ESSAYS.

draw praise from them, the middle virtues work in them astonishment or admiration, but of the highest virtues they have no sense or perceiving at all; but shows and “species virtutibus similes,”⁴⁶¹ serve best with them. Certainly, fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid; but if persons of quality and judgment concur, then it is (as the Scripture saith), “Nomen bonum instar unguenti fragrantis:”⁴⁶² it filleth all round about, and will not easily away; for the odors of ointments are more durable than those of flowers. There be so many false points of praise, that a man may justly hold it a suspect. Some praises proceed merely of flattery; and if he be an ordinary flatterer, he will have certain common attributes, which may serve every man; if he be a cunning flatterer, he will follow the arch-flatterer, which is a man’s self, and wherein a man thinketh best of himself, therein the flatterer will uphold him most. But if he be an impudent flatterer, look wherein a man is conscious to himself that he is most defective, and is most out of countenance in himself, that will the flatterer entitle him to, perforce, “spretâ conscientiâ.”⁴⁶³ Some praises come of good wishes and respects, which is a form due in civility to kings and great persons, “laudando præcipere;”⁴⁶⁴ when, by telling men what they are, they represent to them what they should be; some men are praised maliciously to their hurt, thereby to stir envy and jealousy towards them: “Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantium;”⁴⁶⁵ insomuch as it was a proverb amongst the Grecians, that “he that was praised to his hurt, should have a push⁴⁶⁶ rise upon his nose;” as we say that a blister will rise upon one’s tongue that tells a lie; certainly, moderate praise, used with opportunity, and not vulgar, is that which doth the good. Solomon saith: “He that praiseth his friend aloud, rising early, it shall be to him no better than a curse.”⁴⁶⁷ Too much magnifying of man or