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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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on , thy church invaded by sacrilege , and thy people miserably deceived by lies .
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™ L . X . j *
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No . CCIX . A Sardonic Laugh . The proverbial expression of " a Sardonic laugh" is applied to those who laugh to their own cost . This proverb is as ancient as Homer , who has alluded to it in his Odyssey . The
origin of it has long been a subject of dispute among the learned of modern iimes , and the ancient antiquaries were no less divided in their opinions . Erasmus , in his valuable book of proverbs , facetiously says , " Et seusus , et origo nroverbii adeo varie tractatur ab
auctoiibus , ut verear , ne Risus hie SardonicHS non citra risum legatur . The most probable , as well as the most received , opinion , is this : Sardinia was supposed by the ancients to produce a poisonous herb , which contracts the nerves of the person who is allured by its sweet smell to eat it , and excites
a paroxysm of laughter , which is the harbinger of death . We are told by some great writers that its leaf was of a lunar shape , and that it bore a great resemblance to Apiuni or Apiastrum . Dioscorides says , that it is the plant
which the Greeks call Batrachion , and which the Romans call Ranunculus . Whether , or not , any Sardinian herb possessed this property of exciting laughter ; it is certain that such an effect may be produced by intense pain . It is a curious fact that as a
tear expresses the highest joy which the human mind can receive , so a laugh seems to denote the severest agony , of which the mind or the body is susceptible * Long- slumb ' ring- vengeance wakes to
hetter deeds ; He shrieks , he falls , the perjur'd lover u vr [ bleeds ! a ^ ou' ^ e last laugh of agony is o ' er , And , pale ia blood , he sleeps , to wake no more . " Campbell .
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No . CCXWitches . s late as 1716 , Mrs . Hicks and " <* daughter , the latter aged nine years , Were hanged at Huntingdon for selling their souls to the devil , tor-
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menting and destroying their neighbours by making them vomit pins , and for raising a storm , so that a ship was almost lost , by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of soap .
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Gleanings . — Sardonic Laugh . Witches . Martyrdoms . 105
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No . CCXI . Catalogue of Martyrdoms , In Hebrews xi . the Apostle Paul has made an ample recital of martyrdoms , but his specification is narrow compared with the following , of an old writer , who must have torturedhis
own imagination to produce it , as he certainly keeps his reader ' s mind en the rack . ** It would be a long task to reckon up all the manners of the sufferings of Holy Martyrs , which they underwent , under the tyranny of bloody salvage
Heathen . Heading ( l ) , and hanging ( 2 ) , and crucifying ( 3 ) , were nothing for the satisfaction of their fury . They were broyled on gridirons ( 4 ) y they were fryed in frying-pans ( 5 ) ; they were boy led in cauldrons ( 6 ); they were put in the brazen bull ( 7 ) ; they
were fired at the stake ( 8 ) $ cast into ovens ( 9 ); fired in ships , and so thrust from the shore into the deep ( 10 ); fired in their own houses ( 11 ); cast upoa burning coals ( 12 ); made to walk upon burning coals ( 13 ) \ burnt under the arm-pits with hot irons ( 14 ) : They had their hearts riven out of
their warm body ( 15 ); had th-eir skin flean off from their live flesh ( 16 ) ; had their feet tyed to boughs of two near trees , which boughs being at first forcibly brought together , suddenly let go rent their body in twain ( 17 ) : They were trodden down by horses ( 18 ); cast , bound and naked , into vaults , to be eaten of rats and mice
( 19 ) : They had their flesh pulled off with pinsers ( 20 ) , torn off ' , with iron rakes ( 21 ); were squeezed to death in wine-presses (^ 2 ) ; were tyed upon wheels , which turning , rubed their naked body against sharp pegs of iron ( 23 ) : They were hung by their hands and feet with their face downward
over ehoaking smoak ( 24 ) : They were set out 011 high in the sun , having their naked skin besmeared with honey , to be stung with bees ftnd waspe" ( 25 ) . IL More . Discourses , 8 vo . 1 * 592 . pp . 260 , 266 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1815, page 105, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1757/page/41/
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