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Hence it is that, though there be no other quality in such persons unpleasing, yet, as if Nature had taught us to abhor and fly it, we hasten out to get a little fresh air; and even the very parasite and indigent flatterers are uneasy, when the wealthy and great men by whose scraps they live begin to admire and extol themselves; nay, they give out that they pay the greatest portion of the shot, when they must give ear to such vanities. Therefore he in Menander cries out, They kill me—I am a macerated guest— With their wise sayings and their soldier’s brags; How base these gloriosos are!
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But these faults are not only to be objected against common soldiers and upstarts who detain others with gaudy and proud relations of their own actions, but also against sophists, philosophers, and commanders who grow full of themselves and talk at a fastuous rate. Therefore it is fit we still remember that another’s dispraise always accompanies the indiscreet praises of ourselves; that the end of vain-glory is disgrace; and that, as Demosthenes tells us, the company will both be offended and judge otherwise of us than we would have them.See Demosthenes on the Crown, p. 270, 3. Let us then forbear to talk of ourselves, unless the profit that we or our hearers may thence probably reap be considerably great.
