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 faults, justice doth never exaggerate them.  As no man is exempt from some defects, or can live free from some misdemeanors, so by this practice every man may be rendered very odious and infamous.

9.  Another kind of slander is, imputing to our neighbor’s practice, judgment, or profession, evil consequences (apt to render him odious, or despicable) which have no dependence on them, or connection with them.  There do in every age occur disorders and mishaps, springing from various complications of causes, working some of them in a more open and discernible, others in a more secret and subtle way (especially from Divine judgment and providence checking or chastising sin); from such occurrences it is common to snatch occasion and matter of calumny.  Those who are disposed this way are ready peremptorily to charge them upon whomsoever they dislike or dissent from, although without any apparent cause, or upon most frivolous and senseless pretenses; yea, often when