Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur

PLATO is of opinion that it is very pardonable in a man to acknowledge that he has any extraordinary passion for himself; and yet the humor is attended with this ill consequent, besides several others, that it renders us incapable of making a right judgment of ourselves. For our affections usually blind our discerning faculties, unless we have learned to raise them above the sordid level of things congenial and familiar to us, to those which are truly noble and excellent in themselves. And hence it is that we are so frequently exposed to the attempts of a parasite, under the disguise and vizard of a friend. For self-love, that grand flatterer within, willingly entertains another from without, who will but soothe up and second the man in the good opinions he has conceived of himself. For he who deservedly lies under the character of one that loves to be flattered is doubtless sufficiently fond of himself: and through abundance of complaisance to his own person, not only wishes but thinks himself master of all those perfections which may recommend him to others. And though indeed it be laudable enough to covet such accomplishments, yet is it altogether unsafe for any man to fancy them inherent in him.

Now, if truth be a ray of the divinity, as Plato says it is, and the source of all the good that derives upon either Gods or men, then certainly the flatterer must be looked

upon as a public enemy to all the Gods, and especially to Apollo; for he always acts counter to that celebrated oracle of his, Know thyself, endeavoring to make every man his own cheat, by keeping him ignorant of the good and ill qualities that are in him; whereupon the good never arrive at perfection, and the ill grow incorrigible.

Did flattery, indeed, as most other misfortunes do, generally or altogether wait on the debauched and ignoble part of mankind, the mischief were of less consequence, and might admit of an easier prevention. But, as worms breed most in sweet and tender woods, so usually the most obliging, the most brave and generous tempers readiliest receive and longest entertain the flattering insect that hangs and grows upon them. And since, to use Simonides’s expression, it is not for persons of a narrow fortune, but for gentlemen of estates, to keep a good stable of horses; so never saw we flattery the attendant of the poor, the inglorious and inconsiderable plebeian, but of the grandees of the world, the distemper and bane of great families and affairs, the plague in kings’ chambers, and the ruin of their kingdoms. Therefore it is a business of no small importance, and one which requires no ordinary circumspection, so to be able to know a flatterer in every shape he assumes, that the counterfeit resemblance some time or other bring not true friendship itself into suspicion and disrepute. For parasites,—;like lice, which desert a dying man, whose palled and vapid blood can feed them no longer,—; never intermix in dry and insipid business where there is nothing to be got; but prey upon a noble quarry, the ministers of state and potentates of the earth, and afterwards lousily shirk off, if the greatness of their fortune chance to leave them. But it will not be wisdom in us to stay till such fatal junctures, and then try the experiment, which will not only be useless but dangerous and hurtful; for it is a deplorable thing for a man to find himself then destitute

of friends, when he most wants them, and has no opportunity either of exchanging his false and faithless friend for a fast and honest one. And therefore we should rather try our friend, as we do our money, whether or not he be passable and current, before we need him. For it is not enough to discover the cheat to our cost, but we must so understand the flatterer, that he put no cheat upon us; otherwise we should act like those who must needs take poison to know its strength, and foolishly hazard their lives to inform their judgment. And as we cannot approve of this carelessness, so neither can we of that too scrupulous humor of those who, taking the measures of true friendship only from the bare honesty and usefulness of the man, immediately suspect a pleasant and easy conversation for a cheat. For a friend is not a dull tasteless thing, nor does the decorum of friendship consist in sourness and austerity of temper, but its very port and gravity is soft and amiable,—;

Where Love and all the Graces do reside.[*](Hesiod, Theogony, 64.)

For it is not only a comfort to the afflicted,

To enjoy the courtesy of his kindest friend,[*](Eurip. Ion, 732.)

as Euripides speaks; but friendship extends itself to both fortunes, as well brightens and adorns prosperity as allays the sorrows that attend adversity. And as Evenus used to say that fire makes the best sauce, so friendship, wherewith God has seasoned the circumstances of our mortality, gives a relish to every condition, renders them all easy, sweet, and agreeable enough. And indeed, did not the laws of friendship admit of a little pleasantry and good humor, why should the parasite insinuate himself under that disguise? And yet he, as counterfeit gold imitates the brightness and lustre of the true, always puts on the easiness and freedom of a friend, is always pleasant and obliging, and ready to comply with the humor of his company. And therefore it is no way reasonable either, to look upon every just character that is given us as a piece of flattery; for certainly a due and seasonable commendation is as much the duty of one friend to another as a pertinent and serious reprehension; nay indeed, a sour querulous temper is perfectly repugnant to the laws of friendship and conversation; whereas a man takes a chiding patiently from a friend who is as ready to praise his virtues as to animadvert upon his vices, willingly persuading himself that mere necessity obliged him to reprimand, whom kindness had first moved to commend.

Why then, some may say, it is infinitely difficult at this rate to distinguish a flatterer from a friend, since there is no apparent difference either betwixt the satisfaction they create or the praises they bestow. Nay, it is observable, that a parasite is frequently more obsequious and obliging than a friend himself. Well, the way then to discover the disparity? Why, I will tell you; if you would learn the character of a true subtle flatterer, who nicks his point secundum artem, you must not, with the vulgar, mistake those sordid smell-feasts and poor trencher-slaves for your men, who begin to prate as soon as they have washed their hands in order to dinner, as one says of them, and ere they are well warmed with a good cut of the first dish and a glass of wine, betray the narrow soul that acts them by the nauseous and fulsome buffoonery they vent at table. For sure it needed no great sagacity to detect the flattery of Melanthius, the parasite of Alexander of Pherae, who, being asked how his master was murdered, made answer, With a thrust which went in at his side, but into my belly. Nor must we, again, confine our notions of flatterers to those sharping fellows who ply about rich men’s tables, whom neither fire nor sword nor porter can keep from supper; nor yet to such as were those female parasites of Cyprus, who going into

Syria were nick-named Steps, because they cringed so to the great ladies of that country that they mounted their chariots on their backs.

