exclamation of 'Go to Rome for money,' when
he last left the dingle, took the liberty, after a little conversation,
of reminding him of it, whereupon, with a he! he! he! he replied, 'Your
idea was not quite so original as I supposed. After leaving you the
other night I remembered having read of an Emperor of Germany who
conceived the idea of applying to Rome for money, and actually put it
into practice.

'Urban the Eighth then occupied the papal chair, of the family of the
Barbarini, {5b} nicknamed the Mosche, or Flies, from the circumstance of
bees being their armorial bearing. The Emperor having exhausted all his
money in endeavouring to defend the church against Gustavus Adolphus, the
great King of Sweden, who was bent on its destruction, applied in his
necessity to the Pope for a loan of money. The Pope, however, and his
relations, whose cellars were at that time full of the money of the
church, which they had been plundering for years, refused to lend him a
scudo; whereupon a pasquinade picture was stuck up at Rome, representing
the church lying on a bed, gashed with dreadful wounds, and beset all
over with flies, which were sucking her, whilst the Emperor of Germany
was kneeling before her with a miserable face requesting a little money
towards carrying on the war against the heretics, to which the poor
church was made to say: "How can I assist you, O my champion, do you not
see that the flies have sucked me to the very bones?" Which story,' said
he, 'shows that the idea of going to Rome for money was not quite so
original as I imagined the other night, though utterly preposterous.

'This affair,' said he, 'occurred in what were called the days of
nepotism. Certain Popes, who wished to make themselves in some degree
independent of the cardinals, surrounded themselves with their nephews,
and the rest of their family, who sucked the church and Christendom as
much as they could, none doing so more