"I was now in the place of the world I had often most wished to go to, where I had everything in great plenty, and yet I was more miserable than ever. Perhaps you will wonder what caused my unhappiness; but I was to appear in a character I could not bear, namely, that of a toad-eater: and what hurt me most, was, that my lady herself soon began to take pains to throw me into it as much as possible."
David begged an explanation of what she meant by a toad-eater; for he said it was a term he had never heard before. On which Cynthia replied, "I don't wonder, sir, you never heard of it; I wish I had spent my life without knowing the meaning of it: it is a metaphor taken from a mountebank's boy who eats toads, in order to show his master's skill in expelling poison: it is built on a supposition, (which I am afraid is too generally true) that people who are so unhappy as to be in a state of dependance, are forced to do the most nauseous things that can be thought on, to please and himour their patrons. And the metaphor may be carried on yet farther; for most people have so much the art of tormenting, that every time they have made the poor creatures they have in their power swallow a toad, they give them something to expel it again, that they may be ready to swallow the next they think proper to prepare for them: that is, when they have abused and fooled them, as Hamlet says, to the top of their bent, they grow soft and good to them again, on purpose to have it in their power to plague them the more. The satire of the expression, in reality, falls on the person who is mean enough to act in so cruel a manner to their dependant; but as it is no uncommon thing for people to make use of terms they don't understand, it is generally used, by way of derision, to the unfortunate wretch who is thrown into such a miserable situation.
"I remember once I went with my Lady ——— to
