in a book whilst he was under incision?  And of the other that persisted to mock and laugh in contempt of the pains inflicted upon him; so that the provoked cruelty of the executioners that had him in handling, and all the inventions of tortures redoubled upon him, one after another, spent in vain, gave him the bucklers?  But he was a philosopher.  But what! a gladiator of Caesar’s endured, laughing all the while, his wounds to be searched, lanced, and laid open: 

["What ordinary gladiator ever groaned?  Which of them ever changed countenance?  Which of them not only stood or fell indecorously?  Which, when he had fallen and was commanded to receive the stroke of the sword, contracted his neck.”—­Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., ii. 17.]

Let us bring in the women too.  Who has not heard at Paris of her that caused her face to be flayed only for the fresher complexion of a new skin?  There are who have drawn good and sound teeth to make their voices more soft and sweet, or to place the other teeth in better order.  How many examples of the contempt of pain have we in that sex?  What can they not do, what do they fear to do, for never so little hope of an addition to their beauty?

               “Vallere queis cura est albos a stirpe capillos,
               Et faciem, dempta pelle, referre novam.”

     ["Who carefully pluck out their grey hairs by the roots, and renew
     their faces by peeling off the old skin.”—­Tibullus, i. 8, 45.]

I have seen some of them swallow sand, ashes, and do their utmost to destroy their stomachs to get pale complexions.  To make a fine Spanish body, what racks will they not endure of girding and bracing, till they have notches in their sides cut into the very quick, and sometimes to death?

It is an ordinary thing with several nations at this day to wound themselves in good earnest to gain credit to what they profess; of which our king, relates notable examples of what he has seen in Poland and done towards himself.—­[Henry iii.]—­But besides this, which I know to have been imitated by some in France, when I came from that famous assembly of the Estates at Blois, I had a little before seen a maid in Picardy, who to manifest the ardour of her promises, as also her constancy, give herself, with a bodkin she wore in her hair, four or five good lusty stabs in the arm, till the blood gushed out to some purpose.  The Turks give themselves great scars in honour of their mistresses, and to the end they may the longer remain, they presently clap fire to the wound, where they hold it an incredible time to stop the blood and form the cicatrice; people that have been eyewitnesses of it have both written and sworn it to me.  But for ten aspers—­[A Turkish coin worth about a penny]—­there are there every day fellows to be found that will give themselves a good deep slash in the arms or thighs.  I am willing, however, to have the testimonies nearest