introduce amongst
friends, pleasantly and wittily jesting and rallying with one another?
'Tis an exercise for which my natural gaiety renders me fit enough, and
which, if it be not so tense and serious as the other I spoke of but now,
is, as Lycurgus thought, no less smart and ingenious, nor of less
utility. For my part, I contribute to it more liberty than wit, and have
therein more of luck than invention; but I am perfect in suffering, for I
endure a retaliation that is not only tart, but indiscreet to boot,
without being moved at all; and whoever attacks me, if I have not a brisk
answer immediately ready, I do not study to pursue the point with a
tedious and impertinent contest, bordering upon obstinacy, but let it
pass, and hanging down cheerfully my ears, defer my revenge to another
and better time: there is no merchant that always gains: Most men change
their countenance and their voice where their wits fail, and by an
unseasonable anger, instead of revenging themselves, accuse at once their
own folly and impatience. In this jollity, we sometimes pinch the secret
strings of our imperfections which, at another and graver time, we cannot
touch without offence, and so profitably give one another a hint of our
defects. There are other jeux de main,--[practical jokes]--rude and
indiscreet, after the French manner, that I mortally hate; my skin is
very tender and sensible: I have in my time seen two princes of the blood
buried upon that very account. 'Tis unhandsome to fight in play. As to
the rest, when I have a mind to judge of any one, I ask him how far he is
contented with himself; to what degree his speaking or his work pleases
him. I will none of these fine excuses, "I did it only in sport,

'Ablatum mediis opus est incudibus istud.'

["That work was taken from the anvil half finished."
--Ovid, Trist., i. 6, 29.]

I was not an hour about it: I have never looked at it since." Well,
then, say I, lay these aside, and give me a perfect one, such as you
would be measured by. And then, what do you think is the best thing in
your work? is it this part or that? is it grace or the matter, the
invention, the judgment, or the learning? For I find that men are,
commonly, as wide of the mark in judging of their own works, as of those
of others; not only by reason of the kindness they have for them, but for
want of capacity to know and distinguish them: the work, by its own force
an