Directions concerning Praising.
13. As for commendation, some caution and mean is to be observed in it; because to be either deficient or excessive in that particular shows a base spirit. He is but a morose and rigid hearer whom no part of an oration can work upon or move, one who is full of a secret presumptuous opinion of himself, and of an inbred conceit that he could do better things himself; one who dares not alter his countenance as occasion requires, or let fall the least word to testify his good wishes, but with silence and affected gravity hunts after the reputation of a sagacious and profound person, and thinks that all the praise is lost to himself which he bestows on others, as if it were money. For many wrest that sentence of Pythagoras, who used to say that he had learned by philosophy to admire nothing; but these men think that to admire nobody and to honor nobody consists in despising everybody, and they aim at seeming grave by being contemptuous. Philosophy indeed removes that foolish admiration and surprise which proceeds from doubt or ignorance, by laying open to us the causes of things, but endeavors not to destroy all good-nature and humanity. And those who are truly good take it for their greatest honor and commendation to be just in paying honor and commendation where it is due to others; and for a man to adorn another is a most glorious ornament, proceeding from a generous abundance of glory and honor in himself; while those who are niggardly in praising others only betray how poor and bare they are of praises at home.