And in good faith, uncle, the selfsame prelate that I told you my tale of—I dare be bold to swear it, I know it so surely—had one time drawn up a certain treaty that was to serve for a league between that country and a great prince. In this treaty he himself thought that he had devised his articles so wisely and composed them so well, that all the world would approve them. Thereupon, longing sore to be praised, he called unto him a friend of his, a man well learned and of good worship, and very well expert in those matters, as one who had been divers times ambassador for that country and had made many such treaties himself. When he gave him the treaty and he had read it, he asked him how he liked it, and said, "But I pray you heartily, tell me the very truth." And that he spake so heartily that the other thought he would fain have heard the truth, and in that trust he told him a fault in the treaty. And at the hearing of it he swore in great anger, "By the mass, thou art a very fool!" The other afterward told me that he would never tell him the truth again.
ANTHONY: Without question, cousin, I cannot greatly blame him. And thus they themselves make every man mock them, flatter them, and deceive them—those, I say, who are of such a vainglorious mind. For if they be content to hear the truth, let them then make much of those who tell them the truth, and withdraw their ears from them who falsely flatter them, and they shall be more truly served than with twenty requests praying men to tell them true.
King Ladislaus—our Lord absolve his soul!—used much this manner among his servants. When one of them praised any deed of his or any quality in him, if he perceived that they said but the truth he would let it pass by uncontrolled. But when he saw that they set a gloss on it for his praise of their own making besides, then would he shortly say unto them, "I pray thee, good fellow, when thou sayest grace at my board, never bring in a Gloria Patri without a sicut erat. Any act that ever I did, if thou report it again to mine honour with a Gloria Patri, never report it but with a sicut erat—that is, even as it was and none otherwise. And lift me not up with lies, for I love it not." If men would use this way with them that this noble king used, it would diminish much of their false flattery.
I can well approve that men should commend such things as they see praiseworthy in other men—keeping them within the bounds of truth—to give them the greater courage to the increase of them. For men keep still in that point one quality of children, that praise must prick them forth. But better it were to do well and look for none. Howbeit, those who cannot find it in their hearts to commend another man's good deed show themselves either envious or else of nature very cold and dull. But without question, he who putteth his pleasure in the praise of the people hath but a foolish fancy. For if his finger do but ache of a hot blain, a great many men's mouths blowing out his praise will scantly do him, among them all, so much ease as to have one boy blow on his finger!
XI
Let us now consider likewise what great worldly wealth ariseth unto men by great offices and authority—to those worldly-disposed people, I say, who desire them for no better purpose. For of those who desire them for better, we shall speak after anon.
The great thing that they all chiefly like therein is that they may bear a rule, command and control other men, and live uncommanded and uncontrolled themselves. And yet this commodity took I so little heed of, that I never was aware it was so great, until a good friend of ours merrily told me once that his wife once in a great anger taught it to him. For when her husband had no desire to grow greatly upward in the world, nor would labour for office of authority, and beside that forsook a right worshipful office when it was offered him, she fell in hand with him, he told me. And she all berated him, and asked him, "What will you do, that you will not put yourself forth as other folk do? Will you sit by the fire and make goslings in the ashes with a stick, as children do? Would God I were a man—look what I would do!" "Why, wife," quoth her husband, "what would you do?" "What? By God, go forward with the best! For, as my mother was wont to say—God have mercy on her soul—it is evermore better to rule than to be ruled. And therefore, by God, I would not, I warrant you, be so foolish as to be ruled where I might rule." "By my troth, wife," quoth her husband, "in this I daresay you say truth, for I never found you willing to be ruled yet."
VINCENT: Well, uncle, I follow you now, well enough! She is indeed a stout master-woman. And in good faith, for aught that I can see, even that same womanish mind of hers is the greatest commodity that men reckon upon in offices of authority.
ANTHONY: By my troth, and methinketh there are very few who attain any great commodity therein. For first there is, in every kingdom, but one who can have an office of such authority that no man may command him or control him. No officer can stand in that position but the king himself; he only, uncontrolled or uncommanded, may control and command all. Now, of all the rest, each is under him. And yet almost every one is under more commanders and controllers, too, than one. And many a man who is in a great office commandeth fewer things and less labour to many men who are under him than someone that is over him commandeth him alone.
VINCENT: Yet it doth them good, uncle, that men must make courtesy to them and salute them with reverence and stand bareheaded before them, or unto some of them peradventure kneel, too.