Page:Johnson - The Rambler 1.djvu/68

60 if the commonwealth was violated, he could stamp with his foot, and raise an army out of the ground; if the rights of pleasure are again invaded, let but Flirtilla crack her fan, neither pens, nor swords, shall be wanting at the summons; the wit and the colonel shall march out at her command, and neither law nor reason shall stand before us.'

Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit Mentem sacerdotum incola Pythius,
 * Non Liber æque, non acuta
 * Sic geminant Corybantes æra,

Tristes ut iræ.

Yet O! remember, nor the god of wine, Nor Pythian Phœbus from his inmost shrine, Nor Dindymene, nor her priests possest, Can with their sounding cymbals shake the breast, Like furious anger.

HE maxim which Periander of Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece, left as a memorial of his knowledge and benevolence, was χόλου κράτει, Be master of thy anger. He considered anger as the great disturber of human life, the chief enemy both of public happiness and private tranquillity, and thought that he could not lay on posterity a stronger obligation to reverence his memory, than by leaving them a salutary caution against this outrageous passion.

To what latitude Periander might extend the word, the brevity of his precept will scarce allow