_To the Editor._
Your having, sir, inserted certain “Antipathies” which I communicated to
your work, encourages me to hope you will find some “Casualties” not
unacceptable.
Anacreon, according to Pliny and Valerius Maximus, was choked with the
kernel of a raisin, and Tarquinius Priscus with a fishbone; the senator
Fabius with a hair; and the very sight of a physician in a dream,
frighted Andragorus out of his life. Homer, Rutilius, Rusciacus, and
Pomperanus were overwhelmed with grief. Zeuxis and Philemon died with
laughing; the one at the picture of an old woman which himself had
drawn, the other at an ass eating of figs. Polycryta,[428] Philippides,
and Diagorus were carried away with a sudden joy; and the tyrant
Dionysius and Sophocles by excessive triumph at the news of a victory.
The bald head of Æschylus cost him dearly; for an eagle hovering over it
mistook it for a stone, and thinking to break an oyster upon it, gave
him a mortal wound.[429] Archimedes was killed by a soldier, as he was
making diagrams in the sand; and Pindar, in the theatre, by his repose
as he lay on the knees of his dear Theoxenus.[430]
Like the people in Pliny, we pay tribute for a shadow. Every age,
condition, and family has its peculiar evils. Cares and sorrows
intermingle with our possessions and gratifications. We taste myrrh in
our wine; and while we crop rosebuds to crown our heads, we prick our
fingers. We do not so properly enjoy our pleasures, as suffer them.
“The portion of man is like that of a rose, which at first is fair as
the morning, when it newly springs from the clefts of its hood, and full
with the dew of heaven as the fleece of a lamb; but when a ruder breath
has forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its retirements, it
begins to decline to the symptoms of a sickly age; it bows the head and
breaks the stalk, and at night having lost some of its leaves, and all
its beauty, falls into the lap of noisome weeds.”[431]
ΠΡΙ
[428] Agellius, lib. iii. cap. 15.
[429] Suidas, Aristoph. in Ranis, lib. x. cap. 3. et Max. ibid.
[430] Θεοξενου γονατα, Suidas.
[431] Bishop Taylor
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