puts off his long robe, mows down his fruitless crop of beard, drinks
briskly, laughs modishly on the walks, and drolls handsomely upon
the philosophical fops of the town. And thus, they say, it happened
at Syracuse; for when Plato first arrived there and Dionysius was
wonderfully hot upon the study of philosophy, all the areas in the
king’s palace were full of nothing but dust and sand, by reason of the
great concourse of geometricians who came to draw their figures and
demonstrate there. But no sooner was Plato in disgrace at court, and
Dionysius finally fallen from philosophy to wine and women, trifles
and intemperance, than learning fell into a general disrepute, and
the whole body of the people, as if bewitched by some Circe or other,
became universally stupid, idle, and infatuated. Besides this, I
appeal to the practices of men notorious for flattery and popularity
to back my observation. Witness he who topped them all, Alcibiades,
who, when he dwelt at Athens, was as arch and witty as any Athenian
of them all, kept his stable of horses, played the good fellow, and
was universally obliging; and yet the same man at Sparta shaved close
to the skin, wore his cloak, and never bathed but in cold water. When
he sojourned in Thrace, he drank and fought like a Thracian; and
again, in Tissaphernes’s company in Asia, he acted the part of a soft,
arrogant, and voluptuous Asiatic. And thus, by an easy compliance
with the humors and customs of the people amongst whom he conversed,
he made himself master of their affections and interests. So did not
the brave Epaminondas nor Agesilaus, who, though they had to do with
great variety of men and manners, and cities of vastly different
politics, were still the same men, and everywhere, through the whole
circle of their conversation, maintained a port and character worthy of
themselves. And so was Plato the same man at Syracuse that he was in
the Academy, the same in Dionysius’s court that he was in Dion’s.
8. But he who will take the pains to act the dissembler himself, by
interchangeably decrying and extolling the same things, discourses, and
ways of living, will easily perceive that the opinions of a flatterer
are as mutable and inconstant as the colors of a polypus, that he is
never consonant to himself nor properly his own man; that all his
passions, his love and hatred, his joy and sorrow, are borrowed and
counterfeit; and that, in a word, like a mirror, he only receives
and represents the several faces or images of other men’s affections
and humors. Do but discommend one of your acquaintance a little in
his company, and he will tell you it is a wonder you never found him
out all this while, for his part he never fancied him in his life.
Change but your style and commend him, he presently swears you oblige
him in it, gives you a thousand thanks for the gentleman’s sake, and
believes your character of him to be just. Tell him you have thoughts
of altering your course of life, as for instance, to retire from all
public employs to privacy and ease; he immediately wishes that he had
retreated long ago from the hurry and drudgery of business and the
odium that attends it. Seem but again inclinable to an active life; Why
now, says he, you speak like yourself; leisure and ease are sweet, it
is true, but withal mean and inglorious. When you have thus trepanned
him, it would be proper to cashier him with some such reply as this:—