before we think on it. This practice hath not ever all the malice
of the worst slander, but it worketh often the effects thereof; and
therefore doth incur its guilt, and its punishment; especially it
being commonly derived from ill-temper, or from bad habit, which we
are bound to watch over, to curb, and to correct. The tongue is a
sharp and perilous weapon, which we are bound to keep up in the
sheath, or never to draw forth but advisedly, and upon just
occasion; it must ever be wielded with caution and care: to
brandish it wantonly, to lay about with it blindly and furiously, to
slash and smite therewith any that happeneth to come in our way,
doth argue malice or madness.

7. It is an ordinary way of proceeding to calumniate, for men,
reflecting upon some bad disposition in themselves (although
resulting from their own particular temper, from their bad
principles, or from their ill custom), to charge it presently upon
others; presuming others to be like themselves: like the wicked
person in the psalm, "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an
one as thyself." This is to slander mankind first in the gross;
then in retail, as occasion serveth, to asperse any man; this is the
way of half-witted Machiavellians, and of desperate reprobates in
wickedness, who having prostituted their consciences to vice, for
their own defence and solace, would shroud themselves from blame
under the shelter of common pravity and infirmity; accusing all men
of that whereof they know themselves guilty. But surely there can
be no greater iniquity than this, that one man should undergo blame
for the ill conscience of another.

These seem to be the chief kinds of slander, and most common ways of
practising it. In which description, the folly thereof doth, I