I warrant he will make something of it, he would get meal even from a statue, nor is there any thing so mean and worthless, but he will reap some profit from it. But the adage was more usually applied to princes, and governors, exacting large tributes from poor, and almost desolate places, or obliging the inhabitants of their principal cities to pay such immense sums as to reduce the most wealthy and prosperous of them, to beggary. Of both these, we have now abundant instances in the conduct of Buonaparte and his myrmidons. It was also applied, Erasmus says, to covetous priests, «apud quos ne sepulchrum quidem gratis conceclitur», who extracted profit even from funerals; but these dues are now usually paid readily enough, either out of respect to the deceased, or from the consoling consideration that it will be the last cost the survivor will be put to on their account.
Fuente: Erasmo, 2189.
