Those bounds, which with procession and with prayer, And offered cakes, have been my annual care; Or if my debtors do not keep their day, Deny their hands, and then refuse to pay; I must with patience all the terms attend, Among the common causes that depend, Till mine is called; and that long-looked-for day Is still encumbered with some new delay; Perhaps the cloth of state is only spread,[172] Some of the quorum may be sick a-bed; That judge is hot, and doffs his gown, while this O'er night was bowsy, and goes out to piss: So many rubs appear, the time is gone For hearing, and the tedious suit goes on; But buft and beltmen never know these cares, No time, nor trick of law, their action bars: Their cause they to an easier issue put; They will be heard, or they lug out, and cut. Another branch of their revenue still } Remains, beyond their boundless right to kill,-- } Their father yet alive, impowered to make a will.[173] } For what their prowess gained, the law declares Is to themselves alone, and to their heirs: No share of that goes back to the begetter, But if the son fights well, and plunders better, Like stout Coranus, his old shaking sire Does a remembrance in his will desire, Inquisitive of fights, and longs in vain To find him in the number of the slain: But still he lives, and rising by the war, Enjoys his gains, and has enough to spare; For 'tis a noble general's prudent part To cherish valour, and reward desert; Let him be daub'd with lace, live high, and whore; Sometimes be lousy, but be never poor. FOOTNOTES: [167] Juno was mother to Mars, the god of war; Venus was his mistress. [168] Camillus, (who being first banished by his ungrateful countrymen the Romans, afterwards returned, and freed them from the Gauls,) made a law, which prohibited the soldiers from quarrelling without the camp, lest upon that pretence they might happen to be absent when they ought to be on duty. [169] The poet names a Modenese lawyer, whom he calls Vagellius, who was so impudent, that he would plead any cause, right or wrong, without shame or fear. [170] The Roman soldiers wore plates of iron under their shoes, or stuck them with nails, as countrymen do now. [171] Land-marks were used by the Romans, almost in the same manner as now; and as we go once a year in procession about the bounds of parishes, and renew them, so they offered cakes upon the stone, or land-mark. [172] The courts of judicature were hung, and spread, as with us; but spread only before the hundred judges were to sit, and judge public causes, which were called by lot.