Laborum (morborum)
Nulla mihi nova nunc facies inopinaque surgit
Omnia præcepi atque animo mecum ante peregi.
Of the rest, of all of whom it is well known how much their skill and experience have contributed to sooth and soften the calamities of their contemporaries, it is impossible not to be a little out of humour with that surly old fellow, Cato the Censor. Till his time the Romans knew nothing of physicians or physic. They were introduced when he was in office, and after a trial banished at his interposition. Here (says the veteran) have I lived to be fourscore and five, and here too is my wife in extreme old age, and we neither of us ever had or wanted physician or physic. Let them go about their business.
CHAP. XLVIII. [P. 324.]
To this part of the work, and to this, and some of the subsequent chapters, the title of one of the comedies of Aristophanes might not unaptly be applied, viz. The Ecclesiazuræ, or Women assembling themselves together. Here they will be found assembled of all ages, ranks, conditions, and talents, in almost every variety of that various sex: Widows, Matrons, Virgins, Philosophers, Politicians, and Poets. The Sexagenarian was a well-known advocate for the sex, the reader must not therefore expect any of those hard, wicked, and abusive adages about them, such as the three greatest evils, are Fire, Water, Woman. There are three things which are good for nothing without much beating, a walnut-tree, an ass, and a woman. A man of straw is worth a woman of gold. Three women and a goose make a market. Fie on such vile slanderers!!!—No! no! different opinions will be found here: the maxim here prevalent is, that there is no paradise without women, and that England is the paradise of women. But here a paradox occurs. There is no country in which women have so much influence, nor any language which contains such numerous and abusive reproaches upon women as our own.
CHAP. XLIX. [P. 334.]
Striking contrasts to the Portrait exhibited in the former chapter.