Another difference observable betwixt them in the
resemblance thy bear to each other is, that a true friend
will not rashly commend nor imitate every thing, but only
what really deserves it; for, as Sophocles says,
He shares with him his loves, but not his hates,1
and will scorn to bear any part with him in any base and
dishonorable actions, unless, as people sometimes catch
blear eyes, he may chance insensibly to contract some ill
habit or other by the very contagion of familiarity and conversation. Thus they say Plato's acquaintance learned his
stoop, Aristotle's his lisp, and Alexander's the inclination of
his neck and the rapidity of his speech. For some persons, ere they are aware, get a touch of the humors and
infirmities of those with whom they converse. But now as
a true friend endeavors only to copy the fairest originals, so,
on the contrary, the flatterer, like the chameleon, which puts
on all colors but the innocent white, being unable to reach
those strokes of virtue which are worth his imitation, takes
care that no failure or imperfection escape him. As unskilful
[p. 111]
painters, when they cannot hit the features and air
of a face, content themselves with the faint resemblance in
a wrinkle, a wart, or a scar, so he takes up with his friend's
intemperance, superstition, cholericness, severity to his servants, distrust of his relations and domestics or the like.
For, besides that a natural propensity to evil inclines him
always to follow the worst examples, he imagines his assuming other men's vices will best secure him from the
suspicion of being disaffected towards them; for their
fidelity is often suspected who seem dissatisfied with
faults and wish a reformation. Which very thing lost
Dion in the good opinion of Dionysius, Samius in Philip's,
Cleomenes in Ptolemy's, and at last proved the occasion of
their ruin. And therefore the flatterer pretends not only
to the good humor of a companion, but to the faithfulness
of a friend too, and would be thought to have so great a
respect for you that he cannot be disgusted at the very
worst of your actions, being indeed of the same make and
constitution with yourself. Hence you shall have him pretend a share in the most common casualties that befall
another, nay, in complaisance, feign even diseases themselves. In company of those who are thick of hearing,
he is presently half deaf, and with the dim-sighted can
see no more than they do. So the parasites about Dionysius at an entertainment, to humor his blindness, stumbled
one upon another and jostled the dishes off his table.
But there are others who refine upon the former by a
pretended fellow-suffering in the more private concernments
of life, whereby they wriggle themselves deeper into the
affections of those they flatter; as, if they find a man unhappily married, or distrustful of his children or domestics,
they spare not their own family, but immediately entertain
you with some lamentable story of the hard fortune they
have met with in their children, their wife, their servants,
or relations. For, by the parallel circumstances they pretend
[p. 112]
to, they seem more passionately concerned for the
misfortunes of their friends, who, as if they had already
received some pawn and assurance of their fidelity, blab
forth those secrets which they cannot afterwards handsomely retract, and dare not betray the least distrust of
their new confidant for the future. I myself knew a man
who turned his wife out of doors because a gentleman of
his acquaintance divorced his, though the latter lady smelt
the intrigue afterwards by the messages the flatterer sent to
his wife after the pretended divorce and the private visits
he was observed to make her. So little did he understand
the flatterer who took these following verses for the description of a crab rather than his:—
The shapeless thing's all over paunch and gut:
Who can the monster's mighty hunger glut?
It crawls on teeth, and with a watchful eye
Does into every secret corner pry.
For this is the true portraiture of those sharpers, who, as
Eupolis speaks, sponge upon their acquaintance for a
dinner.
