principal and mighty work of God; wonder of nature, as Zoroaster calls
him; _audacis naturae miraculum_, the marvel of marvels, as Plato; the
abridgment and epitome of the world, as Pliny," &c. Thus Burton; and,
with a few additions of his own, and the substitution of Aristotle for
Plato as the author of one of the descriptions, thus Sterne: "Who made
MAN with powers which dart him from heaven to earth in a moment--that
great, that most excellent and noble creature of the world, the
miracle of nature, as Zoroaster, in his book [Greek: peri phuseos],
called him--the Shekinah of the Divine Presence, as Chrysostom--the
image of God, as Moses--the ray of Divinity, as Plato--the marvel
of marvels, as Aristotle," &c.[1] And in the same chapter, in the
"Fragment upon Whiskers," Sterne relates how a "decayed kinsman"
of the Lady Baussiere "ran begging, bareheaded, on one side of her
palfrey, conjuring her by the former bonds of friendship, alliance,
consanguinity, &c.--cousin, aunt, sister, mother--for virtue's sake,
for your own sake, for mine, for Christ's sake, remember me! pity me!"
And again he tells how a "devout, venerable, hoary-headed man" thus
beseeched her: "'I beg for the unfortunate. Good my lady, 'tis for
a prison--for an hospital; 'tis for an old man--a poor man undone by
shipwreck, by suretyship, by fire. I call God and all His angels to
witness, 'tis to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry--'tis to comfort
the sick and the brokenhearted.' The Lady Baussiere rode on.[2]"

[Footnote 1: _Tristram Shandy_, vol. v.c. 1.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]

But now compare this passage from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_:

"A poor decayed kinsman of his sets upon him by the way, in all