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CHAP. XXV.

Not to counterfeit SICKNESS.

HERE is

THERE a choice Epigram in Martial, for he

real Gout.

has of all forts, where he pleasantly Gout countertells the Story of Celius, who, to avoid mak- feit became a ing his court to some great Men of Rome, to go to their Levee, and to attend them Abroad, pretended to have the Gout; and, the better to colour it, anointed his Legs, had them swathed up, and perfectly counterfeited both the Gesture and Countenance of a gouty Perfon; till, in the End, Fortune did him the Kindness to give him the Gout in Earnest.

Tantum cura potest et ars doloris,

Defiit fingere Celius podagram.

i. e.

The Power of Counterfeiting is so great,
Celius has ceas'd the Gout to counterfeit.

Instance of a

I think I have read, somewhere in Appian, a Story, like this, of one who, to escape the Proscriptions of the Triumviri of Rome, and the better - to be concealed from the Discovery of those who purfued him, having masked himself in a Disguife, did also add this Invention, 'to ⚫ counterfeit having but one Eye; but, when • he came to have a little more Liberty, and ' went to take off the Plaister he had a great while worn

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Man, who became really blind in one Eye, after he had counterfeited it,

over his Eye, he found he had totally loft the Sight of • it.' 'Tis possible, that the Action of Sight was dulled, for having been so long without Exercise, and that the Optic Power was wholly retired into the other Eye: For we evidently perceive, that the Eye we keep shut, sends fome Part of its Virtue to its Fellow, which thereby swells and grows bigger; moreover, the fitting still, with the

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Mart. Epig. 38. lib. vii. v. 8, 9.

Heat

Heat of the Ligatures and Plaisters, might very well have brought fome gouty Humour upon this Dissembler in Martial.

Reading, in Froiffard, the Vow of a Company of young English Gallants, to carry their left Eyes ' bound up till they were arrived in France, ' and had performed some notable Exploit

Ridiculous
Vow of Some
young English
Gallants.

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against us:' I have often been tickled. with the Conceit of its befalling them as it did the beforenamed Roman, and that they found they had but one Eye apiece when they returned to their Mistresses, for whose Sakes they had entered into this ridiculous Vow.

Tis proper to binder Chil

Mothers have Reason to rebuke their Children, when they counterfeit having but one Eye, Squinting, Lameness, or other fuch personal Defects; for, besides that their Bodies, being then so tender, may be subject to take an ill

dren from counterfeiting perJonal Defects.

Bent, Fortune, I know not how, fometimes feems to delight to take us at our Word; and I have heard several Instances of People who have become really sick, by only feigning to be so. I have always used, whether on Horseback, or on Foot, to carry a Stick in my Hand, and so as to affect doing it with a Grace. Many have threatened me, that this affected Hobbling would, one Day, be turned into Neceffity, that is, 'that I should • be the first of my Family to have the Gout.'

Instance of a Man who

But let us lengthen this Chapter, and etch it out with another Piece, concerning Blindness. Pliny reports of one, ' that dreaming he was blind, • found himself so next Day, without any 'preceding Malady d.' The Force of Ima

was deprived of Sight in his Sleep.

gination might assist in this Cafe, as I have faid elsewhere, and Pliny seems to be of the fame Opinion; but it is more likely, that the Motions the Body felt within (whereof the Physicians, if they please, may find out the Cause) which took away his Sight, were the Occafion of his Dream.

Let

Vol. I, c. 29.

Nat. Hift, lib. vii. c. 50.

Let us add another Story, of much the fame Nature,

which Seneca relates, in one of his Epistles. A foolish Wo• You know, says be, writing to Lucilius, man, who fell ' that Harpaste, my Wife's Fool, is thrown

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blind, found

Fault with the

House she lived Resemblance of most Men's Folly.

