Of the cases named, Cardinal Giovanni Borgia (detto Giuniore), the Sultan Djim, and Cardinal Orsini, are the most important. The improbability in the case of the first already has been shewn: Duke Cesare and he were friendly; their interests were asymptotic; and they were apart during the seventeen days before the cardinal died. The improbability in the case of the Sultan Djim lies in the fact that the Pope lost 40,000 ducats annually, and the only means of keeping the Turks from Christendom, by his death which was due to natural causes, and took place when he was in the hands of the Christian King Charles VIII at Naples, some weeks after he had left Rome. The improbability in the case of Cardinal Orsini is proved by the tainted source from which the charge emanated; by the publicity of all proceedings before and after his death; and by the sworn testimony of his leeches. Cases of this kind must be considered together; and rejected or accepted together; for rumours do not gain credibility from vociferous repetition: nor does it avail to plead that because advantages accrue from the death of such a one, therefore, the person benefited by the death is likely to have envenomed the deceased. Death is always advantageous to some one living: but in no case named did the Lord Alexander P.P. VI and Duke Cesare reap any gain whatever, but contrariwise loss. As for the statement, that the venom of the Borgia was a slow venom, slow in action, dirigible in absence, it safely may be said that no such venom existed then any more than it does now. This slow venom is an invention of purveyors of a certain class of fiction, doing vast credit to their imaginative powers, but possessing no tangible existence. These writers of fiction are merchants who must supply their customers with goods upon demand. The Legend of the Borgia Venom is a department of their trade. The public has read it and cried for more according to the sample. The public is pleased to amuse itself. At other times the public has the humour to inform itself; and takes spiritual pastors, and masters, cunning in all learning, in all verities of past and present. From these, the truth is required for mental profit; from the others invention and imagination for mental recreation. The public pays and has the right to choose what it will buy. A grocer, who would venture to supply pickles instead of pepper ordered, would encounter his patron’s discontent. A teacher, who would venture to purvey fiction instead of fact required, would meet with similar disaster, one would think. But in sober earnest, the Legend of the Borgia Venom so very industriously has been propagated, that modern serious writers have adopted it as one of the items which safely may be included in their serious writings: and the public finding it there, in places where truth is expected to be, looks upon the false as true because it comes with the imprimatur of authority.