Capitolo 23
Aristophanes that the document a comedy waits for to put in ridiculous the
dissertations of that divine philosopher. You/he/she has been observed from many
writers of whom Socrates has been moved so few to this piece
buffoonery, that he was a lot of times present to its being acted
on the stage, and not expressed never his least resentment.
But, with subjugation, I think, the comment that I have done here shows us
what this unworthy treatment made an impression on its mind,
although he had been too much wise man to discover him/it.
When Julius Cesare was satirized by Catullus, he invited him to a
supper, and it treated him/it with such generous civilization that he has done
the poet his/her friend never later. Cardinal Mazarine gave the same
kind of treatment to the learned Quillet that had reflected on his
eminence in a Latin and famous poem. The cardinal sent for him, and,
after some expostulationses of the kind on what he had written, it assured him
of his/her respect, and he/she dismissed him/it with a promise of the next good person
abbey that should fall, what he conferred accordingly on him in a
few months later. This had so good person an effect on the author that
he devoted the second edition of his/her book to the cardinal, later
having expunged the passages that had given him offense.
Sextus Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temperament. On
his/her being made Pope, the statue of Pasquin was a night dressed in
a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under him that he was
he/she forced to bring the ugly flax because his/her laundress was made a princess.
This was a reflection on the sister of the Pope that, in front of the
promotion of his/her brother, was in those bad circumstances that
Pasquin represented her/it. As these pasquinades made a great noise in
Rome, the Pope proposed a considerable sum of money to any person
that would have to discover its author. The author, counting on his
the generosity of holiness, as also on the private introductions that him
you/he/she had received from him, it made the discovery him; on that the