ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 347 



always to go off with, a jest, or some pleasant device; and 

 as the proverb runs, &quot;Washing off their salt-water dis 

 courses with fresh at the conclusion. And this was one 

 of the principal arts they had. 



XI. As dead flies cause the best ointment to yield an ill odor, so does a little 

 folly to a man in reputation for wisdom and honor 15 



The condition of men eminent for virtue is, as this aph 

 orism excellently observes, exceeding hard and miserable; 

 because their errors, though ever so small, are not over 

 looked. But as in a clear diamond, every little grain, or 

 speck, strikes the eye disagreeably, though it would not be 

 observed in a duller stone ; so in men of eminent virtue, 

 their smallest vices are readily spied, talked of, and severely 

 censured: while in an ordinary man, they would either have 

 lain concealed, or been easily excused. Whence a little 

 folly in a very wise man, a small slip in a very good man, 

 and a little indecency in a polite and elegant man, greatly 

 diminish their characters and reputations. It might, there 

 fore, be no bad policy, for men of uncommon excellences 

 to intermix with their actions a few absurdities, that may be 

 committed without vice, in order to reserve a liberty, and 

 confound the observation of little defects. 



XII. Scornful men insnare a city, but wise men prevent calamity 16 



It may seem strange, that in the description of men, 

 formed, as it were, by nature, for the destruction of states, 

 Solomon should choose the character, not of a proud and 

 haughty, not of a tyrannical and cruel, not of a rash and 

 violent, not of a seditious and turbulent, not of a foolish 

 or incapable man, but the character of a scorner. Yet this 

 choice is becoming the wisdom of that king, who well knew 

 how governments were subverted, and how preserved. For 

 there is scarce such another destructive thing to kingdoms, 

 and commonwealths, as that the counsellors, or senators, 

 who sit at the helm, should be naturally scorners; who, to 



15 Eccles. x. 1. 16 Prov. xxix. 8. 