Well, but after all, who is this flatterer then, whom we ought so industriously to avoid?

I answer: He who neither professes nor seems to flatter; who never haunts your kitchen, is never observed to watch the dial that he may nick your supper-time; who won’t drink to excess, but will keep his brains about him; who is prying and inquisitive, would mix in your business, and wind himself into your secrets: in short, he who acts the friend, not with the air of a comedian or a satirist, but with the port and gravity of a tragedian. For, as Plato says, It is the height of injustice to appear just and be really a knave. So are we to look upon those flatterers as most dangerous who walk not barefaced but in disguise, who make no sport but mind their. business; for these often personate the true and sincere friend so exactly, that it is enough to make him fall under the like suspicion of a cheat, unless we be extremely curious in remarking the difference betwixt them. It is storied of Gobryas (one of the Persian nobility, who joined with Darius against the Magi), that he pursued one of them into a dark room, and there fell upon him; during the scuffle Darius came in and drew upon the enemy, but durst not push at him, lest perhaps he might wound his confederate Gobryas with the thrust; whereupon Gobryas bade him, rather than fail, run both through together. But since we can by no means admit of that vulgar saying, Let my friend perish, so my enemy perish with him, but had rather still endeavor at the discovery of a parasite from a friend, notwithstanding the nearness of the resemblance, we ought to use our utmost care, lest at any time we indifferently reject the good with the bad, or unadvisedly retain the bad with the good, the friend and flatterer

together. For as those wild grains which usually grow up with wheat, and are of the same figure and bigness with it, are not easily winnowed from it,—;for they either cannot pass through the holes of the sieve, if narrow, or pass together with the wheat, if larger,—; so is it infinitely difficult to distinguish flattery from friendship, because the one so exquisitely mixes with all the passions, humors, interests, and inclinations of the other.

Now because the enjoyment of a friend is attended with the greatest satisfaction incident to humanity, therefore the flatterer always endeavors to entrap us by rendering his conversation highly pleasant and agreeable. Again, because all acts of kindness and mutual beneficence are the constant attendants upon true friendship (on which account we usually say, A friend is more necessary than fire or water), therefore the flatterer is ready upon every occasion to obtrude his service upon you, and will with an indefatigable bustle and zeal seek to oblige you if he can.

In the next place, the parasite observes that all true friendship takes its origin from a concurrence of like humors and inclinations, and that the same passions, the same aversions and desires, are the first cement of a true and lasting friendship. He therefore composes his nature, like unformed matter, striving to fit and adapt it by imitation to the person on whom he designs, that it may be pliant and yielding to any impression that he shall think fit to stamp upon it; and, in fine, he so neatly resembles the original, that one would swear,—;

Sure thou the very Achilles art, and not his son.

But the most exquisite fineness of a flatterer consists in his imitation of that freedom of discourse which friends particularly use in mutually reprehending each other. For finding that men usually take it for what it really is, the natural language of friendship, as peculiar to it as certain notes or voices are to certain animals, and that, on the contrary, a shy sheepish reservedness looks both rude and unfriendly, he lets not even this proper character of a friend escape his imitation. But as skilful cooks use to correct luscious meats with sharp and poignant sauce, that they may not be so apt to overcharge the stomach; so he seasons his flattery now and then with a little smartness and severity, lest the fulsomeness of repeated dissimulation should pall and cloy the company. And yet his reprehensions always carry something in them that looks not true and genuine; he seems to do it, but with a kind of a sneering and grinning countenance at the best; and though his reproofs may possibly tickle the ear, yet they never strike effectually upon the heart. On these accounts then it is as difficult to discern a flatterer from a friend, as to know those animals again which always wear the livery of the last thing they touch upon. And therefore, since he puts so easily upon us under the disguise and appearance of a friend, it will be our business at present to unmask the hypocrite, and show him in other men’s shapes and colors, as Plato speaks, since he has none properly his own.

Well then, let us enquire regularly into this affair. We have already asserted, that friendship generally takes its rise from a conformity of tempers and dispositions, whereby different persons come to have the same taste of the like humors, customs, studies, exercises, and employs, as these following verses import:—;

Old men with old, and boys with boys agree;

And women’s clack with women’s company.

Men that are crazy, full of sores and pain,

Love to diseased persons to complain.

And they who labor under adverse fate,

Tell their sad stories to th’ unfortunate.

The flatterer then, observing how congenial it is to our natures to delight in the conversation of those who are, as

it were, the counterpart of ourselves, makes his first approaches to our affections at this avenue, where he gradually advances (like one making towards a wild beast in a pasture, with a design to tame and bring it to hand) by accommodating himself to the same studies, business, and color of life with the person upon whom he designs, till at last the latter gives him an opportunity to catch him, and becomes tractable by the man who strokes him. All this while the flatterer falls foul upon those courses of life, persons, and things he perceives his cully to disapprove, and again as extravagantly commends those he is pleased to honor with his approbation, still persuading him that his choice and dislike are the results of a solid and discerning judgment and not of passion.

Well, then, by what signs or tokens shall we be able to know this counterfeit copy of ourselves from a true and genuine likeness?

