Greek Probate Law
129
Without Eyes to serve them, why spectacles' use? (Fair samples he always would seek to provide), And minds would assuredly candor abuse, Which the steed gave the footing of him that should ride. Nose merely the agent; whose principal, Eyes, Habitually finding him, sets him to work. Could a staff the limbs' concert venture despise — Th' Essence's worth in the Accident lurk? He, the Nose, might as faiily call on to admit, His own (the Head's) share in the merit professed, As let him deny to the Eyes a bare whit — None but he of the whole physiognomy blest. For, unless wrought upon by the action reflex Impressed by the brain, all such adjuvants would Ne'er have roles to play, whether goggles convex Bridge the Nose, or concave — Matthew wear them or Jude. You, my Lud, in the cause then, at bar, must award — Whether point raised of ouster should fail or succeed — Eyes the post which, in Nature, they faithfully guard, Elevate o'er the Nose their kind succorer in need. So his lordship decreed with a grave, solemn tone, Decisive and clear, without one if or but, — That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, By daylight or candle-light — Eyes should be shut.
A Chapter from Old Greek Probate Law' BY FREDERIC EARLE WHITAKER, PH.D. OF THE RHODE ISLAND BAR LUCIAN'S aviator, Icaromenippos, aerial ancestor of the Wrights and Bleriots, looking down from the moon on the nations of the classic world, says, "I could see the nomad Scythians in
their wagons; the Egyptian farming; the Phrenician trafficking on the sea; the Cilician buccaneering; the Spartan flogging; and the Athenian fighting lawsuits."2 Thus cleverly does the last
'Recently Professor of Greek at Lehigh Univer sity and sometime Fellow and Instructor in Greek at Brown University.
1Ludan's "Icaromenippos," Jacobitz edition, vol. II.
s. 771, par. 10,
J
