erefore Seneca
adviseth his friend Lucilius, [1945]"in his attire and gesture, outward
actions, especially to avoid all such things as are more notable in
themselves: as a rugged attire, hirsute head, horrid beard, contempt of
money, coarse lodging, and whatsoever leads to fame that opposite way."

All this madness yet proceeds from ourselves, the main engine which batters
us is from others, we are merely passive in this business: from a company
of parasites and flatterers, that with immoderate praise, and bombast
epithets, glossing titles, false eulogiums, so bedaub and applaud, gild
over many a silly and undeserving man, that they clap him quite out of his
wits. _Res imprimis violenta est_, as Hierom notes, this common applause is
a most violent thing, _laudum placenta_, a drum, fife, and trumpet cannot
so animate; that fattens men, erects and dejects them in an instant. [1946]
_Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum_. It makes them fat and lean,
as frost doth conies. [1947]"And who is that mortal man that can so contain
himself, that if he be immoderately commended and applauded, will not be
moved?" Let him be what he will, those parasites will overturn him: if he
be a king, he is one of the nine worthies, more than a man, a god
forthwith,--[1948]_edictum Domini Deique nostri_: and they will sacrifice
unto him,

[1949] ------"divinos si tu patiaris honores,
Ultro ipsi dabimus meritasque sacrabimus aras."

If he be a soldier, then Themistocles, Epaminondas, Hector, Achilles, _duo
fulmina belli, triumviri terrarum_, &c., and the valour of both Scipios is
too little for him, he is _invictissimus, serenissimus, multis trophaeus
ornatissimus, naturae, dominus_, although he be _lepus galeatus_, indeed a
very coward, a milk-sop, [1950]and as he said of Xerxes, _postremus in
pugna, primus in fuga_, and such a one as never durst look his enemy in the
face. If he be a big man, then is he a Samson, another Hercules; if he
pronounce a speech, another Tully or Demosthenes; as of Herod in the Acts,
"the voice of God and not of man:" if he can make a verse, Homer, Virgil,
&c., And then my silly weak patient takes all these eulogiums to himself;
if he be a scholar so commended for his much reading, excellent style,
method, &c., he will eviscerate himself like a spider, study to death,
_Laudatas ostendit avis Junonia pennas_, peacock-like he will display all
his feathers. If he be a soldier, and so applauded, his valour