In the first place, we must accurately remark upon the whole tenor of his life and conversation, whether or not the resemblance he pretends to the original be of any continuance, natural and easy, and all of a piece; whether he square his actions according to any one steady and uniform model, as becomes an ingenuous lover of conversation and friendship, which is all of one thread, and still like itself; for this is a true friend indeed. But the flatterer, who has no principles in him, and leads not a life properly his own, but forms and moulds it according to the various humors and caprices of those he designs to bubble, is never one and the same man, but a mere dapple or trimmer, who changes shapes with his company, like water that always turns and winds itself into the figure of the channel through which it flows. Apes, it seems, are usually caught by their antic mimicry of the motions and gesticulations of men; and yet the men themselves are trepanned by the same craft of imitation in a flatterer,

who adapts himself to their several humors, fencing and wrestling with one, singing and dancing with another. If he is in chase of a spark that delights in a pack of dogs, he follows him at the heels, hollowing almost like Phaedra,

O what a pleasure ’tis, ye Gods, to wind

The shrill-mouthed horn and chase the dappled hind;

[*](Eurip. Hippol. 218.)

and yet the hunter himself is the game he designs for the toils. If he be in pursuit of some bookish young gentleman, then he is always a poring, he nourishes his reverend beard down to his heels, wears a tattered cloak, affects the careless indifference of a philosopher, and can now discourse of nothing under Plato’s triangles and rectangles. If he chance to fall into the acquaintance of a drunken, idle debauchee who has got an estate,

Then sly Ulysses throws away his rags,[*](Odyss. XXII. I.)

puts off his long robe, mows down his fruitless crop of beard, drinks briskly, laughs modishly on the walks, and drolls handsomely upon the philosophical fops of the town. And thus, they say, it happened at Syracuse; for when Plato first arrived there and Dionysius was wonderfully hot upon the study of philosophy, all the areas in the king’s palace were full of nothing but dust and sand, by reason of the great concourse of geometricians who came to draw their figures and demonstrate there. But no sooner was Plato in disgrace at court, and Dionysius finally fallen from philosophy to wine and women, trifles and intemperance, than learning fell into a general disrepute, and the whole body of the people, as if bewitched by some Circe or other, became universally stupid, idle, and infatuated. Besides this. I appeal to the practices of men notorious for flattery and popularity to back my observation. Witness he who topped them all, Alcibiades, who, when he dwelt at Athens, was as arch and witty as any Athenian of them all, kept his stable of horses, played the good fellow, and was universally obliging; and yet the same man at Sparta slaved close to the skin, wore his cloak, and never bathed but in cold water. When he sojourned in Thrace, he drank and fought like a Thracian; and again, in Tissaphernes’s company in Asia, he acted the part of a soft, arrogant, and voluptuous Asiatic. And thus, by an easy compliance with the humors and customs of the people amongst whom he conversed, he made himself master of their affections and interests. So did not the brave Epaminondas nor Agesilaus, who, though they had to do with great variety of men and manners, and cities of vastly different politics, were still the same men, and everywhere, through the whole circle of their conversation, maintained a port and character worthy of themselves. And so was Plato the same man at Syracuse that he was in the Academy, the same in Dionysus’s court that he was in Dixon’s.

But he who will take the pains to act the dissembler himself, by interchangeably decrying and extolling the same things, discourses, and ways of living, will easily perceive that the opinions of a flatterer are as mutable and inconstant as the colors of a polypus, that he is never consonant to himself nor properly his own man; that all his passions, his love and hatred, his joy and sorrow, are borrowed and counterfeit; and that, in a word, like a mirror, he only receives and represents the several faces or images of other men’s affections and humors. Do but discommend one of your acquaintance a little in his company, and he will tell you it is a wonder you never found him out all this while, for his part he never fancied him in his life. Change but your style and commend him, he presently swears you oblige him in it, gives you a thousand thanks for the gentleman’s sake, and believes your character of him to be just. Tell him you have thoughts of altering your course of life, as for instance, to retire from all public employs to privacy and

ease; he immediately wishes that he had retreated long ago from the hurry and drudgery of business and the odium that attends it. Seem but again inclinable to an active life; Why now, says he, you speak like yourself; leisure and ease are sweet, it is true, but withal mean and inglorious. When you have thus trepanned him, it would be proper to cashier him with some such reply as this:—;

How now, my friend! What, quite another man

I abhor a fellow who servilely complies with whatsoever I propose, and keeps pace with me in all my motions,—;my shadow can do that better than yourself,—;but my friend must deal plainly and impartially, and assist me faithfully with his judgment. And thus you see one way of discerning a flatterer from a friend.

Another difference observable betwixt them in the resemblance thy bear to each other is, that a true friend will not rashly commend nor imitate every thing, but only what really deserves it; for, as Sophocles says,

He shares with him his loves, but not his hates,[*](Soph. Antigone, 523.)

and will scorn to bear any part with him in any base and dishonorable actions, unless, as people sometimes catch blear eyes, he may chance insensibly to contract some ill habit or other by the very contagion of familiarity and conversation. Thus they say Plato’s acquaintance learned his stoop, Aristotle’s his lisp, and Alexander’s the inclination of his neck and the rapidity of his speech. For some persons, ere they are aware, get a touch of the humors and infirmities of those with whom they converse. But now as a true friend endeavors only to copy the fairest originals, so, on the contrary, the flatterer, like the chameleon, which puts on all colors but the innocent white, being unable to reach those strokes of virtue which are worth his imitation, takes care that no failure or imperfection escape him. As unskilful painters, when they cannot hit the features and air of a face, content themselves with the faint resemblance in a wrinkle, a wart, or a scar, so he takes up with his friend’s intemperance, superstition, cholericness, severity to his servants, distrust of his relations and domestics or the like. For, besides that a natural propensity to evil inclines him always to follow the worst examples, he imagines his assuming other men’s vices will best secure him from the suspicion of being disaffected towards them; for their fidelity is often suspected who seem dissatisfied with faults and wish a reformation. Which very thing lost Dion in the good opinion of Dionysius, Samius in Philip’s, Cleomenes in Ptolemy’s, and at last proved the occasion of their ruin. And therefore the flatterer pretends not only to the good humor of a companion, but to the faithfulness of a friend too, and would be thought to have so great a respect for you that he cannot be disgusted at the very worst of your actions, being indeed of the same make and constitution with yourself. Hence you shall have him pretend a share in the most common casualties that befall another, nay, in complaisance, feign even diseases themselves. In company of those who are thick of hearing, he is presently half deaf, and with the dim-sighted can see no more than they do. So the parasites about Dionysius at an entertainment, to humor his blindness, stumbled one upon another and jostled the dishes off his table.

