HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE, - Horntip

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Strokes and ftripes of rods moft effeEtually cure
thole who diffemble difeafes. It has often happened
that perfons who have fhammed an epilepfy have grown
well, `and been cured before they have been lick by
this fharp and wholefome remedy. It has done good,
too, as preventive phyfic, by hindering others from im-
poling diftempers upon the world. I have known lazy
fervants, who have diffembled fome ftrange diftemper,
return to their bufinefs by this difcipline. We can the
lefs doubt that ftrokes contribute to the cure of real
bodily diftempers, fince they cure thofe of the foul.
From hence it is, that you may fee in Italy, in Lent-
time, the order of floggers expiating the fins of their
paft lives, by (winging ftrokes and wounds upon their
backs, like thofe in the rites of Cybele of old, who, as
Claudian (book I. in Eutrop.) lays-
peaufque illiderapinu
Inguinis & refiquum Pkrysiis abfcindere Cultris.
To wound their breafts, their Phrygian knives difplay,
And cut the pounders and the nerve away.
Such, among the heathens, were the Syrian floggers,
who punifbed themfelves for their crimes, or were
hired