A child's arm in his pocket."

[88] Taylor, Annot. ad Lysiam.

EXPRESSION OF SUPPRESSED OPINION.

A people denied the freedom of speech or of writing have usually left
some memorials of their feelings in that silent language which addresses
itself to the eye. Many ingenious inventions have been contrived to give
vent to their suppressed indignation. The voluminous grievance which
they could not trust to the voice or the pen they have carved in wood,
or sculptured on stone; and have sometimes even facetiously concealed
their satire among the playful ornaments designed to amuse those of whom
they so fruitlessly complained! Such monuments of the suppressed
feelings of the multitude are not often inspected by the
historian--their minuteness escapes all eyes but those of the
philosophical antiquary; nor are these satirical appearances always
considered as grave authorities, which unquestionably they will be found
to be by a close observer of human nature. An entertaining history of
the modes of thinking, or the discontents of a people, drawn from such
dispersed efforts in every aera, would cast a new light of secret history
over many dark intervals.

Did we possess a secret history of the Saturnalia, it would doubtless
have afforded some materials for the present article. In those revels of
venerable radicalism, when the senate was closed, and the _Pileus_, or
cap of liberty, was triumphantly worn, all things assumed an appearance
contrary to what they were; and human nature, as well as human laws,
might be said to have been _parodied_. Among so many whimsical
regulations in favour of the licentious rabble, there was one which
forbad the circulation of money; if any one offered the coin of the
state, it was to be condemned as an act of madness, and the man was
brought to his senses by a penitential fast for that day. An ingenious
French antiquary seems to have discovered a class of wretched medals,
cast in lead or copper, which formed the circulating medium of these mob
lords, who, to ridicule the idea of _money_, used the basest metals,
stamping them with grotesque figures, or odd devices--such as a sow; a
chimerical bird; an imperator in his car, with a monkey behind him; or
an old woman's head, _Acca Laurentia_, either the traditional old nurse
of Romulus, or an old courtesan of the same name, who bequeathed the
fruits of her labours to the Roman people! As all things were done in
mockery, this base metal