Unite them and their different maggots,
As long and short sticks are in faggots."—Hudibras, part III. canto 2.
So also it is used by Samuel Wesley (father of the founder of the Methodists) in his rare and facetious volume entitled Maggots, or Poems on several Subjects never before handled, 12mo., 1685.
William Bates.
Birmingham.
"Salus populi," &c. (Vol. viii., p. 410.).—The saying "Salus populi supreme lex" is borrowed from the model law of Cicero, in his treatise de Legibus, III. 3. It is made one of the duties of the consuls, the supreme magistrates, to regard the safety of the state as their highest rule of conduct:
"Regio imperio duo sunto; iique præeundo, judicando, consulendo Prætores, Judices, Consules appellantor. Militiæ summum jus habento, nemini parento: ollis salus populi suprema lex esto."
The allusion appears to be to the formula used by the senate for conferring supreme power on the consuls in cases of emergency: "Dare operam, ne quid respublica detrimenti caperet." (See Sallust, Bell. Cat. c. 29.)
L.
Aristotle regards the safety of the citizens as the great end of law (see his Ethics, b. I. ch. 4.); and Cicero (de Finibus, lib. ii. c. 5.) lays down a similar principle.