Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur

Another seasonable opportunity of reproving your friend for his vices is when some third person has already mortified him upon the same account. For a courteous and obliging man will dexterously silence his accuser, and then take him privately to task himself, advising him—;if for no other reason, yet to abate the insolence of his enemies—;to manage himself more prudently for the future. For how could they open their mouths against you, what could they have to reproach you with, if you would but reform such and such vices which render you obnoxious to their censure? And by this means the offence that was given lies at his door who roughly upbraided him; whilst the advantage he reaps is attributed to the person who candidly advised him. But there are some who have got yet a genteeler way of chiding, and that is, by chastising others for faults which they know their friends really stand guilty of. As my master Ammonius, perceiving once at his afternoon lecture that some of his scholars had dined more plentifully than became the moderation of students, immediately commanded one of his freedmen to take his own son and whip him. For what? says he. The youngster, forsooth, must needs have vinegar sauce to his meat; and with that casting his eye upon us, he gave us to understand that we likewise were concerned in the reprehension.