matter doth irritate contradiction, and procure envy and scorn. To praise a man’s self cannot be decent, except it be in rare cases; but to praise a man’s office468 or profession, he may do it with good grace, and with a kind of magnanimity. The cardinals of Rome, which are theologues,469 and friars, and schoolmen, have a phrase of notable contempt and scorn towards civil business; for they call all temporal business of wars, embassages, judicature, and other employments, sbirrerie, which is under-sheriffries, as if they were but matters for under-sheriffs and catchpoles; though many times those under-sheriffries do more good than their high speculations. St. Paul, when he boasts of himself, he doth oft interlace, “I speak like a fool:”470 but speaking of his calling, he saith, “Magnificabo apostolatum meum.”471
LIV.—OF VAINGLORY.
It was prettily devised of Æsop, the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel, and said, “What a dust do I raise!” So are there some vain persons, that, whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it. They that are glorious, must needs be factious; for all bravery472 stands upon comparisons. They must needs be violent, to make good their own vaunts; neither can they be secret, and therefore not effectual; but, according to the French proverb, “Beaucoup de bruit, peu de fruit;”—“much bruit,473 little fruit.” Yet, certainly, there is use of this quality in civil affairs: where there is an opinion474 and fame to be created, either of virtue or greatness, these men are good trumpeters. Again, as Titus Livius noteth, in the case of Antiochus and the Ætolians,475 there are sometimes great effects of cross lies; as if a man that negotiates between two princes, to draw them to join in a war against the third, doth extol the forces of either of them above measure, the one to the other; and sometimes he that deals between man and man, raiseth his own credit with both, by pretending greater interest than he hath