German Proverb.
This is a Merry Tale of Bergamo.
It chanced in Fifteen Hundred Twenty-Eight
[As I do find the fact recorded in
A pleasing book of Sixteen Thirty-Six
Entitled Scelta di Facetie—
A little yellow, quaint, italic tome,
Which looks as if it were behind the age,
And would have been black letter if it could]
That in fair Venice raged a pestilence