had borrowed large sums at exorbitant usury; but his coffers were empty, his creditors were impatient, and his person was detained as the best security for the payment. His eldest son, Andronicus, the regent of Constantinople, was repeatedly urged to exhaust every resource; and even by stripping the churches, to extricate his father from captivity and disgrace. But the unnatural youth was insensible of the disgrace, and secretly pleased with the captivity of the emperor: the state was poor, the clergy were obstinate; nor could some religious scruple be wanting to excuse the guilt of his indifference and delay. Such undutiful neglect was severely reproved by the piety of his brother Manuel, who instantly sold or mortgaged all that he possessed, embarked for Venice, relieved his father, and pledged his own freedom to be responsible for the debt. On his return to Constantinople, the parent and king distinguished his two sons with suitable rewards; but the faith and manners of the slothful PalÊologus had not been improved by his Roman pilgrimage; and his apostasy or conversion, devoid of any spiritual or temporal effects, was speedily forgotten by the Greeks and Latins. [14] [Footnote 8: See the two first original Lives of Urban V., (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. P. ii. p. 623, 635,) and the Ecclesiastical Annals of Spondanus, (tom. i. p. 573, A.D. 1369, No. 7,) and Raynaldus, (Fleury, Hist. EcclÈs. tom. xx. p. 223, 224.) Yet, from some variations, I suspect the papal writers of slightly magnifying the genuflections of PalÊologus.] [Footnote 9: Paullo minus quam si fuisset Imperator Romanorum. Yet his title of Imperator GrÊcorum was no longer disputed, (Vit. Urban V. p. 623.)] [Footnote 10: It was confined to the successors of Charlemagne, and to them only on Christmas-day. On all other festivals these Imperial deacons were content to serve the pope, as he said mass, with the book and the _corporale_. Yet the abbÈ de Sade generously thinks that the merits of Charles IV. might have entitled him, though not on the proper day, (A.D. 1368, November 1,) to the whole privilege. He seems to affix a just value on the privilege and the man, (Vie de Petrarque, tom. iii. p. 735.)] [Footnote 11: Through some Italian corruptions, the etymology of _Falcone in bosco_, (Matteo Villani, l. xi. c. 79, in Muratori, tom. xv. p. 746,) suggests the English word _Hawkwood_, the true name of our adventurous countryman, (Thomas Walsingham, Hist. Anglican. inter Scriptores Camdeni, p. 184.) After two-and-twenty victories, and one defeat, he died, in 1394, general of the Florentines, and was buried with such honors as the republic has not paid to Dante or Petrarch, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xii. p. 212--371.)]