Complete. From the “Holy State.”
HE whose own worth doth speak need not speak his own worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from emptiness of desert; whereas the conquerors in the Olympian games did not put their laurels on their own heads, but waited till some other did it. Only anchorets that want company may crown themselves with their own commendations.
It showeth more wit, but no less vanity, to commend oneself not in a straight line, but in reflection. Some sail to the port of their own praise by a side wind; as when they dispraise themselves, stripping themselves naked of what is their due, that the modesty of the beholders may clothe them with it again; or when they flatter another to his face, tossing the ball to him that he may throw it back again to them, or when they commend that quality, wherein themselves excel, in another man (though absent), whom all know far their inferior in that faculty, or, lastly (to omit other ambushes men set to surprise praise), when they send the children of their own brain to be nursed by another man, and commend their own works in a third person, but if challenged by the company that they were authors of them themselves, with their tongues they faintly deny it and with their faces strongly affirm it.
Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when it comes most violently from him in his own defense. For though modesty bind a man’s tongue to the peace in this point, yet, being assaulted in his credit, he may stand upon his guard, and then he doth not so much praise as purge himself. One braved a gentleman to his face that in skill and valor he came far behind him. “’Tis true,” said the other, “for when I fought with you, you ran away before me.” In such a case it was well returned, and without any just aspersion of pride.
He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, a saint; that boasteth of it, a devil. Yet some glory in their shame, counting the stains of sin the best complexion for their souls. These men make me believe it may be true what Mandeville writes of the Isle of Somabarre, in the East Indies, that all the nobility thereof brand their faces with a hot iron in token of honor.
He that boasts of sins never committed is a double devil. Some, who would sooner creep into a scabbard than draw a sword, boast of their robberies, to usurp the esteem of valor; whereas, first let them be well whipped for their lying, and as they like that, let them come afterward and entitle themselves to the gallows.
