Why then, some may say, it is infinitely difficult at
this rate to distinguish a flatterer from a friend, since there
is no apparent difference either betwixt the satisfaction
they create or the praises they bestow. Nay, it is observable, that a parasite is frequently more obsequious and
obliging than a friend himself. Well, the way then to
discover the disparity? Why, I will tell you; if you
would learn the character of a true subtle flatterer, who
nicks his point secundum artem, you must not, with the
vulgar, mistake those sordid smell-feasts and poor trencher-slaves for your men, who begin to prate as soon as they
have washed their hands in order to dinner, as one says
of them, and ere they are well warmed with a good cut
of the first dish and a glass of wine, betray the narrow
soul that acts them by the nauseous and fulsome buffoonery they vent at table. For sure it needed no great sagacity to detect the flattery of Melanthius, the parasite of
Alexander of Pherae, who, being asked how his master
was murdered, made answer, With a thrust which went
in at his side, but into my belly. Nor must we, again,
confine our notions of flatterers to those sharping fellows
who ply about rich men's tables, whom neither fire nor
sword nor porter can keep from supper; nor yet to such
as were those female parasites of Cyprus, who going into
[p. 104]
Syria were nick-named Steps, because they cringed so to
the great ladies of that country that they mounted their
chariots on their backs.
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