Another man[337] speaks of some wretched dogs he has as “his pack of hounds;” he knows where the meet is held, and goes there; he is at the starting,[338] and enters the thicket with the huntsmen, with his horn by his side; he does not ask, like Menalippus, “Do I enjoy myself?”[339] but he thinks he does; he forgets the law and all lawsuits, and would be thought an Hippolytus.[340] Menander, who yesterday was engaged in a lawsuit, paid him a visit, but to-day would not know again his judge. To-morrow you may see him at court, where a weighty and capital case is going to be tried; he gets his learned brethren about him, and informs them that he did not lose the stag, but that he is quite hoarse with hallooing after the hounds which lost the scent, or after those sportsmen who were at fault, and that, with half a dozen hounds, he was in at the death; but the clock strikes, and he has no more time to talk of the stag being at bay, or of the quarry: he must take his seat with the other magistrates and administer justice.
(11.) How great is the infatuation of certain men, who, being possessed of the wealth their fathers acquired by trade, which they have just inherited, imitate princes in their dress and retinue, and by excessive expenditure and ridiculous pomp provoke the remarks and sneers of the whole town they think to dazzle, and thus ruin themselves to be laughed at!
Some have not even the sorry advantage of having their follies talked about beyond their immediate neighbourhood, and the only spot where their vanity is displayed. They do not know in the Ile that André makes a figure and squanders his patrimony in the Marais.[341] If he were only better known in town and in the suburbs, perhaps, amongst so large a number of citizens, who are not all able to judge sensibly of everything, possibly one of them might declare André has a magnificent spirit, and give him credit for his banquets to Xanthe and Ariston, and for his entertainments to Elamire; but he ruins himself obscurely, and hastens to become poor only for the sake of two or three persons, who do not esteem him in the least, and though at present he rides in his coach, in six months he will hardly be able to go on foot.[342]