assage to dispraises, and render the accusations following more
credible. Tis an artifice commonly observed to be much in use
there, where the finest tricks of supplanting are practiced, with
greatest effect; so that _pessimum_ _inimicorum_ _genus_,
_laudantes_; there is no more pestilent enemy than a malevolent
praiser. All these kinds of dealing, as they issue from the
principles of slander, and perform its work, so they deservedly bear
the guilt thereof.

7. A like kind is that of oblique and covert reflections; when a man
doth not directly or expressly charge his neighbor with faults,
but yet so speaketh that he is understood, or reasonably presumed
to do it. This is a very cunning and very mischievous way of
slandering; for therein the skulking calumniator keepeth a
reserve for himself, and cutteth off from the person concerned
the means of defense. If he goeth to clear himself from the
matter of such aspersions: "What need," saith this insidious
speaker, "of that? must I needs mean you? did I name you? why do
you then assume it to yourself? do you not prejudge yourself
guilty? I did not, but your own conscience, it seemeth, doth
accuse you. You are so jealous and suspicious, as persons
overwise or guilty use to be." So meaneth this serpent out of the
hedge securely and unavoidably to bite his neighbor, and is in
that respect more base and more hurtful than the most flat and
positive slanderer.

8. Another kind is that of magnifying and aggravating the faults of
others; raising any small miscarriage into a heinous crime, any
slender defect into an odious vice, and any common infirmity into
a strange enormity; turning a small "mote in the eye" of our
neighbor into a huge "beam," a little dimple in his face into a
monstrous wen. This is plainly slander, at least in degree, and
according to the surplusage whereby the censure doth exceed the
fault. As he that, upon the score of a small debt, doth extort a
great sum, is no less a thief, in regard to what amounts beyond
his due, than if without any pretense he had violently or
fraudulently seized on it, so he is a slanderer that, by
heightening faults or imperfections, doth charge his neighbor
with greater blame, or load him with more disgrace than he
deserves. 'Tis not only slander to pick a hole where there is
none, but to make that wider which is, so that it appeareth more
ugly, and cannot so easily be mended. For charity is wont to
extenuate fault