55
What does Naevius say to all this? Forsooth, he laughs at our madness in expecting a consideration of the highest duty, or looking for the practices of good men in his conduct. What have I to do, says he, with all this sanctimoniousness and punctiliousness? Let good men, says he, look to these duties, but let them think of me thus; let them ask not what I have, but by what means I have acquired it, and in what rank I was born, and in what manner I was brought up. I remember, there is an old proverb about a buffoon; “that it is a much easier thing for him to become rich than to become the head of a family.”