Page:The genuine remains in verse and prose of Mr. Samuel Butler (1759), volume 1.djvu/368

 The Greeks call Rule or Empire, as the Etymologists tell us, because it is , the Base or Fundament of the People: for as the Rump or Bum in the natural Body is called the Fundament, because it is the Foundation on which all the rest of the Members depend; so is the State and Government in the Body politic.

The Philosophers say, that a Man is a Tree inverted, and that his Head is the Root, by which he takes in his Nourishment, and his Arms and Legs the Branches—If that be true, it must follow that his Rump is the Head.

It is a Custom of the Eastern Kings to vail their Faces from public View, only to avoid prostituting the Majesty of their Persons to common Eyes; and what is that more than the universal Custom of all Nations and Ages hath always carefully observed to the Rump? And therefore, when the Philistines resolved to put the highest indignity upon David's Embassadors, they could not think of a way more ignominious than to cut their Garments above their Buttocks, and by that means to render those