Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur

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.