A foolish wo blind, found fault with the man, who fell house the lived in, that it was too dark: a refemblance of moft men's folly. Let us add another ftory, of much the fame nature, which Seneca relates, in one of his Epif"tles. You know, fays he, writing to "Lucillius, that Harpafte, my wife's fool, "" is thrown upon my family as an hereditary charge, forI have naturally an aver"fion to thofe monfters; and, if I have a "mind to laugh at a fool, I need not feek "him far, I can laugh at myfelf. This "fool has fuddenly loft her fight: I ❝ can tell you a strange, but a very true thing; fhe is not "fenfible that she is blind, but eternally importunes her "keeper to take her abroad, because the fays my house "is dark but, believe me, that what we laugh at in "her, happens to every one of us: no one knows him"felf to be avaricious. Befides, the blind call for a "guide, but we wander of our own accord. I am not "ambitious, we fay, but a man cannot live otherwise at "Rome: I am not wafteful, but the city requires "a great expence: it is not my fault if I am choleric; and, if I have not yet established any certain course of life, it is the fault of youth. Let us not look abroad "for our disease, it is in us, and planted in our in"testines and our not perceiving ourselves to be fick " even renders us more hard to be cured: if we do not "betimes begin to dress ourselves, when fhall we have "done with so many wounds and evils that afflict us? "And yet we have a moft pleasant medicine in philofo"phy; of all others, we are not fenfible of the pleasure "till after the cure; this pleases and heals at the fame "time." This is what Seneca fays, who has carried me from my fubject; but it is a digreffion not unprofitable. ་་ T A custom of CHA P. XXVI. Of Thumbs. A CITUS reports, that, amongst certain barbarian kings, their manner was, when they would make a firm obligation, to join their right hands clofe together, and twift each other's thumbs; and when, by force of preffure, the blood appeared in the ends, they lightly pricked them with fome fharp inftrument, and mutually fucked them. fay, "that the thumb is the master-finger "of each hand, and that the Latin etymology is derived from pollere +." The Greeks called it axle, as who should fay, another hand. And it seems, that the Latins alfo fometimes take it, in this fenfe, for the whole hand; Phyficians Etymology of the Latin word pollex, for thumb. 66 Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis, When the thumbs denot ed favour, and when difguft. It was, at Rome, a fignification of favour, to turn down, and clap in the thumbs; Fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum . And of disfavour to lift them up, and thruft them out ward; This feems to be taken from Macrobius's Saturn. lib. vii. cap. 13. who took it, in his turn, from Atticus Capito. Mart. lib. xii. epig. 99. ver. 8, 9. Juv. fat. iii, ver. 36. Horat. lib i, ep. 18. ver. 66. The The vulgar, with up-lifted thumbs, Kill each one that before them comes Those who cut off their thumbs, why punished by the Romans. The Romans exempted from war all fuch as were maimed in the thumbs, as perfons not able to bear arms. Auguftus confiscated the estate of a Roman knight, " who had "maliciously cut off the thumbs of two 86 young children he had, to excufe them "from going into the armies +;" and, before him, the fenate, in the time of the Italian war, condemned Caius Valienus to perpetual imprisonment, and confifcated all his goods, "for having purposely cut off the thumb of "his left hand, to exempt himself from that expedi❝tion." Some one, I have forgot who, having won a naval battle, "cut off the thumbs of all his Thumbs of the vanquished enemies, to render them vanquished ene"incapable of fighting, and of handling my cut off. the oar." The Athenians alfo caufed the thumbs of thofe of Ægina to be cut off, "to deprive them of the "preference in the art of navigation §." And, in Lacedæmonia, pedagogues chaftifed their scholars by biting their thumbs. I Cowardife the Mother of Cruelty. HAVE often heard it faid, "that cowardife is the "mother of cruelty;" yet I have Cruelty the common effe& of cowardife. found, by experience, that that malicious and inhumane animofity and fierceness is ufually accompanied with a feminine faintnefs. I have This was a metaphorical manner of speech, taken from the arena. When a gladiator was thrown in fighting, the people asked his life, by turning down their thumbs, or his death by lifting them up. + Suet. in Cæfar. Augufto, fect. 24. Val. Max. lib. v. cap. J. Lect. 3. § Idem, ibid. lib. ix, in Externis, fect. 8. feen feen the most cruel people, and upon frivolous occafions, very apt to cry. Alexander, the tyrant of Pheres, durft not be a fpectator of tragedies on the theatre, left his fubjects fhould fee him weep at the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache *;" though he himself "caused fo many people every day to be cruelly mur"dered." Is it not meannefs of fpirit, that renders them fo pliable to all extremities? Valour (whose effect is only to be exercised against refiftance, Nec nifi bellantis gaudet cervice juvenci †. -neither, unless it fight, In conquering a bull does he delight.) ftops when he sees the enemy at its mercy; but pufillanimity, to say, that it was also in the action, not having courage to meddle in the first act, rushes into the fecond, of blood and maffacre. The murders in victories are commonly performed by the rafcality, and officers of the baggage; and that which caufes fo many unheardof cruelties, in domeftic wars, is, "that the dregs of "the people are flushed in being up to the elbows in "blood, and ripping up bodies that lie proftrate at their feet, having no fenfe of any other valour." Et lupus, et turpes inftant morientibus urfi, None but the wolves, the filthy bears, and all Like cowardly curs, that, in the house, worry and tear in pieces the fkins of wild beafts, which they durft not attack in the field. What is it, in these times, that causes our mortal quarrels? And how comes it, that where our ancestors had fome degree of revenge, we now begin with the last degree, and that, at the first + Claud. ad Ovid. Trift. lib. iii. eleg. 5. ver. 35. Plutarch, in the life of Pelopidas, ch. xv. Hadrianum, ver, yo. meeting, meeting, nothing is to be faid, but kill? What is this but cowardife? Revenge is rendered of no effect by killing an enemy. Every one is fenfible, that there is more bravery and difdain in fubduing an enemy, than in cutting his throat; and in making him yield, than in putting him to the fword: befides that, the appetite of revenge is better affwaged and gratified, because its only aim is to make itself felt and this is the reason why we do not fall upon a block or a stone when they hurt us, because they are not capable of feeling our revenge; and to kill a man is to fhelter him from the hurt we intend him. And as Bias cried out to a wicked fellow, "I "know that, fooner or later, thou wilt have thy re"ward, but I am afraid I fhall not fee it." And as the Orchomenians complained, "that the penitence of "Lycifcus, for the treafon committed against them, "came at a time when there was no one remaining " alive of those who had been concerned in it, and "whom the pleasure of this penitency must have af"fected;" fo revenge is to be repented of, when the perfon on whom it is executed, lofes the means of fuffering it for as the avenger defires to fee and enjoy the pleasure of his revenge, fo the perfon on whom he takes revenge, fhould be a fpectator too, to be mortified by it, and brought to repentance. He fhall repent it, we fay, and, because we have given him a pistol-fhot through the head, do we imagine he will repent? On the contrary, if we but obferve, we fhall find, that he makes a mouth at us in falling; and is fo far from repenting, that he does not fo much as repine at us and we do him the kindeft office of life, which is to make him die speedily and infenfibly; we are afterwards to hide ourselves, and to fhift and fly from the officers of justice, who purfue us; and all the while he is at Teft. Killing is good to fruftrate a future injury, not to revenge one that is already paft; and it is more an act of fear than bravery, of precaution than courage, and of defence than of offence; it is manifeft that by it we abandon both the true end of revenge, and the care of our reputetion; we |