But there are others who refine upon the former by a pretended fellow-suffering in the more private concernments of life, whereby they wriggle themselves deeper into the affections of those they flatter; as, if they find a man unhappily married, or distrustful of his children or domestics, they spare not their own family, but immediately entertain you with some lamentable story of the hard fortune they have met with in their children, their wife, their servants, or relations. For, by the parallel circumstances they pretend

to, they seem more passionately concerned for the misfortunes of their friends, who, as if they had already received some pawn and assurance of their fidelity, blab forth those secrets which they cannot afterwards handsomely retract, and dare not betray the least distrust of their new confidant for the future. I myself knew a man who turned his wife out of doors because a gentleman of his acquaintance divorced his, though the latter lady smelt the intrigue afterwards by the messages the flatterer sent to his wife after the pretended divorce and the private visits he was observed to make her. So little did he understand the flatterer who took these following verses for the description of a crab rather than his:—;

The shapeless thing’s all over paunch and gut:

Who can the monster’s mighty hunger glut?

It crawls on teeth, and with a watchful eye

Does into every secret corner pry.

For this is the true portraiture of those sharpers, who, as Eupolis speaks, sponge upon their acquaintance for a dinner.

But we will reserve these remarks for a more proper place. In the mean time I must not omit the other artifice observable in his imitation, which is this: that if at any time he counterfeit the good qualities of his friend, he immediately yields him the pre-eminence; whereas there is no competition, no emulation or envy amongst true friends, but whether they are equally accomplished or not, they bear the same even unconcerned temper of mind towards each other. But the flatterer, remembering that he is but to act another’s part, pretends only to such strokes as fall short of the original, and is willing to confess himself outdone in any thing but his vices, wherein alone he claims the precedency to himself; as, if the man he is to wheedle be difficult and morose, he is quite overrun with choler; if something superstitious, he is a perfect enthusiast; if a

little in love, for his part he is most desperately smitten. I laughed heartily at such a passage, says one; But I had like to have died with laughter, says the other. But now in speaking of any laudable qualities, he inverts his style; as, I can run fast enough, says he, but you perfectly fly. I can sit an horse tolerably well, but alas! what’s that to this Hippocentaur for good horsemanship? I have a tolerable good genius for poetry, and am none of the worst versifiers of the age;

But thunder is the language of you Gods, not mine.

And thus at the same time he obliges his friend both in approving of his abilities by his owning of them, and in confessing him incomparable in his way by himself coming short of his example. These then are the distinguishing characters of a friend and flatterer, as far as concerns the counterfeit resemblance betwixt them.

But because, as we have before observed, it is common to them both to please (for a good man is no less taken with the company of his friends than an ill one is with a flatterer’s), let us discriminate them here too. And the way will be to have an eye to the end to which they direct the satisfaction they create, which may be thus illustrated. Your perfumed oils have a fine odoriferous scent, and so, it may be, have some medicines too; but with this difference, that the former are prepared barely for the gratification of the sense, whilst the other, besides their odor, purge, heal, and fatten. Again, the colors used by painters are certainly very florid and the mixture agreeable; and yet so it is in some medicinal compositions too. Wherein then lies the difference? Why, in the end or use for which they are designed, the one purely for pleasure the other for profit. In like manner the civilities of one friend to another, besides the main point of their honesty and mutual advantage, are always attended with an overplus of delight and satisfaction.

Nay, they can now and then indulge themselves the liberty of an innocent diversion, a collation, or a glass of wine, and, believe me, can be as cheerful and jocund as the best; all which they use only as sauce, to give a relish to the more serious and weighty concernments of life. To which purpose was that of the poet,

With pleasing chat they did delight each other;

as likewise this too,

Nothing could part our pleasure or our love.[*](Il. XI. 643; Odyss. IV. 178.)

But the whole business and design of a flatterer is continually to entertain the company with some pastime or other, a little jest, a story well told, or a comical action; and, in a word, he thinks he can never overact the diverting part of conversation. Whereas the true friend, proposing no other end to himself than the bare discharge of his duty, is sometimes pleasant, and as often, it may be, disagreeable, neither solicitously coveting the one, nor industriously avoiding the other, if he judge it the more seasonable and expedient. For as a physician, if need require, will throw in a little saffron or spikenard to qualify his patient’s dose, and will now and then bathe him and feed him up curiously, and yet again another time will prescribe him castor,

Or poley, which the strongest scent doth yield

Of all the physic plants which clothe the field,

or perhaps will oblige him to drink an infusion of hellebore,—;proposing neither the deliciousness of the one nor the nauseousness of the other as his scope and design, but only conducting him by these different methods to one and the same end, the recovery of his health,—;in like manner the real friend sometimes leads his man gently on to virtue by kindness, by pleasing and extolling him, as he in Homer,

Dear Teucer, thou who art in high command,

Thus draw the bow with thy unerring hand;

and as another speaking of Ulysses,

How can I doubt, while great Ulysses stands

To lend his counsel and assist our hands?

and again, when he sees correction requisite, he will check him severely, as,

Whither, O Menelaus, wouldst thou run,

And tempt a fate which prudence bids thee shun?

