THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

THE FIRST DEFENCE 21
ning's flash, 'Up on end stood their hair in horror, and voice
in their throat stuck,' " Something hitherto unheard of for
natural philosophers to learn—that to be struck by lightning
makes hair stand on end! But who knows not that base and
5 coward minds do get thunderstruck even at the mere noise of
any great deed soever, and then most unmistakably show
themselves for the blockheads they have been all along?
Some, he says, "could not but weep"—some petites jemmes,
I suppose, and cortegiane, or others yet more sentimental,—
10 among whom, indeed, Salmasius himself has by a modern
metamorphosis turned into Salmacis, and in this his counterfeit
fountain of night-lucubrated tears, attempts to emasculate
manly courages. I give warning therefore, and bid beware
Lest ill-reputed Salmacis with wave
15 Of evil power some victim shall unman;
Who, though a man he came, yet thence shall go
Hermaphrodite, and at the water's touch
Swift grow effeminate.
"In fact, the more bravely couraged," he says (for I sup-
20 pose he cannot even name the brave and courageous without
nauseous affectation), "burned with such a flame of indignation
that they could hardly control themselves." For such
madmen we care not a rush, but have a way of driving off
your blustering bullies, and routing them with that true
25 courage which does control itself.
"Surely not one but invoked curses upon the authors of so
horrible a villainy." Yet, you were just saying, their voice in