This unaccountable opinion he strengthens thus:
You may defraud him of his profits, or forge letters in his name,
Or fright him by your servant into compliance;
And what you take from such an old hunks,
How much more pleasantly do you spend it!
On the contrary, he says that an easy, generous father is an inconvenience to a son in love; for, says he,
I can't tell how to abuse so good, so prudent a parent,
Who always foreruns my desires, and meets me purse in hand,
To support me in my pleasures: this easy goodness and generosity
Quite defeat all my frauds, tricks, and stratagems.[1]
What are these frauds, tricks, and stratagems but the effects of reason? O excellent gift of the Gods! Without this Phormio could not have said,
Find me out the old man: I have something hatching for him in my head.
XXX. But let us pass from the stage to the bar. The prætor[2] takes his seat. To judge whom? The man who set fire to our archives. How secretly was that villany conducted! Q. Sosius, an illustrious Roman knight, of the Picene field,[3] confessed the fact. Who else is to be tried? He who forged the public registers—Alenus, an artful fellow, who counterfeited the handwriting of the six officers.[4] Let us call to mind other trials: that on the subject of the gold of Tolosa, or the conspiracy of Jugurtha. Let us trace back the informations laid against Tubulus for bribery in his judicial office; and, since that, the proceedings of the tribune Peduceus concerning the
- ↑ Here is one expression in the quotation from Cæcilius that is not commonly met with, which is præstigias præstrinxit; Lambinus gives præstinxit, for the sake, I suppose, of playing on words, because it might then be translated, "He has deluded my delusions, or stratagems;" but præstrinxit is certainly the right reading.
- ↑ The ancient Romans had a judicial as well as a military prætor; and he sat, with inferior judges attending him, like one of our chief-justices. Sessum it prætor, which I doubt not is the right reading, Lambinus restored from an old copy. The common reading was sessum ite precor.
- ↑ Picenum was a region of Italy.
- ↑ The sex primi were general receivers of all taxes and tributes; and they were obliged to make good, out of their own fortunes, whatever deficiencies were in the public treasury.