[*](Il. VIII. 281; Odyss. I. 65; Il. VII. 109.)

and perhaps he is forced another time to second his words with actions, as Menedemus reclaimed his friend Asclepiades’s son, a dissolute and debauched young gentleman, by shutting his doors upon him and not vouchsafing to speak to him. And Arcesilaus forbade Battus his school for having abused Cleanthes in a comedy of his, but after he had made satisfaction and an acknowledgment of his fault, took him into favor again. For we ought to grieve and afflict our friend with design merely of serving him, not of making a rupture betwixt us, and must apply our reprehensions only as pungent and acute medicines, with no other intent than the recovery of the patient. And therefore a friend—;like a skilful musician who, to tune his instrument, winds up one string and lets down another—;grants some things and refuses others according as their honesty or usefulness prompt him, whereby he often pleases, but is sure always to profit; whereas the parasite, who is continually upon the same humoring string, knows not how to let fall a cross word or commit a disobliging action, but servilely complies with all your desires, and is always in the tune you ask for. And therefore, as Xenophon reports of Agesilaus that he took some delight in being praised by those who would upon occasion dispraise him too, so ought we to judge that only he rejoices and pleases us really as a friend, who will, when need requires, thwart and contradict us; we must suspect their conversation who aim at nothing but our gratification, without the least intermixture of reprehension; and indeed we ought to have ready upon such occasions that repartee of a Lacedaemonian who, hearing King Charillus highly extolled for an excellent person, asked, How he could be so good a man, who was never severe to an ill one?

They tell us that gad-flies creep into the ears of bulls, and ticks into those of dogs. But I am sure the parasite lays so close siege and sticks so fast to the ears of the ambitious with the repeated praises of their worth, that it is no easy matter to shake him off again. And therefore it highly concerns them to have their apprehensions awake and upon the guard, critically to remark whether the high characters such men lavish out are intended for the person or the thing they would be thought to commend. And we may indeed suppose them more peculiarly designed for the things themselves, if they bestow them on persons absent rather than present; if they covet and aspire after the same qualities themselves which they magnify in others; if they admire the same perfections in the rest of mankind as well as in us, and are never found to falter and belie, either in word or action, the sentiments they have owned. And, what is the surest criterion in this case, we are to examine whether or no we are not really troubled at or ashamed of the commission of those very things for which they applaud us, and could not wish that we had said or acted the quite contrary; for our own consciences, which are above the reach of passion and will not be put upon by all the sly artifices of flattery, will witness against us and spurn at an undeserved commendation. But I know not how it comes to pass, that several persons had rather be pitied than comforted in adversity; and when they have committed a fault, look

upon those as enemies and informers who endeavor to chide and lecture them into a sense of their guilt, but caress and embrace them as friends who soothe them up in their vices. Indeed they who continue their applauses to so inconsiderable a thing as a single action, a wise saying, or a smart jest, do only a little present mischief; but they who from single acts proceed to debauch even the habits of the mind with their immoderate praises are like those treacherous servants who, not content to rob the common heap in the granary, filch even that which was chosen and reserved for seed. For, whilst they entitle vice to the name of virtue, they corrupt that prolific principle of action, the genius and disposition of the soul, and poison the fountain whence the whole stream of life derives. Thucydides observes, that in the time of war and sedition the names of good and evil are wont to be confounded according to men’s judgment of circumstances; as, fool-hardiness is called a generous espousal of a friend’s quarrel, a provident delay is nicknamed cowardice, modesty a mere pretext for unmanliness, a prudent slow inspection into things downright laziness.[*](Thucyd. III. 82.) In like manner, if you observe it, a flatterer terms a profuse man liberal, a timorous man wary, a mad fellow quick and prompt, a stingy miser frugal, an amorous youngster kind and good-natured, a passionate proud fool stout, and a mean-spirited slave courteous and observing. As Plato somewhere remarks, that a lover who is always a flatterer of his beloved object styles a flat nose lovely and graceful, an hawk nose princely, the black manly, and the fair the offspring of the Gods; and observes particularly that the appellation of honey-pale is nothing but the daub of a gallant who is willing to set off his mistress’s pale complexion.[*](Plat. Repub. V. 474 D.) Now indeed an ugly fellow bantered into an opinion that he is handsome, or a little man magnified into tall and portly, cannot lie long under the mistake nor receive any great injury by the cheat; but when vice is extolled by the name of virtue, so that a man is induced to sin not only without regret but with joy and triumph, and is hardened beyond the modesty of a blush for his enormities, this sort of flattery, I say, has been fatal even to whole kingdoms. It was this that ruined Sicily, by styling the tyranny of Dionysius and Phalaris nothing but justice and a hatred of villanous practices. It was this that overthrew Egypt, by palliating the ling’s effeminacy, his yellings, his enthusiastic rants, and his beating of drums, with the more plausible names of true religion and the worship of the Gods. It was this that had very nigh ruined the stanch Roman temper, by extenuating the voluptuousness, the luxury, the sumptuous shows, and public profuseness of Antony, into the softer terms of humanity, good nature, and the generosity of a gentleman who knew how to use the greatness of his fortune. What but the charms of flattery made Ptolemy turn piper and fiddler? What else put on Nero’s buskins and brought him on the stage? Have we not known several princes, if they sung a tolerable treble, termed Apollos; when they drank stoutly, styled Bacchuses; and upon wrestling, fencing, or the like, immediately dubbed by the name of Hercules, and hurried on by those empty titles to the commission of those acts which were infinitely beneath the dignity of their character?

