[Footnote 1:  Paradise Lost, B. II. v. 557-561.]

[Footnote 2:  In Saturdays Spectator, for reward read lot.  Erratum in No. 238.]

[Footnote 3:  De Constantia Sapientis.]

[Footnote 4:  [Since Providence, therefore], and in 1st rep.]

[Footnote 5:  Henry Mores Divine Dialogues.]

[Footnote 6:  [Conference]]

[Footnote 7:  No letter appended to original issue or reissue.  Printed in Addison’s Works, 1720.  The paper has been claimed for John Hughes in the Preface to his Poems (1735).]

* * * * *

No. 238.  Monday, December 3, 1711.  Steele.

  Nequicquam populo bibulas donaveris Aures;
  Respue quod non es.

  Persius, Sat. 4.

Among all the Diseases of the Mind, there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the Love of Flattery.  For as where the Juices of the Body are prepared to receive a malignant Influence, there the Disease rages with most Violence; so in this Distemper of the Mind, where there is ever a Propensity and Inclination to suck in the Poison, it cannot be but that the whole Order of reasonable Action must be overturn’d, for, like Musick, it

 —­So softens and disarms the Mind,
  That not one Arrow can Resistance find.

First we flatter ourselves, and then the Flattery of others is sure of Success.  It awakens our Self-Love within, a Party which is ever ready to revolt from our better Judgment, and join the Enemy without.  Hence it is, that the Profusion of Favours we so often see poured upon the Parasite, are represented to us, by our Self-Love, as Justice done to Man, who so agreeably reconciles us to our selves.  When we are overcome by such soft Insinuations and ensnaring Compliances, we gladly recompense the Artifices that are made use of to blind our Reason, and which triumph over the Weaknesses of our Temper and Inclinations.

But were every Man perswaded from how mean and low a Principle this Passion is derived, there can be no doubt but the Person who should attempt to gratify it, would then be as contemptible as he is now successful.  Tis the Desire of some Quality we are not possessed of, or Inclination to be something we are not, which are the Causes of our giving ourselves up to that Man, who bestows upon us the Characters and Qualities of others; which perhaps suit us as ill and were as little design’d for our wearing, as their Cloaths.  Instead of going out of our own complectional Nature into that of others, twere a better and more laudable Industry to improve our own, and instead of a miserable Copy become a good Original; for there is no Temper, no Disposition so rude and untractable, but may in its own peculiar Cast and Turn be brought to some agreeable Use in Conversation, or in the Affairs of Life.  A Person of a rougher Deportment, and less tied up to the usual Ceremonies of Behaviour, will, like Manly in the Play,[1] please by the Grace which Nature gives to every Action wherein she is complied with; the Brisk and Lively will not want their Admirers, and even a more reserved and melancholy Temper may at some times be agreeable.