Note XX.
But write him down a slave, who, humbly proud,
With presents begs preferments from the crowd.—P. [260].
He who sued for any office amongst the Romans, was called a candidate, because he wore a white gown; and sometimes chalked it, to make it appear whiter. He rose early, and went to the levees of those who headed the people; saluted also the tribes severally, when they were gathered together to chuse their magistrates; and distributed a largess amongst them, to engage them for their voices; much resembling our elections of Parliamentmen.
Note XXI.
----On Herod's day.—P. [260].
The commentators are divided what Herod this was, whom our author mentions; whether Herod the Great, whose birth-day might possibly be celebrated, after his death, by the Herodians, a sect amongst the Jews, who thought him their Messiah; or Herod Agrippa, living in the author's time, and after it. The latter seems the more probable opinion.
Note XXII.
Then a cracked egg-shell thy sick fancy frights.—P. [260].
The ancients had a superstition, contrary to ours, concerning egg-shells: they thought, that if an egg-shell were cracked, or a hole bored in the bottom of it, they were subject to the power of sorcery. We as vainly break the bottom of an egg-shell, and cross it when we have eaten the egg, lest some hag should make use of it in bewitching us, or sailing over the sea in it, if it were whole. The rest of the priests of Isis, and her one-eyed or squinting priestess, is more largely treated in the sixth satire of Juvenal, where the superstitions of women are related.