And therefore it will be then more especially our concern to look about us when a flatterer is upon the strain of praising; which he is sensible enough of, and accordingly avoids all occasion of suspicion when he attacks us on that side. If indeed he meets with a tawdry fop, or a dull country clown in a leathern jacket, he plays upon him with all the liberty imaginable; as Struthias by way of flattery insulted and triumphed over the sottishness

of Bias, when he told him that he had out drunk King Alexander himself, and that he was ready to die of laughter at his encounter with the Cyprian. But if he chance to fall upon an apprehensive man, who can presently smoke a design, especially if he thinks he has an eye upon him and stands upon his guard, he does not immediately assault him with an open panegyric, but first fetches a compass, and softly winds about him, till he has in some measure tamed the untractable creature and brought it to his hand. For he either tells him what high characters he has heard of him abroad (introducing, as the rhetoricians do, some third person), how upon the exchange the other day he happily overheard some strangers and persons of great gravity and worth, who spake extreme honorably of him and professed themselves much his admirers; or else he forges some frivolous and false accusation of him, and then coming in all haste, as if he had heard it really reported, asks him seriously, if he can call to mind where he said or did such a thing. And immediately upon his denial of the matter of fact, which he has reason enough to expect, he takes occasion to fall upon the subject of his commendation; I wondered indeed, says he, to hear that you should calumniate your friend, who never used to speak ill of your enemies; that you should endeavor to rob another man of his estate, who so generously spend your own.

Others again, like painters who enhance the lustre and beauty of a curious piece by the shades which surround it, slyly extol and encourage men in their vices by deriding and railing at their contrary virtues. Thus, in the company of the debauched. the covetous, and the extortioner, they run down temperance and modesty as mere rusticity; and justice and contentment with our present condition argue nothing in their phrase but a dastardly spirit and an impotence to action. If they fall into the

acquaintance of lubbers who love laziness and ease, they stick not to explode the necessary administration of public affairs as a troublesome intermeddling in other men’s business, and a desire to bear office as an useless empty thirst after a name. To wheedle in with an orator, they scout a philosopher; and who so gracious as they with the jilts of the town, by laughing at wives who are faithful to their husbands’ beds as impotent and country-bred? And, what is the most egregious stratagem of all the rest, the flatterer shall traduce himself rather than want a fair opportunity to commend another; as wrestlers put their body in a low posture, that they may the better worst their adversaries. I am a very coward at sea, says he, impatient of any fatigue, and cannot digest the least ill language; but my good friend here fears no colors, can endure all hardness, is an admirable good man, bears all things with great patience and evenness of temper. If he meets with one who abounds in his own sense and affects to appear rigid and singular in his judgment, and, as an argument of the rectitude and steadiness thereof, is always telling you of that of Homer,

Let not your praise or dispraise lavish be,

Good Diomedes, when you speak of me,

[*](Il. X. 249.)

he applies a new engine to move this great weight. To such a one he imparts some of his private concerns, as being willing to advise with the ablest counsel: he has indeed a more intimate acquaintance with others, but he was forced to trouble him at present: for to whom should we poor witless men have recourse (says he) when we stand in need of advice Or whom else should we trust? And as soon as he has delivered his opinion, whether it be to the purpose or not, he takes his leave of him with a seeming satisfaction, as if he had received an answer from an oracle. Again, if he perceives a man pretends to be master of a style, he presently presents him with something of his own composing, requesting him to peruse and correct it. Thus Mithridates could no sooner set up for a physician, than some of his acquaintance desired to be cut and cauterized by him,—;a piece of flattery that extended beyond the fallacy of bare words,—;they imagining that he must needs take it as an argument of their great opinion of his skill, that they durst trust themselves in his hands.

For things divine take many shapes.[*](Eurip. Alcestis, 1159, and elsewhere in Euripides.)

Now to discover the cheat which these insinuations of our own worth might put upon us (a thing that requires no ordinary circumspection), the best way will be to give him a very absurd advice, and to animadvert as impertinently as may be upon his works when he submits them to your censure. For if he makes no reply, but grants and approves of all you assert, and applauds every period with the eulogy of Very right! Incomparably well!—;then you have trepanned him, and it is plain that, though

He counsel asked, he played another game,

To swell you with the opinion of a name.

But to proceed. As some have defined painting to be mute poetry, so there is a sort of silent flattery which has its peculiar commendation. For as hunters are then surest of their game when they pass under the disguise of travellers, shepherds or husbandmen, and seem not at all intent upon their sport; so the eulogies of a parasite never take more effectually than when he seems least of all to commend you. For he who rises up to a rich man when he comes in company, or who, having begun a motion in the Senate, suddenly breaks off and gives some leading man the liberty of speaking his sense first in the point, such a man’s silence more effectually slows the deference he pays the other’s judgment than if he had avowedly proclaimed it. And hereupon you shall have them always

placed in the boxes at the play-house, and perched upon the highest seats at other public entertainments; not that they think them suitable to their quality, but merely for the opportunity of gratifying great men by giving them place. Hence it is likewise, that they open first in all solemn and public assemblies, only that they may give place to another as an abler speaker, and they retract their opinion immediately, if any person of authority, riches, or quality contradict them. So that you may perceive all their concessions, cringes, and respects to be but mere courtship and complaisance, by this easy observation, that they are usually paid to riches, honor, or the like, rather than to age, art, virtue, or other personal endowments.

Thus dealt not Apelles with Megabyzus (one of the Persian nobility), who pretending once to talk I know not what about lines, shades, and other things peculiar to his art, the painter could not but take him up, telling him that his apprentices yonder, who were grinding colors, gazed strangely upon him, admiring his gold and purple ornaments, while he held his tongue, but now could not choose but titter to hear him offer at a discourse upon an argument so much out of his sphere. And when Croesus asked Solon his opinion of felicity, he told him flatly, that he looked upon Tellus, an honest though obscure Athenian, and Biton and Cleobis, as happier than he. But the flatterer will have kings, governors, and men of estates, not only the most signally happy, but the most eminently knowing, the most virtuous, and the most prudent of mankind.

