There are but two Ways of doing any thing with great People, and those are by making your self either considerable or agreeable:  The former is not to be attained but by finding a Way to live without them, or concealing that you want them; the latter is only by falling into their Taste and Pleasures:  This is of all the Employments in the World the most servile, except it happens to be of your own natural Humour.  For to be agreeable to another, especially if he be above you, is not to be possessed of such Qualities and Accomplishments as should render you agreeable in your self, but such as make you agreeable in respect to him.  An Imitation of his Faults, or a Compliance, if not Subservience, to his Vices, must be the Measures of your Conduct.  When it comes to that, the unnatural State a Man lives in, when his Patron pleases, is ended; and his Guilt and Complaisance are objected to him, tho the Man who rejects him for his Vices was not only his Partner but Seducer.  Thus the Client (like a young Woman who has given up the Innocence which made her charming) has not only lost his Time, but also the Virtue which could render him capable of resenting the Injury which is done him.

It would be endless to recount the [Tricks[3]] of turning you off from themselves to Persons who have less Power to serve you, the Art of being sorry for such an unaccountable Accident in your Behaviour, that such a one (who, perhaps, has never heard of you) opposes your Advancement; and if you have any thing more than ordinary in you, you are flattered with a Whisper, that tis no Wonder People are so slow in doing for a Man of your Talents, and the like.

After all this Treatment, I must still add the pleasantest Insolence of all, which I have once or twice seen; to wit, That when a silly Rogue has thrown away one Part in three of his Life in unprofitable Attendance, it is taken wonderfully ill that he withdraws, and is resolved to employ the rest for himself.

When we consider these things, and reflect upon so many honest Natures (which one who makes Observation of what passes, may have seen) that have miscarried by such sort of Applications, it is too melancholy a Scene to dwell upon; therefore I shall take another Opportunity to discourse of good Patrons, and distinguish such as have done their Duty to those who have depended upon them, and were not able to act without their Favour.  Worthy Patrons are like Plato’s Guardian Angels, who are always doing good to their Wards; but negligent Patrons are like Epicurus’s Gods, that lie lolling on the Clouds, and instead of Blessings pour down Storms and Tempests on the Heads of those that are offering Incense to them. [4]

[Footnote 1: 

Dulcis inexperta cultura potentis amici,
Expertus metuit

Hor.]

[Footnote 2:  A son of one of the inferior gentry received as page by a nobleman wore his lords livery, but had it of more costly materials than were used for the footmen, and was the immediate attendant of his patron, who was expected to give him a reputable start in life when he came of age.  Percy notes that a lady who described to him the custom not very long after it had become obsolete, remembered her own husbands giving L500 to set up such a page in business.