For it is not because of blunders in metre in lyric songs, as Plato observes, that cities and friends are set at variance to their utter ruin and destruction, but because of their blunders with regard to law and justice. Yet there are a sort of men that can be very curious and critical in their verses and letters and lyric measures, and yet would persuade others to neglect that justice and honesty which all men ought to observe in offices, in passing judgments, and in all actions. But these men are to be dealt with after the following manner. An orator perhaps presses you to show him favor in a cause to be heard before you, or a demagogue importunes you when you are a senator: tell him you are ready to please him, on condition that he make a solecism in the beginning of his oration, or be guilty of some barbarous expression in his narration. These terms, for shame, he will not accept; for some we see so superstitiously accurate as not to allow of two vowels meeting one another. Again, you are moved by a person of quality to something of ill reputation: bid him come over the market-place at full noon dancing, or making buffoon-like grimaces; if he refuse, question him once more, whether he think it a more heinous offence to make a solecism or a grimace, than to break a law or to perjure one’s self, or to show more favor to a rascal than to an honest man. Nicostratus the Argive, when Archidamus promised him a vast sum of money and his choice of the Spartan ladies in marriage, if he would deliver up the town Cromnum into his hands, returned him this answer: He could no longer believe him descended from Hercules, he said, because Hercules traversed the world to destroy wicked men, but Archidamus made it his business to debauch those that were good. In like manner, if one that stands upon his quality or reputation presses us to do any thing dishonorable, we must tell him freely, he acts not as becomes a person of his character in the world. But if it be a man of no quality that shall importune you, you may enquire of the covetous man, whether he would lend you a considerable sum without any other security than your word; desire the proud man to give you the higher seat; or the ambitious, to quit his pretensions to some honor that lies fair for him. For, to deal plainly, it is a shameful thing that these men should continue so stiff, so resolute, and so unmoved in their vicious habits, while we, who profess ourselves lovers of justice and honesty, have too little command of ourselves not to give up and betray basely the cause of virtue. If they that would practise upon our modesty do this out of desire of glory or power, why should we contract disgrace or infamy to ourselves, to advance the authority or set off the reputation of others?—like those who bestow the reward wrongfully in public games, or betray their trust in collecting the poll, who confer indeed garlands and honors upon other men, but at the same time forfeit their own reputation and good word. But suppose it be matter of interest only that puts them upon it; why should it not appear an unreasonable piece of service for us to forego our reputation and conscience to no other purpose than to satisfy another man’s avarice or make his coffers the heavier? After all, these I am afraid are the grand motives with most men in such cases, and they are even conscious that they are guilty; as men that are challenged and compelled to take too large a glass raise an hundred scruples and make as many grimaces before they drink. This weakness of the mind may be compared to a constitution of body that can endure neither heat nor cold. For let them be praised by those that thus impudently set upon them, and they are at once mollified and broken by the flattery; but let them be blamed or so much as suspected by the same men after their suit has been refused, and they are ready to die for woe and fear. We ought therefore to prepare and fortify ourselves against both extremes, so as to be made a prey neither to such as pretend to frighten, nor to such as would cajole us. Thucydides is of opinion, since there is a necessary connection between envy and great undertakings, that he takes the wisest counsel who incurs envy by aiming the highest. Thucyd. II. 64. But we who esteem it less difficult to avoid the envy of all men than to escape the censure of those we live among, ought to order things so as rather to grapple with the unjust hatred of evil men, than to deserve their just accusation after we have served their base ends. We ought to go armed against that false and counterfeit praise such men are apt to fling upon us, not suffering ourselves like swine to be scratched and tickled by them, till, having got the advantage of us, they use us after their own pleasure. For they that reach out their ears to flatterers differ very little from such as stand fair and quiet to be tripped up, excepting that the former catch the more disgraceful fall. These put up with the affronts and forbear the correction of wicked men, to get the reputation of good-natured or merciful; or else are drawn into needless and perilous quarrels at the instance of flatterers, who bear them in hand all the while for the only men of judgment, the only men not to be caught with flattery, and call them the only men who have mouths and voices. Bion used to compare these men to pitchers: Take them, said he, by the ears, and you may move them as you please. Thus Alexinus, the sophist, was reporting many scandalous things in the lyceum of Stilpo the Megarian; but when one present informed him that Stilpo always spake very honorably of him, Why truly, says he, he is one of the most obliging and best of men. But now Menedemus, when it was told him that Alexinus often praised him, replied: That may be, but I always talk against him; for he must be bad who either praises a bad man or is blamed by an honest one. So wary was he of being caught by such baits, agreeably to that precept of Hercules in Antisthenes, Antisthenes, in his tenth tome, had a book entitled Hercules or De Prudentia or De Robore ( Ἡρακλῆς ἤ περὶ φρονήσεως ἤ ἰσχύς ), mentioned by Diogenes Laertius in his life. See Diogenes Laert. VI. 1, 9. who cautioned his sons not to be thankful to such as were used to praise them,—thereby meaning no more than that they should be so far from being wheedled thereby as not even to return their flatteries. That of Pindar was very apposite, and enough to be said in such a case: when one told him, I cry you up among all men, and speak to your advantage on all occasions; and I, replied he, am always very thankful, in that I take care you shall not tell a lie. I shall conclude with one general rule, of sovereign use against all the passions and diseases of the mind, but particularly beneficial to such as labor under the present distemper, bashfulness. And it is this: whenever they have given way to this weakness, let them store up carefully such failings in their memory, and taking therein deep and lively impressions of what remorse and disquiet they occasioned, bestow much time in reflecting upon them and keeping them fresh. For as travellers that have got a dangerous fall against such a stone, or sailors shipwrecked upon a particular promontory, keeping the image of their misfortune continually before them, appear fearful and apprehensive not only of the same but even the like dangers; so they that keep in mind the disgraceful and prejudicial effects of bashfulness will soon be enabled to restrain themselves in like cases, and will not easily slip again on any occasion.