The bæta is said to have been a kind of garment, made of skins, long, and sufficiently large to invest the whole body, equally calculated therefore to guard against the cold in winter, and the scorching rays of the sun in summer. The adage was applied by the anccients to any objects that might be made to answer a variety of useful purposes: to literature, which is both useful and ornamental to every age and station in life, and to philosophy, which may enable us to bear prosperity without insolence, and adversity without debasement.

You know them to be wise by their beards. This was used to be applied to persons who placed all knowledge and goodness in dress, and external appearance, or in the performance of certain ceremonies. «I fast twice a week», said the Pharisee, «and give tithes of all I possess», but he was not accepted. «Si philosophum oporteat ex barba metiri, hircos primam laudem ablaturos», if the beard made the philosopher, then the goat would have a just right to that title, or as the Greek epigrammatist has it,

«If beards long and bushy true wisdom denote,
Then Plato must yield to a shaggy he-goat».

«At non omnes monachi sunt, qui cuculo onerantur, nec omnes generosi, qui torquem gestant auream, aut reges, qui diadernate insigniuntur»; but all are not monks who wear a cowl, or gentlemen who are decorated with golden chains, or kings who are crowned. Those only in reality deserve the titles, who act consistently with the characters they assume. For there are many who talk of Robin Hood, who never shot with his how. Diga barba qua haga, let your beard advise you; that is, let it remind you that you are a man, and that you do nothing unbecoming that character.

Philosophers even to the beard. Oh, he is a wise man, you may see it by his beard, may be applied ironically to persons of grave and serious manners, who wish to pass themselves off for men of more learning, or knowledge, than they really possess. As the beard is not completely formed until the age of manhood, it has always been considered as an emblem of wisdom. Il est tems d'etre sage, quand on a la barbe au menton, it is time to be wise now that you have a beard on your chin; and, Hombre de barba, with the Spaniards, means a man of knowledge, or intelligence. Diga barba que haga, let your beard advise you what is befitting you to do, and a poca barba, poca virguenza, little beard, little shame, or modesty. Quixadas sin barbas no merecen ser honradas, chins without beards deserve no honour. Faire la barbe, among the French, means to deceive, or impose on anyone, by superior address or cunning; also, to excel in wisdom and sagacity. Among the Persians, and perhaps generally in the east, the beard is held in great reverence, and to speak of it slightingly or disrespectfully, would be resented, and for a stranger to violate it, by touching it, would probably be avenged by instant death.

Men with beards. The term was applied by the Romans to persons of plain, simple, and rustic or primitive manners, who still retained the customs of their ancestors. They had not learned to shave their beards, which only began to be practised among them four hundred and fifty years after the building of the city. The first barbers, Pliny tells us, were introduced there from the island of Sicily.

He that accepts a favour, forfeits his liberty. By receiving obligations, particularly if from persons of bad morals, you are precluded the liberty of censuring vices so freely as you might be disposed, or as the subject you are treating might require, especially those vices of which you know them to be guilty; and in public dissensions, you are restrained from maintaining your own opinion, unless it accords with that of your patron. Erasmus, who manifestly held the same opinions on many points of religion, as were taught by Luther and his followers, was yet restrained from openly espousing them, as he received nearly the whole of his income, from persons of the Romish persuasion. Fille qui prend, the French say, son corps vend. The maid who takes presents, has deprived herself of the power of saying «no», or must permit liberties to be taken with her, which she would other wise resist. «Springes to catch woodcocks», says the sententious Polonius, cautioning his daughter against giving credit to Hamlet's promises and presents.

Ancient persons are twice children, or as we say, Once a man, and twice a child. Age ordinarily induces a degree of imbecility, both in the mind and body, resembling childhood. Persons in a very advanced age become feeble and impotent, their legs tremble, obliging them to support themselves with a stick; their hands shake, so that they are unable to cut their food, and at length of even carrying in to their mouths. They become toothless, and are obliged, like children, to be fed with spoon-meats; their eyes become weak, incapacitating them from reading, and their organs of hearing dull and obtuse, so that they can no longer take a part in conversation. These two sources of information being cut off, the mind, no longer solicited by the surrounding objects, or excited by the acquisition of new materials, becomes languid and inert; the traces of the knowledge it had acquired, become faint, and are at length nearly obliterated, and thus is induced a complete second childhood, «and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing».
«Ubi jam validis quassatum est viribus aevi
Corpus, et obtusis cecitlerunt viribus artus,
Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguaque mensque».
LUCRET. Lib.III, lin 452.
When age prevails, And the quick vigour of each member fails, The mind's brisk powers decrease, and waste apace, And grave and reverend folly takes the place." Trans, by CREECH.

One man's meat is another man's poison. One man's loss is another's gain, or one man makes a fortune by the ruin of another: this is universally the case in war, and not unfrequently in law likewise.

The good shepherd shears, but does not flay his sheep. The good master only exacts such a portion of labour from his servants, as they may perform without injuring themselves. Tiberius Cæsar used this proverb, of which he is reputed to be the author, to restrain the rapacity of his courtiers, advising him to levy further imposts upon one of the provinces, which had been previously largely taxed. Alexander the Great, on a similar occasion, is said to have given the following: «Olitorem odi qui radicitus herbas excidat», he is a bad gardener, who, instead of cropping, tears the plants up by the roots. The woman who killed the hen, that brought her a golden egg every day, in the hope of becoming more speedily rich, falls under the censure of this adage.

With good or evil omens. You began the business under favourable, or unfavourable auspices, or under a fortunate or unfortunate star. The Greeks and Romans frequently formed their opinion of the success of any enterprize in which they were about to engage, from the flight, or from the chattering, or singing of birds. The Augur, whose office it was to expound to the people the meaning of the omens, is supposed to have derived the name, or title of the office, from avis garritus, the chattering of birds. Our countryman, Churchill, has ridiculed this superstition with much humour.

«Among the Romans not a bird,
Without a prophecy was heard;
Fortunes of empires ofttimes hung
On the magician magpye's tongue,
And every crow was to the state,
A sure interpreter of fate.
Prophets embodied in a college,
(Time out of mind your seats of knowledge),
Infallible accounts would keep,
When it was best to watch or sleep,
To eat, or drink, to go, or stay,
And when to fight, or run away,
When matters were for action ripe,
By looking at a double tripe;
When emperors would live or die,
They in an asses skull could spy;
When generals would their stations keep,
Or turn their backs in hearts of sheep».

"The Gost".

Some vestiges of this superstition are still to be found in this country, and many of our farmers' wives would be disconcerted at hearing the croaking of a raven, at the moment they were setting out on a journey, whether of business, or of pleasure. The following lines from Walker's Epictetus are introduced, to shew that though the vulgar, in the early ages, might believe in these fooleries, yet there were not wanting then, as well as now, persons who were able to ridicule and despise them.

«The direful raven's, or the night owl's voice,
Frightens the neighborhood with boding noise;
While each believes the knowing bird portends
Sure death, or to himself, or friends;
Though all that the nocturnal prophet knows,
Is want of food, which he by whooting shews».

Epictetus is supposed to have lived in the time of the Emperor Nero, more than 1700 years ago.