Oh! ubi non est si jugulatis aqua.
Mart.
PLINY, from M. Varro says, there was a Town in Spain undermined by Conies, and another in Thessaly by Mold-Warps, and another in France, from which they were driven out by Frogs.... In some parts of Africa, People were constrained by Locusts to leave their Habitations. Out of Gyaros (one of the Islands of the Cyclades in the Ægean Sea, most of which are now under the Turks) the Inhabitants were forced away by Rats and Mice, little Things: And if it be true, that Theophrastus the Philosopher reports, the Treriens were chased away by an Army of little Worms, called Scolopendra[[290]]. All these mighty Conquests were made by little contemptible Insects.
[290]. Pliny’s Natural History, Part I. B. viii. Cap. 29.
What says the Laconian, when wounded with a Dart? I am not, quoth he, concerned at my Death, but at my Fall by a Wound from a little feeble Archer. For ’tis Satisfaction to the Vanquish’d to die by the Hand of heroic Valour; hence that of Virgil;
Æneæ Magni dextra cadis....
’Tis by the Great Æneas’ Hand you fall.
The reason was, because the Lacedemonians were wont to fight with Swords, therefore it was not counted Bravery to kill Men with a Dart, a thing that may be done by any Woman.
So in the vegetable World, there are Cedars and Shrubs. In Natural Philosophy, we read of Atoms, that are Minima Naturæ, the ultimate Particles into which Matter is divisible, and are conceived as the first Rudiments, or component Parts of all physical Magnitude, or the pre-existent and incomprehensible Matter, whereof particular Bodies were formed; there are Mountains and Mole-Hills,