That's all they'll do. You'd better leave a wolf
To keep the sheep, than trust a house to them.
Yet, now, to look at 'em, they're not amiss;
They're all so cursedly deceitful.—Now—look here;
Mind what I say, the lot of ye; unless
You all get rid of these curst sleepy ways,
Dawdling and maundering there, I'll mark your backs
In a very particular and curious pattern—
With as many stripes as a Campanian quilt,
And as many colours as an Egyptian carpet.
I warned you yesterday; you'd each your work;
But you're such a cursed,—idle,—mischievous crew—(gives
one of them a cut at each word)
That I'm obliged to let you have this as a memorandum.
Oh! that's your game, then, is it? So you think
Your ribs are as hard as this is? (Shows his whip.) Now, just look!
(Turning to his whipping-slaves). They're minding something
else! Attend to this,
(Striking one of the others.) Mind this, now, will you?
Listen, while I speak.
You generation that were born for flogging;
D'ye think your backs are tougher than this cow-hide?
(Lays about him with it.) Why, what's the matter? Does
it hurt? O dear!—
That's what slaves get when they won't mind their masters.
There was a highly comic element in this, we may be sure, to an audience of Roman freemen. Even if there were, as it is certain there must have been, present in the theatre, many who had been slaves themselves, and whose fathers had been in slavery, and many who were slaves still, we may feel only too sure that their laugh was amongst the loudest. Among the curses of modern
