The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

Of IDLENESS and SLOTH.

SLOTH is a Servile, weak and degenerate habit, that fills the body with gross humours, the mind with heavy, dull, phlegmatic dispositions and discontents; and therefore ought to be avoided. The slothful know not when they are well, or whither they would go; but are tired out with every thing, displeas'd with all, and even weary of life itself, because they know not how to dispose of the time that lies upon their hands.

Althadas, the eleventh king of the Assyrians, (tho' some put him the tenth, and others the twelfth, in their catalogue of monarchs) was so idle and slothful, that he reckon'd all business but so many arguments of folly. He laid down these two things as infallible maxims, viz. that he was a vain and foolish man, that engaged himself in any war; and that he was the greatest fool of all, that toil'd and fatigu'd himself to leave an estate to his posterity. And at the same time stain'd his dignity with the hateful epithets of coward and infidel, in spending his whole life in the society of whores and catamites. Camer. Oper. Subc.

Domitian the emperor, son of Vespasian and the empress Domitilla, was so addicted to idleness and sloth, that he neglected the affairs of the empire, and consum'd his time in pricking flies to death with the point of a pin or needle; and from that impertinent exercise was called the Imperial Fly catcher; of whom he made such a destruction, that one asking who was with the emperor, was answer'd, He is alone, there is not so much as a fly in his apartment. Textor. Offic.

Jodocus Damboud says, that as he was sitting with some senators of Bruges, at the gate of their senate-house, a beggar with lamentable sighs and tears, and other gestures to move compassion, ask'd our charities, adding further, that he was troubled with a misfortune that shame obliged him to conceal. We all, says he, commiserating the poor man's condition, gave him something to his wants, and then he departed. One inquisitive person in our company sent his servant
From the beggar to know what the malady was, which he was so unwilling to discover. The servant overtook him, ask'd him the question; and having viewed him all over, said, he could perceive nothing that he had reason to complain of. Ah, woe is me, said the beggar, the disease that so much afflicts me is not to be seen, tho' it has crept over all my carcase, insinuated itself into my blood and marrow, and has left no part of my body uninfected, which makes me I cannot work. This disease is called sloth and idleness. The servant having received this account, grew angry and left him. After having made ourselves merry at it, we sent the servant to bring him to us again, in order to prescribe to him a cure for this disease, but he had wisely withdrawn himself.

Camer. Med. Hist.
The Sybarites so pleased themselves with an affected slothfulness, and were so willing to continue in it without any kind of molestation, that laying their drowsy heads together, to find out a method to secure their quiet, they at length hit upon this stratagem, viz. By a severe edict they banished all artificers and handcraft tradesmen, who in working made any kind of noise, that without disturbance they might take their full and free repose in the morning. To which one said, That to have made the silence complete, they ought to have hung padlocks upon the mouths of their wives also.