374 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



other hand, daring and restless spirits are injudiciously 

 busying themselves in things they are not acquainted 

 with, and thereby publish and proclaim their own defectSc 



2. We call that pretext, when a man with sagacity and 

 prudence paves and prepares himself a way for securing a 

 favorable and commodious interpretation of his vices and 

 defects; as proceeding from different principles, or having 

 a different tendency than is generally thought. For as to 

 the concealment of vices, the poet said well, that vice often 

 skulks in the verge of virtue. 



&quot;Ssepe latet vitium proximate boni.&quot; 79 



Therefore, when we find any defect in ourselves, we must 

 endeavor to borrow the figure and pretext of the neighbor 

 ing virtue for a shelter; thus the pretext of dulness is grav 

 ity; that of indolence, considerateness, etc. And it is of 

 service to give out some probable reason for not exerting 

 our utmost strength, and so make a necessity appear a virtue. 



3. Assurance, indeed, is a daring, but a very certain and 

 effectual remedy, whereby a man professes himself abso 

 lutely to slight and despise those things he could not obtain, 

 like crafty merchants, who usually raise the price of their 

 own commodities and sink the price of other men s. Though 

 there is another kind of assurance, more impudent than this, 

 by which a man brazens out his own defects, and forces 

 them upon others for excellences ; and the better to secure 

 this end, he will feign a distrust of himself in those things 

 wherein he really excels: like poets, who, if you except to 

 any particular verse in their composition, will presently tell 

 you that single line cost them more pains than all the rest; 

 and then produce you another, as suspected by themselves, 

 for your opinion ; while, of all the number, they know it to 

 be the best and least liable to exception. But above all, 

 nothing conduces more to the well representing a man s self, 

 and securing his own right, than not to disarm one s self by 

 too much sweetness and good-nature, which exposes a man 



79 Ovid, Ars. Amand. i. 661. 



