ed up a farthing which had fallen when counting
the receipts, had, in the presence of the innkeeper, drawn a contrast
between the farthing, representing the misery of the people, and the
die, representing, under the figure of Anne, the parasitical
magnificence of the throne--an ill-sounding speech. This observation was
repeated by Master Nicless, and had such a run that it reached to Ursus
through Fibi and Vinos. It put Ursus into a fever. Seditious words, lese
Majeste. He took Gwynplaine severely to task. "Watch over your
abominable jaws. There is a rule for the great--to do nothing; and a
rule for the small--to say nothing. The poor man has but one friend,
silence. He should only pronounce one syllable: 'Yes.' To confess and to
consent is all the right he has. 'Yes,' to the judge; 'yes,' to the
king. Great people, if it pleases them to do so, beat us. I have
received blows from them. It is their prerogative; and they lose nothing
of their greatness by breaking our bones. The ossifrage is a species of
eagle. Let us venerate the sceptre, which is the first of staves.
Respect is prudence, and mediocrity is safety. To insult the king is to
put oneself in the same danger as a girl rashly paring the nails of a
lion. They tell me that you have been prattling about the farthing,
which is the same thing as the liard, and that you have found fault with
the august medallion, for which they sell us at market the eighth part
of a salt herring. Take care; let us be serious. Consider the existence
of pains and penalties. Suck in these legislative truths. You are in a
country in which the man who cuts down a tree three years old is quietly
taken off to the gallows. As to swearers, their feet are put into the
stocks. The drunkard is shut up in a barrel with the bottom out, so that
he can walk, with a hole in the top, through which his head is passed,
and with two in the bung for his hands, so that he cannot lie down. He
who strikes another one in Westminster Hall is imprisoned for life and
has his goods confiscated. Whoever strikes any one in the king's palace
has his hand struck off. A fillip on the nose chances to bleed, and,
behold! you are maimed for life. He who is convicted of heresy in the
bishop's court is burnt alive. It was for no great matter that Cuthbert
Simpson was quartered on a turnstile. Three years since, in 1702, which
is not long ago, you see, they placed in the pillory a scoundrel, called
Daniel Defoe, who had had t