And now some cannot endure to hear the Stoics, who centre all true riches, generosity, nobility, and royalty itself in the person of a wise man; but with the flatterer it is the man of money that is both orator and poet, and, if he pleases, painter and fiddler too, a good wrestler, an excellent footman, or any thing, for they never stand with

him for the victory in those engagements; as Crisson, who had the honor to run with Alexander, let him designedly win the race, which the king being told of afterwards was highly disgusted at him. And therefore I like the observation of Carneades, who used to say that young princes and noblemen never arrived to a tolerable perfection in any thing they learned, except riding; for their preceptors spoil them at school by extolling all their performances, and their wrestling-masters by always taking the foil; whereas the horse, who knows no distinction betwixt a private man and a magistrate, betwixt the rich and the poor, will certainly throw his rider if he knows not how to sit him, let him be of what quality he pleases. And therefore it was but impertinently said of Bion upon this subject, that he who could praise his ground into a good crop were to blame if he bestowed any other tillage upon it. ’Tis granted: nor is it improper to commend a man, if you do him any real kindness thereby. But here is the disparity: that a field cannot be made worse by any commendations bestowed upon it, whereas a man immoderately praised is puffed up, burst, and ruined by it.

Thus much then for the point of praising; proceed we in the next place to treat of freedom in their reprehensions. And indeed, it were but reasonable that,—;as Patroclus put on Achilles’s armor and led his war-horse out into the field, yet durst not for all that venture to wield his spear,—; so, though the flatterer wear all the other badges and ensigns of a friend, he should not dare to counterfeit the plain frankness of his discourse, as being a great, massy, and substantial weapon, peculiar to him.[*](Il. XVI. 141.)

But because, to avoid that scandal and offence which their drunken bouts, their little jests, and ludicrous babling humor might otherwise create, they sometimes put on the face of gravity, and flatter under the vizard of a frown,

dropping in now and then a word of correction and reproof, let us examine this cheat too amongst the rest.

And indeed I can compare that trifling insignificant liberty of speech to which he pretends to nothing better than that sham Hercules which Menander introduces in one of his comedies. with a light hollow club upon his shoulder; for, as women’s pillows, which seem sufficiently stuffed to bear up their heads, yield and sink under their weight, so this counterfeit freedom in a flatterer’s conversation swells big and promises fair, that when it shrinks and contracts itself it may draw those in with it who lay any stress upon its outward appearance. Whereas the genuine and friendly reprehension fixes upon real criminals, causing them grief and trouble indeed, but only what is wholesome and salutary; like honey that corrodes but yet cleanses the ulcerous parts of the body, and is otherwise both pleasant and profitable. But of this in its proper place. We shall discourse at present of the flatterer who affects a morose, angry, and inexorable behavior towards all but those upon whom he designs, is peevish and difficult towards his servants, animadverts severely upon the failures of his relations and domestics, neither admires nor respects a stranger but superciliously contemns him, pardons no man, but by stories and complaints exasperates one against another, thinking by these means to acquire the character of an irreconcilable enemy to all manner of vice, that he may be thought one who would not spare his favorites themselves upon occasion, and would neither act nor speak any thing out of a mean and dastardly complaisance.

And if at any time he undertakes his friend, he feigns himself a mere stranger to his real and considerable crimes; but if he catch him in some petty trifling peccadillo, there he takes his occasion to rant him terribly and thunder him severely off; as, if he see any of his goods out of order, if his house be not very convenient, if his

beard be not shaven or his clothes unfashionable, if his dog or his horse be not well looked after. But if he slight his parents, neglect his children, treat his wife scornfully, his friends and acquaintance disrespectfully, and squander away his estate, here he dares not open his mouth, and it is the safest way to hold his tongue. Just as if the master of a wrestling-school should indulge his young champion scholar in drinking and wenching, and yet rattle him about his oil-cruise and body-brush; or as if a schoolmaster should severely reprove a boy for some little fault in his pen or writing-book, but take no notice of the barbarisms and solecisms in his language. For the parasite is like him who hearing a ridiculous impertinent orator finds no fault with his discourse but delivery, blaming him only for having hurt his throat with drinking cold water; or like one who, being to peruse and correct some pitiful scribble, falls foul only upon the coarseness of the paper and the blots and negligence of the transcriber. Thus the parasites about Ptolemy. when he pretended to learning, would wrangle with him till midnight about the propriety of an expression, a verse, or a story; but not a word all this while of his cruelty, insults, superstition, and oppressions of the people. Just as if a chirurgeon should pare a man’s nails or cut his hair, to cure him of a fistula, wen, or other carnous excrescence.

But there are others behind, who outdo all the subtlety of the former, such as can claw and please, even whilst they seem to reprehend. Thus when Alexander had bestowed some considerable reward upon a jester, Agis the Argive, through mere envy and vexation, cried out upon it as a most absurd action; which the king overhearing, he turned him about in great indignation at the insolence, saying, What’s that you prate, sirrah? Why truly, replied the man, I must confess, I am not a little troubled to observe, that all you great men who are descended

from Jupiter take a strange delight in flatterers and buffoons; for as Hercules had his Cercopians and Bacchus his Silenuses about him, so I see your majesty is pleased to have a regard for such pleasant fellows too. And one time when Tiberius Caesar was present at the senate, there stood up a certain fawning counsellor, asserting that all free-born subjects ought to have the liberty of speaking their sense freely, and should not dissemble or conceal any thing that they might conceive beneficial to the public; who, having thus awakened the attention of his audience, silence being made, and Tiberius impatient to hear the sequel of the man’s discourse, pursued it in this manner: I must tell you of a fault, Caesar, said he, for which we universally blame you, though no man yet has taken the confidence to speak it openly. You neglect yourself, endanger your sacred person by your too much labor and care, night and day, for the public. And he having harangued several things to the same effect, it is reported that Cassius Severus the orator subjoined: This man’s freedom of speech will ruin him.

