Whither, then, are you bound?
"_St. Peter_. I apprehend danger here;--they'll soon call me in
question for denying my Master.
"_St. Paul_. Nay, then, I had better be off, too; for they'll question
me for having persecuted the Christians before my conversion."[12]
In his distinction between the wit of thoughts, of words, and of
images, Coleridge asserts that the first belongs eminently to the
Italians. Such broad assertions are always open to exceptions, and
Pasquin shows that the Romans at least are not less clever in the wit
of words than in that of thoughts. Take, for example, the jest on
Innocent X. which Howel reports in one of his entertaining letters.
This Pope, who, says the candid historian, Mosheim, "to a profound
ignorance of all those things which it was necessary for a Christian
bishop to know, joined the most shameless indolence and the most
notorious profligacy," abandoned his person, his dignity, and his
government to the disposal of Donna Olympia Maldachini, the widow of
his brother. The portrait of the Pope may be seen in the Doria Gallery
at Rome; for it is still esteemed an honor by the noble family to
which the gallery belongs to be able to trace a relationship to a
Pope, even though so vile a one as Innocent "_Magis amat papa Olympiam
quam Olympum_" said Pasquin; and the pun still clings to the memory of
him whom his authorized biographer calls "_religiosissimo nelle cose
divine e prudentissimo nelle umane.
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