Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/343

 moisture from his eyes; unfeigned are the tears which lament the loss of wealth.

But if you see every court beset with complaints like to yours; if after a bond has been read over ten times by the opposing party, they declare the document to be waste paper, though convicted by their own handwriting, and by the signet ring, most choice of sardonyx stones, kept in an ivory case—do you, my fine fellow, suppose that you are to be placed outside the common lot, because you were born of a white hen, while we are common chickens, hatched out of unlucky eggs? Your loss is a modest one, to be endured with a moderate amount of choler, if you cast an eye on grosser wrongs. Compare with your case the hired robber, or the fire purposely started by sulphur, the flame bursting out at your front door; think too of those who carry off from ancient temples splendid cups of venerable antiquity, that were the gift of nations, or crowns dedicated by some ancient monarch! If such things are not to be had, a petty desecrator will be found to scrape off the gilding from the thigh of Hercules, or from the very face of Neptune, or to strip Castor of his beaten gold. And why should he hesitate, when he has been used to melt down an entire Thunderer? Compare too the manufacturers and sellers of poison, and the man who should be cast into the sea inside an ox's hide, with whom a luckless destiny encloses a harmless ape. What a mere fraction these of the crimes which Gallicus, the guardian of our city, has to listen to from dawn to eve! If you would know what mankind is like, that one court-house will suffice; spend a few days in it, and when you come out, dare to call yourself 257