inimicorum genus, laudantes; there is no more pestilent enemy than a
malevolent praiser. All these kinds of dealing, as they issue from
the principles of slander, and perform its work, so they deservedly
bear the guilt thereof.

7. A like kind is that of oblique and covert reflections; when a
man doth not directly or expressly charge his neighbour with faults,
but yet so speaketh that he is understood, or reasonably presumed to
do it. This is a very cunning and very mischievous way of
slandering; for therein the skulking calumniator keepeth a reserve
for himself, and cutteth off from the person concerned the means of
defence. If he goeth to clear himself from the matter of such
aspersions: "What need," saith this insidious speaker, "of that?
must I needs mean you? did I name you? why do you then assume it to
yourself? do you not prejudge yourself guilty? I did not, but your
own conscience, it seemeth, doth accuse you. You are so jealous and
suspicious, as persons overwise or guilty use to be." So meaneth
this serpent out of the hedge securely and unavoidably to bite his
neighbour, and is in that respect more base and more hurtful than
the most flat and positive slanderer.

8. Another kind is that of magnifying and aggravating the faults of
others; raising any small miscarriage into a heinous crime, any
slender defect into an odious vice, and any common infirmity into a
strange enormity; turning a small "mote in the eye" of our neighbour
into a huge "beam," a little dimple in his face into a monstrous
wen. This is plainly slander, at least in degree, and according to
the surplusage whereby the censure doth exceed the fault. As he
that, upon the score of a small debt, doth extort a great sum, is no
less a thief, in regard to what amounts beyond his due, than if