is intrinsically false and, at the same time, derogatory to the person against whom it is laid. This difficulty is one that continually confronts the investigator. Prelates, priests, princes, penmen, sometimes because they had a grievance, sometimes confessedly wilfully, sometimes by way of wanton babble, habitually launched against their enemies or superiors accusations of depravity the most loathsome, of crime the most odious. What they said by word of mouth cannot surely be known Until The Books Are Opened. What they wrote in pasquinades, in diaries, in official despatches, in official chronicles, or for the mere æsthetic pleasure of recording a salacious gibe in curial Tuscan or in golden Latin—these remain. A few of the more important icily will be discussed here. The student of history knows no more refreshing recreation than that of nailing liars, like vermin, to the wall. The statement of Bishop Vespasiano da Bisticci of Vicenza, quoted above, is a fair example of the less fœtid species of calumny: it only amounts to an accusation of “philistinism.” However, it at once may be described as being both stupid and improbable. With regard to the naif surprize, said to have been shown by the Lord Calixtus P.P. III, on seeing “so many excellent books,” is it likely that, as Bishop Alonso de Borja, Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Confidential Counsellor of the Majesty of Naples, he never had seen fine things before? Is it likely that Cardinal Alonso de Borja, eleven years cardinal of the curia residing in the Court of Rome, had never seen splendid books before? Of what kind then were the missals and pontificals which, as bishop, he would have used in his daily mass? Is it likely that Cardinal Alonso de Borja—one of the actual electors of the Lord Nicholas P.P. V, constantly at His side from beginning to end of His reign, if not assistant to, at least cognizant of, His every action—had never seen, had never touched, handled, tasted, those identical five hundred books, bound in crimson velvet with clasps of silver, with which that august Pontiff enriched the Vatican library. The assumption is ridiculous, absurd.