Such artifices as these, I confess, are not very pernicious, but there remains one of a most dangerous consequence to weak men; and that is when a flatterer fastens those vices upon them which are directly contrary to those they are really guilty of. As Himerius, an Athenian parasite, upbraided one of the most miserable and stingy misers of the whole town with carelessness and prodigality, tell ing him he was afraid he should live to see the day when both he and his children should go a begging. Or, on the contrary, when they object niggardliness and parsimony to one that is lavish and profuse, as Titus Petronius did to Nero. Or when they advise arbitrary and tyrannical princes to lay aside their too much moderation and their unprofitable and unseasonable clemency. And like to these are they who shall pretend to be afraid of a

half-witted idiot, as of some notable shrewd fellow; and shall tax an ill-natured censorious man, if at any time he speak honorably of a person of worth, of being too lavish in his commendations. You are always, say they, praising men that deserve it not; for who is he, or what remarkable thing did he ever say or do? But they have yet a more signal opportunity of exercising their talent, when they meet with any difference betwixt lovers or friends; for if they see brothers quarrel, or children despise their parents, or husbands jealous of their wives, they neither admonish them nor blame them for it, but inflame the difference. You don’t understand yourself, say they; you are the occasion of all this clutter by your own soft and submissive behavior. If there chance to have happened some little love-skirmish betwixt a miss and her gallant, then the flatterer interposes boldly and adds fresh fuel to the expiring flame, taking the gentleman to task, and telling him how many things he has done which looked a little hard, were not kind, and deserved a chiding.

Ungrateful man! can you forget her charms,

And former soft embraces in her arms

[*](From the Myrmidons of Aeschylus, Frag. 131.)

Thus Antony’s friends persuaded him, when he was smitten with his beloved Cleopatra, that she doted on him, still calling him haughty and hard-hearted man. She, said they, has stripped herself of the glories of a crown and former grandeur, and now languishes with the love of you, attending the motion of your camp in the poor sordid figure of a concubine.

But you have steeled your heart, and can unmoved

Behold her grief, whom once you so much loved.

[*](Odyss. X. 329.)

Now he was strangely pleased to hear of his little unkindness to his mistress, and was more taken with such a chiding than with the highest character they could have given him; but was not sensible that, under the color of a friendly admonition, they really corrupted and debauched him. For such a rebuke as this is just like the bites of a lecherous woman, for it only tickles and provokes, and pleases even whilst it pains you. And as pure wine taken singly is an excellent antidote against hemlock, but if mixed with it renders the poison incurable, because the heat of the wine quickens its circulation to the heart; so some rascally fellows, knowing very well that the liberty of reproving a friend is a quality very hardly compatible with flattery, and, as I may say, the best remedy against it, mix them both together, and flatter you under the very color and pretext of reprimanding you.

Upon the whole thereof, Bias seems not to have answered him very pertinently, who asked him which he thought was the most hurtful animal, when he replied, Of wild creatures a tyrant, and of tame ones a flatterer. For he might have answered more accurately, that some flatterers indeed are tame creatures, those shirks who ply about your bath and your table; but they whose calumnies, malignity, and inquisitive meddling humor, like so many gins and snares, reach the ladies’ very closets and bed-chambers, are wild, savage, and untractable.

Now one way of arming ourselves against these assaults will be always to remember that,—;since our souls are made up of two different parts, the one sincere, honest, and reasonable, the other brutish, false, and governed by passion,—;the friend always adapts his advice and admonitions to the improvement of the better part (like a good physician, who preserves and advances an healthful constitution where he finds it), whilst the flatterer claws and tickles the irrational part of the man only, debauching it from the rules of right reason by the repeated suggestion of soft and sensual delights. For as there are some sorts of meat which assimilate neither with the blood nor with the spirits, and invigorate neither

the nerves nor the marrow, but only provoke lust, swell the paunch, and breed putrid flabby flesh; so he who shall give himself the labor to observe will find that the discourses of a flatterer contribute nothing to the improvement of our prudence and understanding, but either only entertain us with the pleasure of some love-intrigue, or make us indiscreetly angry or envious, or blow us up into an empty troublesome opinion of ourselves, or increase our sorrows by pretending to share in them; or else they exasperate any inbred naughtiness that is in us, or our illiberality or distrustfulness, making them harsh, timorous, and jealous, with idle malicious stories, hints, and conjectures of his own. For he always fastens upon and pampers some distemper of the mind, growing, like a botch or bile. upon its inflamed or putrid part only. Are you angry? Revenge yourself, says he. Covet you any thing? Have it. Are you afraid? Fly. Suspect you this or that? Believe it.

But if we find it something difficult to discover him in these attempts upon our passions, because they often violently overpower all the forces of our reason to the contrary, we may then trace him in other instances of his knavery; for he always acts consonant to himself. As, if you are afraid of a surfeit and thereupon are in suspense about your bath and diet, a friend indeed will advise you to act cautiously and take care of your health; but the flatterer persuades you to the bath, bids you feed freely and not starve yourself with mortification. If he observes you want briskness and spirit for action, as being unwilling to undergo the fatigue of a journey or a voyage, he will tell you presently, there is no haste; the business may be well enough deferred, or else transacted by proxy. If at any time you have promised to lend or give a friend a sum of money, and upon second thoughts gladly would, and yet are ashamed to retract your word, the flatterer puts his

advice in the worse scale, and inclines the balance to the saving side, and strips you of your squeamish modesty, telling you that you ought not to be so prodigal, who live at great expense and have others to relieve besides him. And therefore, unless we be mere strangers to ourselves,—;to our own covetousness, shamelessness, or timidity,—;the flatterer cannot easily escape our discovery; for he is the great patron of these disorderly passions, endeavoring always to wind us up to excesses of this kind. But enough of this.