Echard, who saw no distinction between the familiar and the vulgar, has translated this in the true dialect of the streets:
“I think there never was such a long night since the beginning of the world, except that night I had the strappado, and rid the wooden horse till morning; and, o’ my conscience, that was twice as long.[36] By the mackins, I believe Phœbus has been playing the good-fellow, and ’s asleep too. I’ll be hang’d if he ben’t in for’t, and has took a little too much o’ the creature.”
“Mer. Say ye so, slave? What, treat Gods like yourselves. By Jove, have at your doublet, Rogue, for scandalum magnatum. Approach then, you’ll ha’ but small joy here.”
“Mer. Accedam, atque hanc appellabo atque supparasitabo patri.” Ibid. sc. 3.
“Mer. I’ll to her, and tickle her up as my father has done.”
“Sosia. Irritabis crabrones.” Ibid. act 2, sc. 2.
“Sosia. You’d as good p—ss in a bee-hive.”
Seneca, though not a chaste writer, is remarkable for a courtly dignity of expression, which, though often united with ease, never descends to the mean or vulgar. L’Estrange has presented him through a medium of such coarseness, that he is hardly to be known.
Probatos itaque semper lege, et siquando ad alios divertere libuerit, ad priores redi.—Nihil æque sanitatem impedit quam remediorum crebra mutatio, Ep. 2.—“Of authors be sure to make choice of the best; and, as I said before, stick close to them; and though you take up others by the bye, reserve some select ones, however, for your study and retreat. Nothing is more hurtful, in the case of diseases and wounds, than the frequent shifting of physic and plasters.”