Nullos his mallem ludos spectasse.—Horace: Satires, ii. 8, 79.

Greatest happiness of the greatest number.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.—Hutcheson: Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil, sect. 3. (1720.)

Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth,—that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.—Bentham: Works, vol. x. p. 142.

The expression is used by Beccaria in the introduction to his "Essay on Crimes and Punishments." (1764.)

Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys (edition of 1805, p. 5).

[[857]] Hobson's choice.

Tobias Hobson (died 1630) was the first man in England that let out hackney horses. When a man came for a horse he was led into the stable, where there was a great choice, but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable-door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance,—from whence it became a proverb when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, "Hobson's choice."—Spectator, No. 509.

Where to elect there is but one,