The Power of Flattery, where it is once Entertain’d, is well nigh
Irresistible; for it carries the Countenance of Friendship and Respect;
and Foolish Natures are easily wrought upon, and Perverted, under that
Semblance. When Pride, Vanity, and Weakness of Judgment meet in the
same Person, there’s no Resisting the Temptations of a fair Tongue, and
consequently no avoiding the Secret and Malicious Designs of a False
Heart. Here’s a Credulous _Cock_ already prepar’d for the Entertainment
of the Grossest of Flatteries: Nothing so Ridiculous, nothing so
Impossible, but it goes down whole with him, for truth and Earnest: Nay,
and the Folly is so Unacountable, and the Madness so Notorious, that in
this Humour the most Spiteful Enemies we have in the World, pass upon
us for Friends. The _Cock_ takes the Councel of a _Fox_, and, like the
_Squirrel_ to the _Rattle-Snake_, puts himself into the Mouth of his
Mortal Adversary, How many such Diviners do we meet with in our Daily
Conversation, that lay their Lives, Fortunes, and Reputation at the Mercy
of Parasites? How many Sots that Commence Philosophers upon the Credit of
these Fawning Slaves! There’s no Fool to the great Fool that’s Fool’d by
a little Fool; nor any thing so Scandalous as to be the Fool Of a Fool.