How to Know a Flatterer from a Friend (26-27)

In the next place, let us free our discourse from all contumelious language, all laughter, mockery, and scurrility, which spoil the relish of our reprehensions. For, as when a chirurgeon makes an incision in the flesh he uses decent neatness and dexterity in the operation, without the affected and superfluous gesticulations of a quack or mountebank, so the lancing the sores of a friend may admit indeed of a little humor and urbanity, but that so qualified that it spoil not the seriousness and gravity requisite to the work. For boldness, insolence, and ill language destroy its force and efficacy. And therefore the fiddler reparteed handsomely enough upon Philip, when he undertook to dispute with him about the touch upon his instrument: God forbid that your majesty should be so unhappy as to understand a fiddle better than I do. But Epicharmus was too blunt upon Hiero, who invited him to

Scorn all his joy, and laughter all his aim;[*]

Thus you shall meet with several smart and satirical reflections in a comedy; but the mixture of jest and fool in the play, like ill sauce to good meat, abates their poignancy and renders them insignificant; so that, upon the whole, the poet acquires only the character of a saucy and foul-mouthed buffoon, and the auditors lose that advantage which they might otherwise reap from remarks of that nature.

We may do well therefore to reserve our jollity and mirth for more suitable occasions, but we must by all

We are again to time our reproofs as seasonably as we can; for a mistake in the opportunities, as it is of ill consequence in all other things, is so peculiarly in our reprehensions. And therefore, I presume, it is manifest, we ought not to fall foul upon men in their drink. For first, he who broaches any sour disagreeable discourse amidst the pleasantry and good humor of friends casts a cloud over the serenity of the company, and acts counter to the God Lysius,[*] who, as Pindar words it, unties the band of all our cares. Besides, such unseasonable remonstrances are not without danger; for wine is apt to warm men into passion, and make them quarrel at the freedom you take. And in short, it is no argument of any brave and generous, but rather of an unmanly temper, not to dare to speak one’s sense when men are sober, but to keep barking like a cowardly cur at table. And therefore we need not enlarge any further upon this topic.