PROPRIUM . EST . NIHIL.{1} Marmor vetus apud Feam, ad
Hor. Epist. i. ii, 23.

Fortune makes many promises to many,
Keeps them to none.
Live to the days and hours,
For nothing is your own.

Gregory Gryll, Esq., of _Gryll Grange_ in Hampshire, on the borders
of the New Forest, in the midst of a park which was a little forest in
itself, reaching nearly to the sea, and well stocked with deer, having
a large outer tract, where a numerous light-rented and well-conditioned
tenantry fattened innumerable pigs, considering himself well located for
what he professed to be, _Epicuri de grege porcus_,{2} and held, though
he found it difficult to trace the pedigree, that he was lineally
descended from the ancient and illustrious Gryllus, who maintained
against Ulysses the superior happiness of the life of other animals to
that of the life of man.{3}

1 This inscription appears to consist of comic senarii,
slightly dislocated for the inscriptional purpose.

Spondet
Fortuna multa multis, praestat nemini.
Vive in dies et horas: nam proprium est nihil.

2 _A pig from the herd of Epicurus_. The old philosophers
accepted good-humouredly the disparaging terms attached to
them by their enemies or rivals. The Epicureans acquiesced
in the pig, the Cynics in the dog, and Cleanthes was content
to be called the Ass of Zeno, as being alone capable of
bearing the burthen of the Stoic philosophy.

3 Plutarch. _Bruta animalia raiione uti._ Gryllus in this
dialogue seems to have the best of the argument. Spenser,
however, did not think.... so, when he introduced his Gryll,
in the Paradise of Acrasia, reviling Sir Guyon's Palmer for
having restored him to the human form.

Streightway he with his virtuous staff them strooke,
And streight of beasts they comely men became:
Yet being men they did unmanly looke,
And stared ghastly, some for inward shame,
And some for wrath to see their captive dame:
But one above the rest in speciall,
That had an hog been late, hight Grylle by name,
Repyned greatly, and did him miscall,
That had from hoggish forme him brought to naturall.

Said Guyon: 'See the mind of beastly man,
That hath so soon forgot the excellence
Of his creation when he