[a] The remark in this place alludes to a passage in the oration against PISO, where we find a frivolous stroke of false wit. Cicero reproaches Piso for his dissolute manners, and his scandalous debauchery. Who, he says, in all that time, saw you sober? Who beheld you doing any one thing, worthy of a liberal mind? Did you once appear in public? The house of your colleague resounded with songs and minstrels: he himself danced naked in the midst of his wanton company; and while he _wheeled_ about with alacrity in the _circular motion_ of the dance, he never once thought of THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE. _Quis te illis diebus sobrium, quis agentem aliquid, quod esset libero dignum? Quis denique in publico vidit? Cum collegæ tui domus cantu et cymbalis personaret; cumque ipse nudus in convivio saltaret, in quo ne tum quidem, cum illum suum_ SALTATORIUM VERSARET ORBEM, FORTUNÆ ROTAM _pertimescebat. Oratio in Pisonem_, prima pars, s. 22. Delph. edit. vol. iii. [b] The passage here alluded to, presents us with a double pun. The word _Verres_ is the name of a man, and also signifies a _boar pig_, as we read in Horace, _Verris obliquum meditantis ictum_. Lib. iii. ode 22. The word _jus_ is likewise of twofold meaning, importing _law_ and _sauce_, or broth; _tepidumque ligurierit jus_. Lib. i. sat. 3. The objection to Cicero is, that playing on both the words, and taking advantage of their ambiguous meaning, he says it could not be matter of wonder that the _Verrian jus_ was such bad HOG-SOUP. The wit (if it deserves that name) is mean enough; but, in justice to Cicero, it should be remembered, that he himself calls it frigid, and says, that the men, who in their anger could be so very facetious, as to blame the priest who did not sacrifice such a hog (_Verres_), were idle and ridiculous. He adds, that he should not descend to repeat such sayings (for they were neither witty, nor worthy of notice in such a cause), had he not thought it material to shew, that the iniquity of VERRES was, in the mouth of the vulgar, a subject of ridicule, and a proverbial joke. _Hinc illi homines erant, qui etiam ridiculi inveniebantur ex dolore: quorum alii, ut audistis, negabant mirandum esse_, JUS _tam nequam esse_ VERRINUM: _alii etiam frigidiores erant; sed quia stomachabantur, ridiculi videbantur esse, cum_ SACERDOTEM _execrabantur, qui_ VERREM _tam nequam reliquisset, Quæ ego non commemorarem (neque enim perfacetè dicta, neque porro hac severitate digna sunt) nisi vos id vellem recordari, istius nequitiam et iniquitatem tum in ore vulgi, atque communibus proverbiis esse versatam. In Verrem_, lib. i. pars tertia, s. 121.