--this soul I speake of,
Or rather salt, to keep this heap of flesh
From being a walking stench.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
and cf. _Every Man
in_, _Wks._ 1. 70.
=1. 6. 89, 90 as scarce hath soule, In stead of salt.= Whalley
refers to _Bart. Fair_, _Wks._ 4. 446, 7: 'Talk of him to have a
soul! 'heart, if he have any more than a thing given him instead of
salt, only to keep him from stinking. I'll be hang'd afore my time.'
Gifford quotes the passage from B. & Fl.
,
_Spanish
Curate_:
--this soul I speake of,
Or rather salt, to keep this heap of flesh
From being a walking stench.
W. furnishes a Latin parallel: 'Sus vero quid habet praeter escam?
cui quidem, ne putresceret, animam ipsam pro sale datam dicit esse
Chrysippus.'--Cic. _De Natura Deor_, lib. 2.
It is to these passages that Carlyle refers in his _Past and
Present_: 'A certain degree of soul, as Ben Jonson reminds us,
is indispensable to keep the very body from destruction of the
frightfulest sort; to 'save us,' says he, 'the expense of salt.'
Bk. 2, Ch. 2.
'In our and old Jonson's dialect, man has lost the _soul_ out of
him; and now, after the due period,--begins to find the want of
it.... Man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt.
