nonsense, however, there lay no serious intention. The satires on the clergy were contemptuous and flippant, arguing more liking on the part of their author for scurrilous jests than any earnest wish to prove the degradation of monasticism. Not a word of censure from the Vatican can I find recorded against this marvellous production of a Papal secretary's pen. Here, by way of illustration, it may be mentioned that Filelfo, on his way through Rome to Naples, placed his satires--the most nauseous compositions that coarse spite and filthy fancy ever spawned--in the hands of Nicholas V. The Pope retained them for nine days, read them, returned them with thanks, and rewarded their author with a purse of 500 ducats. [Footnote 203: _Poggi Florentini Facetiarum Libellus Unicus_, Londini, 1798, vol. i. p. 282.] [Footnote 204: 'Mendaciorum veluti officina' is Poggio's own explanation of the phrase.] [Footnote 205: 'Ibi parcebatur nemini, in lacessendo ea quæ non probabantur a nobis.'] The 'Dialogue against the Hypocrites' contains less of mere scurrility and more that bears with real weight on the vices of the clergy. Begging friars, preachers, confessors, and aspirants to the fame of holiness are cited by name and scourged with pitiless impartiality, while the worldly ambition of the Roman churchmen is unmasked. The 'Fratres Observantiæ,' who flourished under Pope Eugenius, receive stern castigation at the hands of Carlo Aretino. Shepherd remarks, not without justice, on this dialogue that, had the author 'ventured to advance the sentiments which it contains in the days of Eugenius, he would in all probability have expiated his temerity by the forfeit of his life.[206] Nicholas V., who appreciated the pungency of its satiric style, instead of resenting its free speech, directed his friend Poggio's pen against his rival Felix. Raised to the Papacy by the Council of Basle in 1439, Amadeus, the ex-Duke of Savoy, still persisted in his Papal title after the election of Nicholas; and though the Sovereign of the Vatican could well afford to scorn the hermit of Ripaille, he thought it prudent to discharge the heavy guns of humanistic eloquence against the Antipope. A ponderous invective was the result, wherein Poggio described the unfortunate Felix as 'another Cerberus,' 'a rapacious wolf,' 'a golden calf,' 'a perverter of the faith and foe to true religion,' 'a high priest of malignity,' 'a roaring lion'--stigmatising the Council to whom he owed his election as 'that sink of iniquity the Synagogue of Basle,' 'a monstrous birth,' 'conventicle of reprobates,' 'tumultuary band of debauched men,' 'apostates, fornicators, ravishers, deserters, men convicted of most shameful crimes, blasphemers, rebels against God.'[207] To such amenities of controversial rhetoric did even Popes descend, substituting sound and fury for sense, and trusting to vituperation in the absence of more valid arguments. [Footnote 206: _Life of Poggio_, p. 423.]