294 LEAVES FROM THE 



toothache that adorn those towering nuisances, the adver- 

 tising vans, into the shade, informing the afflicted that, 

 * Whosoever rubbeth their teeth with tortoise bloud, and 

 use so to do a whole yeare together — remember that — 

 ^ shal be freed from the pain thereof for ever/* 



The ancient mariner — not Coleridge's — believed that 

 the foot of a tortoise put on board would stop the way 

 of the ship; and the housewife of other days had no 

 doubt that the shell of a tortoise placed on the pot as 

 it simmered over the fire would j)revent it from boiling 

 over. 



The tortoise of ancient fable was sufficiently sage, ex- 

 cept when he prevailed on the eagle to give him a lesson 

 in flying, and suffered accordingly. To say nothing of 

 his race with the hare, he was eminently reflective as well 

 as persevering. And though he was tempted to murmur 

 at first when he saw the lithe and leaping frogs clearing 

 at a bound a space which cost him long and sore travel, 

 as he dragged himself and his shell along upon the earth 

 — when he saw the eel and King Stork at work upon 

 them, and how their unarmed bodies exposed them to the 

 stones thrown by a mere child, he repented and said, — 

 ' How much better to bear the weight of this shielding 

 shell, than to be subject to so many forms of wounds and 

 death.^ And when he beheld lo dancing a frantic horn- 

 pipe to the tune of a gadfly, did he not hug himself, and 

 glancing at his panoply, exclaim, — I don't care for 



flies ?'t 



To be sure, he was at times more honest than polite ; 

 as when, on receiving Jove's command to meet the rest 

 of animated nature on the occasion of his nuptials with 

 Juno, he returned the somewhat ungracious answer, — 

 oIkos (plxos, ohos api<rros — ' home, sweet home; there's no 



* Holland's Pliny. t Non curat testudo muscas. 



