He gets as much by those projects that
miscarry as by those that hold (as lawyers are paid as well for undoing
as preserving of men); for when he has drawn in adventurers to purchase
shares of the profit, the sooner it is stopped the better it proves for
him; for, his own business being done, he is the sooner rid of theirs.
He is very expert at gauging the understandings of those he deals with,
and has his engines always ready with mere air to blow all their money
out of their pockets into his own, as vintners do wine out of one vessel
into another. He is very amorous of his country, and prefers the public
good before his own advantage, until he has joined them both together in
some monopoly, and then he thinks he has done his part, and may be
allowed to look after his own affairs in the second place. The chiefest
and most useful part of his talent consists in quacking and lying, which
he calls answering of objections and convincing the ignorant. Without
this he can do nothing; for as it is the common practice of most
knaveries, so it is the surest and best fitted to the vulgar capacities
of the world; and though it render him more ridiculous to some few, it
always prevails upon the greater part.
A COMPLEMENTER
Is one that endeavours to make himself appear a very fine man in
persuading another that he is so, and by offering those civilities which
he does not intend to part with, believes he adds to his own reputation
and obliges another for nothing.
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