heroically; he struts and looks big upon the stage, he thinks himself a real prince in his masking habit, and deceives too all the foolish part of his spectators. He’s a slave in Saturnalibus. The covetous man is a downright servant, a draught horse without bells or feathers; ad metalla damnatus, a man condemned to work in mines, which is the lowest and hardest condition of servitude; and, to increase his misery, a worker there for he knows not whom. He heapeth up riches and knows not who shall enjoy them; ’tis only that he himself neither shall nor can enjoy them. He is an indigent needy slave, he will hardly allow himself clothes and board wages; Unciatim vix demenso de suo suum defraudans Genium comparsit niser. He defrauds not only other men, but his own genius. He cheats himself for money. But the servile and miserable condition of this wretch is so apparent, that I leave it, as evident to every man’s sight, as well as judgment. It seems a more difficult work to prove that the voluptuous man too is but a servant. What can be more the life of a freeman, or, as we say ordinarily, of a gentleman, than to follow nothing but his own pleasures? Why, I’ll tell you who is that true freeman and that true gentleman; not he who blindly follows all his pleasures (the very name of follower is servile), but he who rationally guides them, and is not hindered by outward impediments in the conduct and enjoyment of them. If I want skill or force to restrain the beast that I ride upon, though I bought it, and call it my own, yet in the truth of the matter I am at that time rather his man than he my horse. The voluptuous men (whom we are fallen upon) may be divided, I think, into the lustful and luxurious, who are both servants of the belly; the other whom we spoke of before, the ambitious and the covetous, were κακὰ θηρία, evil wild beasts; these are Γαστέρες ἀργαί, slow bellies, as our translation renders it; but the word Ἀργαί (which is a fantastical word with two directly opposite significations) will bear as well the translation of quick or diligent bellies, and both interpretations may be applied to these men. Metrodorus said, “That he had learnt Ἀληθως γαστρὶ χαρίζεσθαι, to give his belly just thanks for all his pleasures.” This by the calumniators of Epicurus his philosophy was objected as one of the most scandalous of all their sayings, which, according to my charitable understanding, may admit a very virtuous sense, which is, that he thanked his own belly for that moderation in the customary appetites of it, which can only give a man liberty and happiness in this world. Let this suffice at present to be spoken of those great trinmviri of the world; the covetous man, who is a mean villain, like Lepidus; the ambitious, who is a brave one, like 

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