17
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.
17
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.