CHAP. II.] WISE CONDUCT EXF^IPLIFIED. 307 



of mercy is the greatest of all cruelties, as cruelty affects but 

 particular persons; whilst impunity lets loose the whole 

 army of evH doers, and drives them upon the innocent. 



XV. — A fool speaks all his mind, hut a wise man reserves something for 

 hereafter.^ 



This aphorism seems principally levelled, not against tho 

 futility of light persons, who speak what they should cou 

 ccal, nor against the pertness mth which they indiscrimi- 

 nately and injudiciously fly out upon men and things, nor 

 against the talkative humour ^vith which some men disgust 

 their hearers, but against a more latent failing, vi;3., a very 

 imprudent and impolitic management of speech; when a 

 man in private conversation so directs his discourse as, in a 

 continued string of words, to dehver all he can say, that any 

 way relates to the subject, which is a great prejudice to 

 busin-ess. For, 1. discourse interrupted and infused by parcels, 

 enters deeper than if it were continued and unbroken ; in 

 which case the weight of things is not distinctly and particu- 

 larly felt, as having not time to fix themselves ; but one reason 

 drives out another before it had taken root. 2. Again, no 

 one is so powerful or happy in eloquence, as at first setting 

 out to leave the hearer perfectly mute and silent ; but he 

 will always have something to answer, and perhaps to object 

 in his turn. And here it happens, that those things which 

 were to be reserved for confutation, or reply, being now 

 anticipated, lose their strength and beauty. 3. Lastly, if a 

 })erjon does not utter all his mind at once, but speaks by 

 starts, first one thing, then another, he will perceive from 

 the countenance and answer of the person spoken to, how 

 each particular afiects him, and in what sense he takes it ; 

 and thus be du-ected more cautiously to suppress or employ 

 16 matter still in reserve. 



XVI. — If the displeasure of great men rise up against tJiee, forsake not 

 thy place ; for pliant behaviour extenuates great offences J 



This aphorism shows how a person ought to behave, when 

 he has incurred the displeasure of his prince. The precept 

 hath two parts, — 1. that the person quit not his post ; and 

 2. th.at he, with diligence and caution, apply to the cure, as 



* Frov xxix. IX. f Ikicles. it, 4, 



x2 



