Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/320

316 FAMILIAR COLLOQUIES. ' the worse. Ga. But we must have another assembly to do that ; for every man's own geese are swans. Al. If that proverb held good, we should not have so many adulteries as we have. But I can advise you to an expeditious method. Let us cast lots whose opinion of all of them shall be allowed to be determinative. Ca. That lot will fall upon yourself. Have not I spoken the truth? Al. I approve best of the first and of the last. Ca. If I may speak for the rest, we all agree. Al. Well, then, let it go for authentic. Ca. Let it be so. A I. If anybody shall dissent, what shall be the penalty 1 Ca. Let him be set down in great letters, A HERETIC IN GRAMMAR. Al. I will add very fortunately one thing, that in my opinion ought not to be omitted. Having received it from a Syrian physician, I will communicate it to my friends. Be. What is it ? Al. If you pound a water-beet, an oak-gall, and some shoemaker's ink in a mortar, and sprinkle with it six ounces of copper, and make it into a poultice, it will be a present remedy for the mange and measles in hogs. Be. But, hark you, Albinus, you that have helped iis all to this job of the anticomarita, what author did you read it in ? Al. I will tell you, but in your ear, and but one of you. Be. Well, I will receive it, but upon this condition, that I may whisper it in the ear of one person too. A I. But one repeated often enough will make a thousand. Be. You say right, when you have once a couple, it is not in your power to stop it from going farther. A I. That which a few know may be kept a secret, but that which a great many know cannot ; three makes a multitude. Be. Right, he that has three wives at the same time, may be said to have many ; but he that has but three hairs upon his head, or three teeth in his mouth, may be said to have a few or none. Al. Mind, sophist. Be. What strange story is this ? This is as absurd as if the Greeks who earned so many fleets to conquer Troy should not be able to call it by its name, but instead of Troy should say Sutrium. Al. But this is a rabbin that is lately come down from heaven, who, unless he had, like a present deity, lent his assistance in sustaining human affairs, we had long ere now been at a loss to find either men, religion, philosophy, or letters. Be. In troth, he ought to be one of Moria's noblemen of the first rank, and deserves for the future to be called Archirnorita (an arch-fool), with his anticomaritas.  

Pe. Whence is our Gabriel come with this sour look ? What, is he come out of Trophonius's cave? Ga. No, I have been at a wedding. Pe. I never saw a look in my life that had less of the air of a wedding in it ; for those that have been at weddings use to look cheerfully and airily for a whole week after, and old men themselves to look younger by ten years. What wedding is it that you have been at ? I believe at the wedding of death and the cobbler. Ga. Not so, but of a young gentleman with a lady of sixteen, who has all the accomplishments that you can wish for, whether beauty, good humour, family, or for- tune ; in short, a wife fit for Jupiter himself. Pe. Phoo ! what, so 