To deceive with soft speeches. «You must not think», the sycophant says in Plautus, «to cajole me with honied words, who am used to deceive others with them». The word palpum means a gentle stroke or patting with the hand, which we use to horses and other animals to put them into good humour.

"My right eye itches", I shall see whom I have long wished for; and,

"Num vobis tinniebant aures, Parmeno?"

Did not your ears tingle? for your mistress was talking of you. We also say, "my face flushes," some one is talking of me; and "my elbow itches," I shall be kissed by a fool. Plautus has many similar phrases in his comedies; whence we learn, that these superstitious fancies have prevailed among the common people in all ages.

Let them hate me, so they do but fear me. But he of whom many are afraid, ought to be afraid of many, as was exemplified in the case of the Emperor Tiberius, who had this saying frequent in his mouth. He lived to be universally feared and execrated, and knowing what a host of enemies he had created by his cruelties and lust, he found it necessary to go into a sort of banishment, in the island of Caprea, where he drew out a miserable existence, alarmed at every noise, and fancying he saw a dagger in the hand of every one who approached him. The adage was also used to be applied to persons, whose sole pleasure or satisfaction centered in their wealth. Call me what you will, such men would say, I please myself with the knowledge that I am rich.

––––«Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simulac nummos contemplor in area». (Horace, Satires, I, 1, 66-7)

Hated worse than a mad dog, or a venemous serpent. The man who is entirely engrossed by a passion for accumulating riches, or honours, is a dupe to parasites, or to a mistress, who will ruin him, and yet he will not suffer a word to be said against the object of his pursuit, but would hate worse than a mad dog, or a poisonous serpent, whoever should attempt to wean him from her.

This was said of persons who were seized with a sudden commotion or disturbance ot the mind, as poets by the inspiration of the Muses, from some resemblance in their conduct, as it was supposed, to cattle that had been bitten by the œstrum or gad-fly. It is known that cattle have such extreme horror of this insect, that on only hearing the noise it makes when flying, they run about the fields as if they were mad. The adage was also used when any one was seen to apply himself intensely to any kind of business, or study. « But what fly,» Friar John says, « has struck Panurge, that he is of late become so hard a student?» What maggot, we say, has he got in his head.

"Jetter de l'huile sur le feu," to add fuel to the fire; irritating instead of appeasing the enraged passions. Giving wine to young persons, whose blood is ordinarily too hot, is "adding fuel to the fire."

We all of us wish better to ourselves than to others. Though a friend is said to be another self, yet what affects our own safety, is doubtless to be attended to before the concerns of any other person, for "proximus egomet mihi," I am my own nearest relation; and "Charity begins at home." "Tunica pallio propior est." "Near is my shirt," we say, "but nearer is my skin." To the same purport, and nearly in the same words are, "Ma chemise m'est plus proche que ma robe." Fr. "Tocca piu la camisa ch'il gippone." It. "Mas cerca esta la camisa, que el sayo," tha is, my shirt is nearer than my coat.

All things are becoming in good men. If a man has acquired a character for uprightness and justice, a favourable construction is put upon every thing he says or does. On the contrary, the best actions of bad men are suspected; as they are never imagined to proceed from the heart, some deep and villanous design is supposed to be couched under them. A liar is not to be believed, even when he speaks the truth.

A companion for all hours or seasons. This may be said of persons of versatile and easy dispositions, who can accomodate themselves to all circumstances, whether of festivity or of trouble; who with the grave can be serious, with the gay cheerful; and who are equally fit to conduct matters of business or of pleasure: such a man, we are told, was the philosopher Aristippus. "Omnis Aristippum decuit color." Every thing became him, by which enviable qualities, he was always a favoured guest at all tables and in all companies.

Appetito non vuol salza, hunger is the best sauce. This apothegm was frequently in the mouth of Socrates deriding his voluptuous countrymen, whose tables were furnished with every species of luxury, and who used a variety of provocatives to stir up an appetite, which might be so much better excited, he told them, at so easy a rate.

Make ample provision for old age. Chi in prima non pensa, in ultimo sospira, who does not think before, sighs after, therefore, Make hay while the sun shines. Lay up against a rainy day, and Take care to feather your nest while young, for Non semper erit æstas, it will not be always summer; and it is as disgraceful for young persons to neglect the means of improving their fortunes, as it is for the aged to be over solicitous about increasing theirs. Diogenes being asked what he considered as the most wretched state of man, answered «an indigent old age». This seems to have been said with too little consideration. Poverty is generally and not undeservedly esteemed an evil, and the averting it affords the most powerful incentive to action, but the pressure of it must be much less felt in age, than in the vigour of life. Among the ancients, indeed, age was itself esteemed an evil, as it incapacitates from making those excursions, and following those pleasures which contribute so much to the felicity of the early part of our lives. But if with the capacity for enjoying, we lose the propensity or desire for having them, it should rather be considered as a blessing. By losing them we attain a state of calm and quiet, rarely experienced by the young, neither would it indeed be suitable to them, the passions and desires being the gales which put them in motion, and lead them to signalize themselves. Without them they would become torpid, and would do nothing useful to themselves, nor to the public. Action therefore is the element of the young, as quiet and retirement is of the aged. If life has been passed innocently, and the aged have not to reproach themselves with having deserted their duty, or with the commission of any crime for which they ought to blush, the reflection on their past conduct, and on such acts of beneficence and kindness they may have performed, or of any thing done by which the community may eventually be benefited, will abundantly compensate for what time has taken from them. The aged will also have learned among other things, if it should happen to be their lot, to bear poverty with composure. If little should now remain to them, their wants will also be equally few. The plainest and simplest diet, clothes, and apartments, may very well serve them, and are, perhaps, the best suited to their state. The old man, therefore, if his poverty is not the effect of vice, or folly, will soon accommodate himself to his situation. But if he has been himself the author of his degradation, he will regret and pine, not so much at the loss of that affluence which he no longer wants, as at the vices or follies which occasioned the loss of them. Old and infirm people should continue to exert themselves in all matters regarding their persons, as much, and as long as they can, and they generally may do this, nearly to the period of the extinction of their lives, if they early and resolutely resist that languor, which feebleness is apt to induce. While they shew this species of independance, they will retain the respect of those who are about them. A total imbecility and incapacity to perform the common offices of life, is the most miserable state to which human nature can be reduced.

He has the helmet of Pluto, was used to be said of persons, who by base and insidious arts, incited others to acts of villany, without themselves appearing to be concerned in them. Those who wore the helmet of Pluto were said to be invisible, but to see every thing about them; whence the adage. The ring of Gyges was fabled to have a similar power of making those who wore it invisible. Probably nothing more is meant by these stories, than that rich men have great privileges, few persons being bold enough to scrutinize into their actions, or to censure their errors. Las necedades del rico, por sentencias passan en el mundo, even the foolish sayings of the rich are esteemed as oracles.

"Entregar las ovejas al lobo," you have trusted the sheep to the care of the wolf, the geese to the keeping of the fox. This may be said of a parent who has left his children in the hands of rapacious guardians, who will fleece them of their property, not husband and preserve it: a misfortune which happened to Erasmus. When in conversation we have disclosed any thing to those who should not have known it, and who will be enabled to injure persons whom they wish to oppress; it may be said, you have now put him in the power of his enemy; "you have given the wolf the weather to keep."