Parasiti ad mensam.—­These are flatterers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship’s ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions.  What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the house they have nothing to do with.  They praise my lord’s wine and the sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord’s favour, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord’s least distaste, or change of his palate.

How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for it is not enough to speak good, but timely things.  If a man be asked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity; for it is less dishonour to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly.  The ears are excused, the understanding is not.  And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he hath, by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters.  Nor seek to get his patron’s favour by embarking himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections.  They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord’s ears), and oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen and heard,

Imo serviles.—­These are called instruments of grace and power with great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness.  For sufficient lords are able to make these discoveries themselves.  Neither will an honourable person inquire who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, who sleeps with whom.  They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these disquisitions.  How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily!  These are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse—­he that maligns all, or that praises all.  There is as a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting.