Respect is prudence, and mediocrity is safety. To insult the king is to

put oneself in the same danger as a girl rashly paring the nails of a

lion. They tell me that you have been prattling about the farthing,

which is the same thing as the liard, and that you have found fault with

the august medallion, for which they sell us at market the eighth part

of a salt herring. Take care; let us be serious. Consider the existence

of pains and penalties. Suck in these legislative truths. You are in a

country in which the man who cuts down a tree three years old is quietly

taken off to the gallows. As to swearers, their feet are put into the

stocks. The drunkard is shut up in a barrel with the bottom out, so that

he can walk, with a hole in the top, through which his head is passed,

and with two in the bung for his hands, so that he cannot lie down. He

who strikes another one in Westminster Hall is imprisoned for life and

has his goods confiscated. Whoever strikes any one in the king's palace

has his hand struck off. A fillip on the nose chances to bleed, and,

behold! you are maimed for life. He who is convicted of heresy in the

bishop's court is burnt alive. It was for no great matter that Cuthbert

Simpson was quartered on a turnstile. Three years since, in 1702, which

is not long ago, you see, they placed in the pillory a scoundrel, called

Daniel Defoe, who had had the audacity to print the names of the Members

of Parliament who had spoken on the previous evening. He who commits

high treason is disembowelled alive, and they tear out his heart and

buffet his cheeks with it. Impress on yourself notions of right and

justice. Never allow yourself to speak a word, and at the first cause of

anxiety, run for it. Such is the bravery which I counsel and which I

practise. In the way of temerity, imitate the birds; in the way of

talking, imitate the fishes. England has one admirable point in her

503

The Man Who Laughs