4
So that—as it is merrily said by the comedian concerning Cleon, that his hands were in Aetolia, and his soul in ThieftownAristophanes, Knights, 79.—the hands and feet, eyes and thoughts of inquisitive persons are straggling about in many places at once. Neither the mansions of the great, nor the cottages of the poor, nor the privy chambers of princes, nor the recesses of the nuptial alcove, can escape the search of their curiosity; they are familiar to the affairs of strangers, and will be prying into the darkest mysteries of state, although it be to the manifest peril of their being ruined by it. For as to him that will be curiously examining the virtues of medicinal herbs, the unwary taste of a venomous plant conveys a deleterious impression upon the brain, before its noxious quality can be discerned by the palate; so they that boldly pry into the ills of great persons usually meet with their own destruction, sooner than they can discover the dangerous secret they enquire after. And so it happens that, when the rashly curious eye, not contented to expatiate in the free and boundless region of reflected light, will be gazing at the imperial seat of brightness, it becomes a sacrifice to the burning rays, and straight sinks down in penal darkness.
