broad farce, it is evident that such a plot is but indifferently adapted for embodying manners sketched from life. [Footnote 98: See also Panizzi's London edition of the _Orlando Innamorato_ and the _Furioso_, vol. VI., p. 59.] * * * * * The corruption of morals in Italy during the golden age of her literature and civilisation is a painful topic, but one naturally suggested by these remarks, and which cannot with truth be entirely thrown into the shade.[*99] It was especially developed in the free gratification of passions to which an enervating climate is considered peculiarly incentive, and which induce to amorous indulgence. The due restraint of these was reckoned neither among the virtues nor the decencies of life, nor was their licentious exercise limited to persons of exalted station. The sad example set in luxurious courts spread to classes whose sacred calling and vows of continence rendered their lapses doubly disgraceful; and those whose tastes and cultivated understandings were fitted for purer and nobler pursuits wallowed without discredit in the slough of sensuality. With such instances, even among the finest characters, these pages render us unfortunately too familiar. Instead of multiplying or repeating them, let us hear the calm admissions of a late writer, whose evidence cannot be deemed partial on such a topic. In talking of Bembo, the Italian translator of Roscoe's _Leo X._ thus touches upon this delicate subject: "It must be observed that most of the poets and writers of that age, although resident at Rome, and dignified by prelacies, preferments, and offices of the Church, were infected with the like vices, or, as some would express it, tarred with the same pitch. The spirit of that court, the manners of these times, the licence of ideas among literary men, their constant reading of ancient poets not always commendable for modesty, the long established and uniform intercourse of the Muses with Bacchus and Venus, the fatal example afforded by certain cardinals, and even by several of the papal predecessors of Leo, whose children were publicly acknowledged ... all these considerations show how difficult it was at such an epoch, and especially in the capital of Christendom, to continue exempt from corruption and licentiousness."