Those men have characters of the very worst description, who make a scruple to deny a favour; and are ashamed, or unwilling to give a downright refusal at first; but who, when the time arrives. &c.
This is one of those beautiful passages which prove Terence to have been so able a delineator of character. How faithful a picture does he here draw of this particular species of weakness! A man is asked a favour which he knows it is out of his power to compass, and yet feels a repugnance to candidly avow it: he cannot bear to witness the uneasiness of the disappointed person, and, from a kind of false shame, he misleads him with a promise which he cannot perform. To detect those lurking impulses which almost escape observation, though they influence the actions: to describe with force and elegance, and convince the mind of a feeling of which it was before scarcely conscious, is an effort of genius worthy of a Terence.
If any one tell me, that no advantage will result from it: I answer this, that I shall poison his joy: and even that will yield me some satisfaction.
Ingeram mala multa: atque aliquis dicat; Nihil promoveris.
Multum; molestus certè ei fuero, atque animo morem gessero.
This sentiment has been imitated by the first of dramatists in his Othello: he has expanded it into a greater number of lines, which are extremely beautiful.
Iago. Call up her father,
Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight.
Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen.