You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
t 36<br />
But I am to give you an account of a rougher and<br />
itronger flagellation, and the firit I fhall cite upon<br />
this head is Johannes Picus, Count of Mirandola, who<br />
flourned about a century and a-half ago. He, in his<br />
third book against the aftrologers, chap. 27, relates<br />
this of an acquaintance of his :—" There is now alive,'<br />
fays he, "a man of a prodigious and almoft unheard<br />
"of kind of lechery—for he is never inflamed to plea-<br />
" fure but when he is whipt ; and yet he is fo intent<br />
"on the a6t, and longs for the ftrokes with fuch an<br />
‘" earneftnefs, that he blames the flogger that ufes him<br />
"gently, and is never throughly mafter of his wifhes<br />
" unlefs the blood ftarts, and the whip rages fmartly<br />
"o'er the wicked limbs of the monfter. This creature<br />
"begs the favour of the woman whom he is to enjoy,<br />
"brings her a rod himfelf, foaked and hardened in<br />
gi<br />
vinegar a day before for the fame purpofe, and en-<br />
" treates the bleffing of a whipping from the harlot on<br />
"his knees ; and the more fmartly he is whipt, he rages_<br />
"the more eagerly, and goes the fame pace both to<br />
gc pleafure and pain—a fingular inftance of one who<br />
"finds a delight in the midft of torment ; and as he is<br />
"not a man very vicious in other refpe6ts, he acknow-<br />
" ledges his diftemper, and abhors it." So far Picus,<br />
from
Change language