which he did no doubt to this end, because he would not seem in chiding him to arrogate this praise unto himself, that he was not subject to anger, nor had ever done amiss by occasion of that infirmity and passion. Certes such admonitions as these enter and pierce more effectually into the heart, for that they are thought to proceed from a tender compassion; and more willing are we to yield unto such as seem to have suffered the like, than to those that despise and contemn us. But forasmuch as neither the eye when it is inflamed can abide any clear and shining light, nor a passionate mind endure frank speech, or a plain and bare reprehension, one of the best and most profitable helps in this case is to intermingle therewith a little praise, as we read thus in Homer:
Now (sure) methinks you do not well,
Thus for to leave the field,
Who all are known for doughty knights,
And best with spear and shield.
A coward if I saw to flee,
Him would I not reprove:
But such as you, thus for to shrink,
My heart doth greatly move.
Likewise:
O Pandar, where is now thy bow,
Where are thine arrows flight;
Where is that honour, in which none
With thee dare strive in fight?
And verily such oblique reprehensions also as these, are most effectual and wonderful in reclaiming those that be ready to run on end, and fall to some gross enormities: as for example:
What is become of wise Œdipus,
In riddles a-reading who was so famous?
Also:
And Hercules, who hath endur'd such pain,
Speaks he these words, so foolish and so vain?
For this kind of dealing doth not only assuage and mitigate the roughness and commanding power that is in a reprehension and rebuke, but also breedeth in the party in such sort reproved, a certain emulation of himself, causing him to be abashed and ashamed for any follies and dishonest pranks, when he remembreth and calleth to mind his other good parts and commendable acts, which by this means he setteth before his eyes, as examples, and so taketh himself for a pattern and precedent of better things: But when we make comparison between him and others,