in, that it was too dark: A

upon my Family as an hereditary Charge, ' for I have naturally an Aversion to thofe Monsters; and, if I have a mind to laugh at a Fool, I need not seek him far, • I can laugh at myself. This Fool has fud• denly loft her Sight: I tell you a strange, ' but a very true Thing; she is not sensible that she is blind, but eternally importunes her Keeper to take her * Abroad, because she says my House is dark: But, believe me, that what we laugh at in her, happens to every one of us : No one knows himself to be avari'cious. Besides, the Blind call for a Guide, but we • wander of our own Accord. I am not ambitious, * we say, but a Man cannot live otherwise at Rome: • I am not wasteful, but the City requires a great Expence: 'Tis not my Fault if I am Choleric; and, if • I have not yet established any certain Course of Life, * 'tis the Fault of Youth. Let us not look Abroad for

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our Disease, 'tis in us, and planted in our Intestines : • 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 shall we have done with ' so many Wounds and Evils that afflict us ? And yet we • have a most pleasant Medicine in Philosophy; of all ' others, we are not sensible of the Pleasure till after the ' Cure; this pleases and heals at the same Time.' This is what Seneca says, who has carried me from my Subject; but 'tis a Digression not unprofitable.

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CHAP. XXVI.

Of THUMBS.

f

ACITUS reports, that, amongst certain Barbarian Kings, their Manner was, when they would make a firm Obligation, to join their right Hands close together, and twist each other's Thumbs; and when, by Force of Preffure, the Blood appeared in the Ends, they lightly them, and fuck- pricked them with fome sharp Instrument,

A Custom of Screwing the Thumbs, wounding

ing the Blood.

and mutually fucked them.

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Physicians say, that the Thumb is the Master-finger Etymology of ' of each Hand, and that the Latin Etymothe Latin Word logy is derived from Pollere &. The Greeks called it ἀντιχεὶρ, as who should say, another Hand, And it seems, that the Latins also

Pollex, for

Thumb.

sometimes take it, in this Sense, for the whole Hand;

Sed nec vocibus excitata blandis,

Molli pollice nec rogata furgit .

When the

Thumbs denot

It was, at Rome, a Signification of Fa

ed Favour, and vour, to turn down, and clap in the when Disgust. Thumbs ;

Fautor utroque tuum laudabit pollice ludum.

i. e.

Thy Patron, when thou mak'st thy Sport,

Will with both Thumbs applaud thee for't.

and of Disfavour to lift them up, and thrust them out

ward;

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Annal. lib. xii.

i. e.

This feems to be taken from Macrobius's Saturn. lib. vii. c. 13, who

took it, in his Turn, from Atticus Capito.

Mart. lib. xii. Epig. 99. v. 8, 9.

i Horat, lib. i. Ep. 18. v. 66,

* Juv, Sat, iii. v. 36,

i. e.

The Vulgar, with up-lifted Thumbs,
Kill each one that before them comes 1,

The Romans exempted from War all such as were maim

Those who
cut off their
Thumbs, why
punished by the
Romans.

ed in the Thumbs, as Persons not able to bear Arms. Auguftus confiscated the Estate of a Roman Knight, ' who had maliciously cut off the Thumbs of two young Children ⚫ he had, to excuse them from going into the Armies m; and, before him, the Senate, in the Time of the Italian War, condemned Caius Valienus to perpetual Imprisonment, and confiscated all his Goods, for having purposely cut off the Thumb of his left • Hand, to exempt himself from that Expedition ".'

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Some one, I have forgot who, having won a Naval Battle, cut off the Thumbs of all his van Thumbs of the quished Enemies, to render them incapable vanquished E• of Fighting, and of handling the Oar.' nemy cut off. The Athenians also caused the Thumbs of those of Ægina to be cut off, 'to deprive them of the Preference in the Art of Navigation °.' And, in Lacedæmonia, Pedagogues chastised their Scholars by biting their Thumbs.

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I

Cowardise the Mother of CRUELTY.

HAVE often heard it said, That Cowardise is the Mother of Cruelty;' yet I have found, Cruelty the by Experience, that that malicious and in- common Effect humane Animofity and Fierceness is usually of Cowardife. accompanied with a feminine Faintness. I have feen the moft

1 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.

im Suet. in Cæfar. Augusto, sect. 24.

■ Val. Max. lib. v. c. 3. sect. 3.

• Idem, ibid. lib. ix. in Externis, sect. 8.

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