re
them as so many gods: we had rather serve them than command others, and
account ourselves the more beholding to them, the more service they enjoin
us:" though they be otherwise vicious, dishonest, we love them, favour
them, and are ready to do them any good office for their [4823]beauty's
sake, though they have no other good quality beside. _Dic igitur o fomose,
adolescens_ (as that eloquent Phavorinus breaks out in [4824]Stobeus) _dic
Autiloque, suavius nectare loqueris; dic o Telemache, vehementius Ulysse
dicis; dic Alcibiades utcunque ebrius, libentius tibi licet ebrio
auscultabimus_. "Speak, fair youth, speak Autiloquus, thy words are sweeter
than nectar, speak O Telemachus, thou art more powerful than Ulysses, speak
Alcibiades though drunk, we will willingly hear thee as thou art." Faults
in such are no faults: for when the said Alcibiades had stolen Anytus his
gold and silver plate, he was so far from prosecuting so foul a fact
(though every man else condemned his impudence and insolency) that he
wished it had been more, and much better (he loved him dearly) for his
sweet sake. "No worth is eminent in such lovely persons, all imperfections
hid;" _non enim facile de his quos plurimum diligimus, turpitudinem
suspicamur_, for hearing, sight, touch, &c., our mind and all our senses
are captivated, _omnes sensus formosus delectat_. Many men have been
preferred for their person alone, chosen kings, as amongst the Indians,
Persians, Ethiopians of old; the properest man of person the country could
afford, was elected their sovereign lord; _Gratior est pulchro veniens e
corpore virtus_, [4825]and so have many other nations thought and done, as
[4826]Curtius observes: _Ingens enim in corporis majestate veneratio est_,
"for there is a majestical presence in such men;" and so far was beauty
adored amongst them, that no man was thought fit to reign, that was not in
all parts complete and supereminent. Agis, king of Lacedaemon, had like to
have been deposed, because he married a little wife, they would not have
their royal issue degenerate. Who would ever have thought that Adrian' the
Fourth, an English monk's bastard (as [4827]Papirius Massovius writes in
his life), _inops a suis relectus, squalidus et miser_, a poor forsaken
child, should ever come to be pope of Rome? But why was it? _Erat acri
ingenio, facundia expedita eleganti corpore, facieque laeta ac hilari_, (as
he follows it out of [4828]Nubrigensis, for he ploughs wi