.THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF POPE PIUS II. 459 



were originally written, and have appeared in separate forms. 

 Indeed, the story of Euryalus and Lucretia* may be said to have for 

 two centuries enjoyed a distinguished European reputation. Nor, 

 considering the age to which it belongs, can it be denied the praise of 

 merit. It describes the intrigues of women, and the misfortunes of 

 husbands with minuteness and no small portion of truth ; and ends 

 as all genuine romance should end, with melancholy and death. Of 

 the Amoris Illiciti Medela, however, we cannot speak with equal com- 

 mendation. Its purport is to cure and subdue the passion which has 

 not matrimony for its means and end, and consists of little more than 

 a string of commonplaces, very wise, perhaps, but very dull also, 

 and certainly most inefficacious, as all experience testifies, for the 

 object in the author's view. 



We have said that upon the death of Calixtus, ^Eneas succeeded 

 to the Keys of St. Peter. At the moment his predecessor breathed 

 his last, he was himself at the baths of Viterbo for the benefit of his 

 health, and busily engaged upon this history of Bohemia. But re- 

 turning to Rome without delay, he was met by the inhabitants who 

 came out on the road in a large body, and saluted him as Pope 

 before the election. What effect this demonstration of popular feeling 

 had upon the Cardinals, we know not : it is only recorded that he 

 was unanimously chosen by the conclave. He no sooner found him- 

 self at the head of the Christian Church than he exerted all his 

 powers to effect a crusade against the Turks. He dispatched nuncios 

 and apostolic letters to the different Christian princes and nations, 

 exhorting them to this war. For this purpose he called a great con- 

 gress at Mantua, which was numerously attended. Great prepara- 

 f tions were made to strike an effective blow, which he meant to direct 

 in person ; but before they could be completed, death seized on Pope 

 Pius while staying at Ancona, where a large naval and military force 

 had been gathered together for the expedition. Pius testified his 

 desires for its success by bequeathing a large sum of gold towards 

 defraying the expenses of the war. When he died, he was in his 

 fifty-seventh year, and had scarcely completed the sixth of nis 

 Pontificate. 



Of Pius the II. as Pope, there is but one circumstance to chal- 

 lenge notice ; and that is the reverse of being creditable to his con- 

 sistency. When writing in favour of the Council of Basle, he had 

 maintained opinions which, when he became successor to St. Peter, 

 he found it impossible to reconcile with the dogmas peculiar to the 

 papal throne. When a layman, he held the councils of the church 

 superior to the judgment of the Pope; but when Pope himself, he 

 stood out for the supremacy of his office. For this purpose he pub- 

 lished a bull, and concluded his recantations of his old opinions after 

 the system of St. Paul and St. Augustin, with these words : " Rather 

 believe me now that I am an old man, than when I wrote as a young 

 one : think more of a sovereign Pontiff than of a private individual ; 

 reject ^Eneas Sylvius, but accept Pope Pius II. 



