Costly followers are not to be liked, lest, while a man maketh his
train longer, he make his wings shorter. I reckon to be costly,
not them alone which charge the purse, but which are wearisome and
importune in suits. Ordinary followers ought to challenge no higher
conditions than countenance, recommendation, and protection from
wrongs. Factious followers are worse to be liked, which follow not
upon affection to him with whom they range themselves, but upon
discontentment conceived against some other; whereupon commonly ensueth
that ill intelligence, that we many times see between great personages.
Likewise glorious[495] followers, who make themselves as trumpets of
the commendations of those they follow, are full of inconvenience,
for they taint business through want of secrecy; and they export
honor from a man, and make him a return in envy. There is a kind of
followers, likewise, which are dangerous, being indeed espials; which
inquire the secrets of the house, and bear tales of them to others;
yet such men, many times, are in great favor, for they are officious,
and commonly exchange tales. The following, by certain estates[496] of
men, answerable to that which a great person himself professeth (as of
soldiers to him that hath been employed in the wars, and the like),
hath ever been a thing civil and well taken even in monarchies, so it
be without too much pomp or popularity. But the most honorable kind of
following, is to be followed as one that apprehendeth to advance virtue
and desert in all sorts of persons; and yet, where there is no eminent
odds in sufficiency, it is better to take with the more passable, than
with the more able; and, besides, to speak truth in base times, active
men are of more use than virtuous. It is true, that, in government,
it is good to use men of one rank equally; for to countenance some
extraordinarily, is to make them insolent, and the rest discontent,
because they may claim a due: but, contrariwise, in favor, to use men
with much difference and election is good: for it maketh the persons
preferred more thankful, and the rest more officious, because all is
of favor. It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the
first, because one cannot hold out that proportion. To be governed,
as we call it, by one, is not safe, for it shows softness,[497] and
gives a freedom to scandal and disreputation; for those that would not
censure, or speak ill of a man immediately, will talk more boldly of
those that are so great with them, and thereby wound their honor; yet
to be distracted with many is worse, for it makes men to be of the last
impression, and full of change. To take advice of some few friends is
ever honorable; for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters,
and the vale best discovereth the hill. There is little friendship in
the world, and least of all between equals, which was wont[498] to be
magnified. That that is, is between superior and inferior,[499] whose
fortunes may comprehend the one the other.