virtue, or more opposed to avarice, than those of Rome. Such was the gravity and modesty of many of them, that in those respects they equalled Fabricius, while, in possessing the true faith, they had the advantage over him. Then, with regard to the pope himself,--as his Holiness insisted on being plainly spoken to,--he would say, that, inasmuch as the Holy Ghost could not err, so whatever his Holiness might teach, must be followed; though, what his Holiness might do, was not always to be imitated. His Holiness was styled Father and Lord of all: but why, if he was the Father, did he require presents from his children? and why, if he was the Lord, did he not strike awe into the Romans, curb their insolence, and reclaim them to their duty? At all this the pope laughed heartily, and expressed himself well pleased at having found a man so honest and plain spoken; adding, that if ever he should hear anything further to the same purpose, by no means to omit reporting it. Adrian then proceeded to pass his own conduct in review, said many things for and against himself, and made reflections on the arduousness of the papal office, affirming that no other was so full of cares, and that no man was more wretched than a Roman Pontiff: "for his throne was set with thorns, his mantle pierced with sharp points, and so heavy as to weigh the strongest shoulders to the ground." Much sooner would he prefer never to have left his native English soil, or to have remained for ever hidden in his cell at St. Rums, than to have entered such straits; but the divine dispensation had called him, and he dared not disobey. He further said, that it had always been the Lord's pleasure, that he should grow between the hammer and the anvil; that now he prayed the Lord would be pleased to put his hand under the burden, as it was become insupportable. The pope then concluded his observations, by relating to the company, the fable of the Belly and the Members,--which the charges laid at his door suggested to him, and which John of Salisbury gives at length in Adrian's words; a fable, by the way, which assuredly has lost none of its point since those times, but remains as pregnant with wisdom for the nineteenth, as for the twelfth century.