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prompted by the ambition of conquest: after his decease the abuses revived; the treasure was dissipated; he entailed on posterity thirty-five new taxes and the venality of offices; and, after his death, his statue was demolished by an ungrateful, or an injured, people. ^97 The wild and original character of Sixtus the Fifth stands alone in the series of the pontiffs; the maxims and effects of their temporal government may be collected from the positive and comparative view of the arts and philosophy, the agriculture and trade, the wealth and population, of the ecclesiastical state. For myself, it is my wish to depart in charity with all mankind, nor am I willing, in these last moments, to offend even the pope and clergy of Rome. ^98

[Footnote 93: Mr. Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 389) too hastily conclude that if the civil and ecclesiastical powers be united in the same person, it is of little moment whether he be styled prince or prelate since the temporal character will always predominate.]

[Footnote 94: A Protestant may disdain the unworthy preference of St. Francis or St. Dominic, but he will not rashly condemn the zeal or judgment of Sixtus V., who placed the statues of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul on the vacant columns of Trajan and Antonine.]

[Footnote 95: A wandering Italian, Gregorio Leti, has given the Vita di Sisto-Quinto, (Amstel. 1721, 3 vols. in 12mo.,) a copious and amusing work, but which does not command our absolute confidence. Yet the character of the man, and the principal facts, are supported by the annals of Spondanus and Muratori, (A.D. 1585 - 1590,) and the contemporary history of the great Thuanus, (l. lxxxii. c. 1, 2, l. lxxxiv c. 10, l. c. c. 8.) Note: The industry of M. Ranke has discovered the document, a kind of scandalous chronicle of the time, from which Leti wrought up his amusing romances. See also M. Ranke's observations on the Life of Sixtus. by Tempesti, b. iii. p. 317, 324. - M.]

[Footnote 96: These privileged places, the quartieri or franchises, were adopted from the Roman nobles by the foreign ministers. Julius II. had once abolished the abominandum et detestandum franchitiarum hujusmodi nomen: and after Sixtus V. they again revived. I cannot discern either the justice or magnanimity of Louis XIV., who, in 1687, sent his ambassador, the marquis de Lavardin, to Rome, with an armed force of a thousand officers, guards, and domestics, to maintain this iniquitous claim, and insult Pope Innocent XI. in the heart of his capital, (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 260 - 278. Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. xv. p. 494 - 496, and Voltaire, Siccle de Louis XIV. tom. i. c. 14, p. 58, 59.)]

[Footnote 97: This outrage produced a decree, which was inscribed on marble, and placed in the Capitol. It is expressed in a style of manly simplicity and freedom: Si quis, sive privatus, sive magistratum gerens de collocanda vivo pontifici statua mentionem facere ausit, legitimo S. P. Q. R. decreto in perpetuum infamis et publicorum munerum expers esto. MDXC. mense Augusto, (Vita di Sisto V. tom. iii. p. 469.) I believe that this decree is still observed, and I know that every monarch who deserves a statue should himself impose the prohibition.]

[Footnote 98: The histories of the church, Italy, and Christendom, have contributed to the chapter which I now conclude. In the original Lives of the Popes, we often discover the city and republic of Rome: and the events of the xivth and xvth centuries are preserved in the rude and domestic chronicles which I have carefully inspected, and shall recapitulate in the order of time. 1. Monaldeschi (Ludovici Boncomitis) Fragmenta Annalium Roman. A.D. 1328, in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum of Muratori, tom. xii. p. 525. N. B. The credit of this fragment is somewhat hurt by a singular interpolation, in which the author relates his own death at the age of 115 years. 2. Fragmenta Historiae Romanae (vulgo Thomas Fortifioccae) in Romana Dialecto vulgari, (A.D. 1327 - 1354, in Muratori, Antiquitat. Medii Aevi Italiae, tom. iii. p. 247 - 548;)