John Corvinus. While
at his court, he composed a work, De jocose dictis et factis Regis Matthiæ
Corvini. He left Hungary in 1477, and was made prisoner at Venice on a charge of
having propagated heterodox opinions in a treatise entitled, De homine interiore
et corpore ejus. He was obliged to recant some of these doctrines, and might
have suffered seriously but for the protection of Sextus IV., then Pope, who had
been one of his scholars. He went to France, attached himself to Louis XI., and
died in his service.
 
35 Who himself tenanted one of these dens for more than eleven years.
 
36 It was a remarkable feature of the character of these wanderers that they did
not, like the Jews, whom they otherwise resembled in some particulars, possess
or profess any particular religion, whether in form or principle. They readily
conformed, as far as might be required, with the religion of any country in
which they happened to sojourn, nor did they ever practise it more than was
demanded of them. It is certain that in India they embraced neither the tenets
of the religion of Bramah nor of Mahomet. They have hence been considered as
belonging to the outcast East Indian tribes of Nuts or Parias. Their want of
religion is supplied by a good deal of superstition. Such of their ritual as can
be discovered, for example that belonging to marriage, is savage in the extreme,
and represents the customs of the Hottentots more than of any civilised people.
They adopt various observances, picked up from the religion of the country in
which they live. It is, or rather was, the custom of the tribes on the Borders
of England and Scotland, to attribute success to those journeys which are
commenced by passing through the parish church; and they usually try to obtain
permission from the beadle to do so when the church is empty, for the
performance of divine service is not considered as essential to the omen. They
are, therefore, totally devoid of any effectual sense of religion; and the
higher or more instructed class may be considered as acknowledging no deity save
those of Epicurus, and such is described as being the faith, or no faith, of
Hayraddin Maugrabin.
I may here take notice, that nothing is more disagreeable to this indolent and
voluptuous people than being forced to follow any regular profession. When Paris
was garrisoned by the allied troops in the year 1815, the Author was walking
with a British officer near a post held by the Prussian troops. He happened at
the time to smoke a cigar, and was about, while passing the sentinel,