Note 61 — Chapter IV · GEORGE WISHART.
Reading edition
[Cook's History of the Reformation, 1811, i. 272, 273; 1819, i. 273. Dr Cook says that Dr Leslie, minister of Fordoun, "got a short view of them," and favoured him with the account which he wrote. In a very similar notice of the paintings by Dr Leslie, it is stated that they were discovered when the old house of Pittarrow was being pulled down in 1802 ('New Statistical Account of Kincardineshire,' p. 81).] As Dr Cook long ago surmised, the lines of covert sarcasm on the pope are not original. One evening as I returned to Guildford Street after a long day in the British Museum, I had occasion to pass through Red Lion Square and the alley to the east of it, where I saw exposed in a pawnbroker's window a little antique volume, in a very dilapidated state, opened at the page which contained these lines almost verbatim. I at once purchased it, and on further examination I found it had been published at Basle in 1537—i.e., a few years before Wishart was there. [The little collection which Dr Mitchell thus refers to bears the title: "Pasqvilli de Concilio Mantuano Iudicium. Qverimonia Papistarum ad Legatum Pontificium in comicijs Schmalcaldianis. Mantua uæ miseris nimium uicina Papistis. MDXXXVII."
The colophon runs thus: "Impressum Romae in porta Angelorum. M.D.XXXVII."
Wishart evidently found his lines in the following:—
"Lavs Romani Pontificis. Scripta ad placitum Romanae curiae per uenerabilem dominum Doctorem Ioannem Cochleum, Theutonicae Doctor Rotzloffel, et Georgium VVicelium cognomento, Meister Lugenmaul, Romanae Ecclesiae propugnatores egregios.
"Pauperibus sua dat gratis nec munera curat Curia Papalis quod modo percipimus Laus tua non tua fraus, Virtus non copia rerum Scandere te fecit, hoc Decus eximium Conditio tua sit stabilis nec tempore paruo Viuere te faciat hic Deus omnipotens.
"Quos uersiculos pessimus quidam haereticus, Lutheranus, iuuenilis fortasis Poeta VVittembergensis, ita de uerbo ad uerbum inuertit.
"Percipimus modo quod Papalis curia curat Munera, nec gratis dat sua pauperibus Eximium decus hoc fecit te scandere rerum Copia, non uirtus, fraus tua, non tua laus. Omnipotens Deus hic faciat te uiuere paruo Tempore, nec stabilis sit tua conditio."]