The town minstrels are here introduced; they begin with the same image which the poet has already employed in his proper person. Fear not! with the coming year With laughing eyes and dewy lip, That points the rose's bud; While mingled with the mother's grace, That marks the Manlian blood. So the mother's fair renown As we read in stories old Now the merry task is o'er, PRAISE OF POVERTY. BY APULEIUS. (From the "Vindication.") [LUCIUS APULEIUS, Roman story-writer, was born in Madaura, Africa, early in the second century A.D.; the time of his death is unknown. His fame rests on the immortal "Metamorphoses; or, the Golden Ass," a sort of early Decameron, with contents ranging from the grossest indecencies to the exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche; and on the amusing "Vindication," a defense to the charge of having used magic arts to make a rich middle-aged widow marry him.] POVERTY has long been the handmaid of Philosophy: frugal, temperate, contented with little, eager for praise, averse from the things sought by wealth, safe in her ways, simple in her requirements, in her counsels a promoter of what is right. No one has she ever puffed up with pride, no one has she corrupted H If by the enjoyment of power, no one has she maddened with tyrannical ambition; for no pampering of the appetite or of the passions does she sigh, nor can she indulge it. But it is your fosterlings of wealth who are in the habit of perpetrating these disgraceful excesses, and others of a kindred nature. you review all the greatest enormities that have been committed in the memory of mankind, you will not find a single poor man among the perpetrators; whilst, on the other hand, in the number of illustrious men hardly any of the rich are to be found; poverty has nurtured from his very cradle every individual in whom we find anything to admire and commend. Poverty, I say she who in former ages was the foundress of all cities, the inventress of all arts, she who is guiltless of all offense, who is lavish of all glory, who has been honored with every praise among all nations. For this same Poverty it was that, among the Greeks, showed herself just in Aristides, humane in Phocion, resolute in Epaminondas, wise in Socrates, and eloquent in Homer. It was this same Poverty, too, that for the Roman people laid the very earliest foundations of their sway, and that offers sacrifice to the immortal gods in their behalf, with the ladle and the dish of clay, even to this day. If there were now sitting as judges at this trial C. Fabricius, Cneius Scipio, and Manius Curius, whose daughters, by reason of their poverty, went home to their husbands portioned at the public expense, carrying with them the glories of their family and the money of the public; if Publicola, the expeller of the kings, and Agrippa, the reconciler of the people, the expense of whose funeral was, in consequence of their limited fortunes, defrayed by the Roman people, by contributions of the smallest coins; if Attilius Regulus, whose little field was, in consequence of a like poverty, cultivated at the public expense; if, in fine, all those ancient families, ennobled by consulships, censorships, and triumphs, could obtain a short respite, and return to light, and take part in this trial, would you then have dared to reproach a philosopher for his poverty, in the presence of so many consuls distinguished for theirs?... I could show that none of us are poor who do not wish for superfluities, and who possess the things that are necessary, which, by nature, are but few indeed. For he has the most who desires the least; he who wants but little is most likely to have as much as he wants. It is with the mind just as with the body; in a healthy state it is lightly clad, but in sickness it is wrapped in cumbrous clothing; |