--There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues.
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
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Linguam cohibe, prae aliis omnibus, ad
deorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
_Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes_.
--There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues. And
there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken
foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently.
The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue, said the witty comic
poet; {33c} and it appears not in anything more than in that nation,
whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange,
would needs sell it; {33d} and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of
it. Nothing ever thrived on it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in
his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some
starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the
cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged,
bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a
duckling, or a goose. _Hospitium fuerat calamitatis_. {34a} Was not
this man like to sell it?
_Vulgi expectatio_. --Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with
newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in
preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it be new, though
never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken. Which
shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men's reputation with the
people is, their wits have out-lived the people's palates. They have
been too much or too long a feast.
_Claritas patriae_. --Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not
forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The
shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more
and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies
between; the possession is the third's.
_Eloquentia_. --Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did she yet
ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his.
deorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
_Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes_.
--There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues. And
there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken
foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently.
The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue, said the witty comic
poet; {33c} and it appears not in anything more than in that nation,
whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange,
would needs sell it; {33d} and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of
it. Nothing ever thrived on it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in
his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some
starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the
cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged,
bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a
duckling, or a goose. _Hospitium fuerat calamitatis_. {34a} Was not
this man like to sell it?
_Vulgi expectatio_. --Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with
newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in
preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it be new, though
never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken. Which
shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men's reputation with the
people is, their wits have out-lived the people's palates. They have
been too much or too long a feast.
_Claritas patriae_. --Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not
forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The
shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more
and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies
between; the possession is the third's.
_Eloquentia_. --Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did she yet
ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his.
