A little to the right of Syntax, were a man and woman—­the man engaged in teaching the woman a Latin charm against the colic, to which it seems she was subject.  Although they all, for the most part, who were in the large room about us, prayed aloud, yet by fastening the attention on any particular person, you could hear what he said.  I therefore heard, the words of this charm, and as my memory is not bad, I still remember them; they ran thus: 

Petrus sedebat super lapidem marmoreain juxta cedem Jerusalem et dolebat, Jesus veniebat et rogabat “Petre, quid doles?” “Doleo vento ventre.”  “Surge, Petre, et sanus esto.”  Et quicunque haec verba non scripta sed memoriter tradita recitat nunquam dolebit vento ventre.

These are the words literally, but I need not say, that had the poor woman sat there since, she would not have got them impressed on her memory.

There were also other countenances in which a man might almost read the histories of their owners.  Methought I could perceive the lurking, unsubdued spirit of the battered rake, in the leer of his roving eye, while he performed, in the teeth of his flesh, blood, and principles, the delusive vow to which the shrinking spirit, at the approach of death, on the bed of sickness, clung, as to its salvation; for it was evident that superstition had only exacted from libertinism what fear and ignorance had promised her.

I could note the selfish, griping miser, betraying his own soul, and holding a false promise to his heart, as with lank jaw, keen eye, and brow knit with anxiety for the safety of his absent wealth, he joined some group, sager if possible to defraud them even of the benefit of their prayers, and attempting to practise that knavery upon heaven which had been so successful upon earth.

I could see the man of years, I thought, withering away under the disconsolation of an ill-spent life, old without peace, and gray without wisdom, flattering himself that he is religious because he prays, and making a merit of offering to God that which Satan had rejected; thinking, too, that he has withdrawn from sin, because the ability of committing it has left him, and taking credit for subduing his propensities, although they have only died in his nature.

I could mark, too, I fancied, the stiff, set features of the pharisee, affecting to instruct others, that he might show his own superiority, and descanting on the merits of works, that his hearers might know he performed them himself.

I could also observe the sly, demure over-doings of the hypocrite, and mark the deceitful lines of grave meditation running along that part of his countenance where in others the front of honesty lies open and expanded.  I could trace him when he got beyond his depth, where the want of sincerity in religion betrayed his ignorance of its forms.  I could note the scowling, sharp-visaged bigot, wrapt up in the nice observance of trifles, correcting others, if the object of their supplications embraced anything within a whole hemisphere of heresy, and not so much happy because he thought himself the way of salvation, as because he thought others out of it—­a consideration which sent pleasure tingling to his fingers’ ends.