Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/216

164 Idque petit corpus mens, unde est saucia amore: Unde feritur, eo tendit, gestitque coire.

Lucr.

Having to no purpose used all peaceable endeavours, the collected part of the semen, raised and inflamed, became adust, converted to choler, turned head upon the spinal duct, and ascended to the brain: the very same principle, that influences a bully to break the windows of a whore who has jilted him, naturally stirs up a great prince, to raise mighty armies, and dream of nothing but sieges, battles, and victories.

Teterrima belli Causa

The other instance is what I have read somewhere in a very ancient author, of a mighty king, who, for the space of above thirty years, amused himself to take, and lose towns; beat armies, and be beaten; drive princes out of their dominions; fright children from their bread and butter; burn, lay waste, plunder, dragoon, massacre subject and stranger, friend and foe, male and female. It is recorded, that the philosophers of each country were in grave dispute upon causes natural, moral, and political, to find out where they should assign an original solution of this phenomenon. At last, the vapour or spirit, which animated the hero's brain, being in perpetual circulation, seized upon that region of the human body, so renowned for Rh