HENRY THOMAS BUCKLE, - Horntip

25 1
What means that foolifh pomp, that filthy fhow,
When thro' the flreets the mad Luperci go ?
It fhews you vile, and mean, as you behave,
For who can think him other than a flave ?
Who, dancing thro' the town, the dames provoke,
To fancy'd pregnancy, by foolifh flroke.
We have fhewn how this cuflom might be warranted
from a natural reafon, tho' the Luperci might have a
trick at the bottom, who ftruck the women with other
kind of weapons than the Ferula, as Cardan imagines.
Among fome nations, fuch as the Perfians and
Ruffians, the married women take it as a token ot
love from their hufbands to be foundly beaten. Bar-
clay lays of the Ruffian wives, That they eflimate the
kindnefs of their hufbands from the ftrokes they give
them, and are never more happy, in their opinion,
than when they have met with a man of a barbarous
temper. Olearius, that great traveller, denies that he
met any fuch thing ; but Barclay confirms it by a very
fingular inftance, which I fhall take the liberty of
repeating. "A certain vulgar fellow, and if his name
is of any moment in fuch 'a trifle, he was called
jordanes, had travelled from Germany to Mufcovy ;
there