To make this good and to strengthen confidence, we have many valuable extracts from unpublished works, such as the history of the Augustinian, Cardinal Egidius of Viterbo, one of the least inefficient among the Italian priesthood of that age, and the diaries of the master of the ceremonies and Bishop of Pesaro, whose manuscripts have been the mainstay of papal historians from Panvini and Raynaldus to Hergenrother. But the desire to reject superfluous notes and paraded erudition has influenced the author's manner in another way. No scrupulous and self-respecting writer will speak his mind or say things that challenge inquiry unless the proof is prompt. To relieve his text of the burden of incessant quotation, he must understate his meaning and lose in definiteness and precision what he gains in lightness. His chisel is necessarily blunted, and he cannot work in high relief. It has cost Mr. Creighton but little to accept this drawback on his method. He is not striving to prove a case, or burrowing towards a conclusion, but wishes to pass through scenes of raging controversy and passion with a serene curiosity, a suspended judgment, a divided jury, and a pair of white gloves. Avoiding both alternatives of the prophet's mission, he will neither bless nor curse, and seldom invites his readers to execrate or to admire. His tints are sometimes pale, and his tones indecisive. I do not refer to such ambiguous sayings as that Matilda left all her lands to St. Peter, or that the sudden death of Paul II. was regarded as a judgment upon him for his want of faith, or that Julius II. felt the calls of nature strong at the last. But there are places where, in the author's solicitude to be within the mark, the reader misses the point. There was a time when the schemes of ecclesiastical reform found a last refuge in the sacred college itself. In letters written from Rome on 23rd and 28th September 1503, we read: "Li Signori Cardinali essendo in Conclavi, hano ordinati multi Capituli tendenti a proponere de la Sede apostolica, et del Collegio, et creato el Pontefice, li hano facto giurare de observarli. . . . Tutti li Signori Cardinali furno chiamati per N. S. in
