full of all wickedness is this practice; and consequently full it is
of folly. No man, one would think, of any tolerable sense, should
dare or deign to incur the guilt of a practice so vile and base, so
indeed diabolical and detestable. But further more particularly--

2. The slanderer is plainly a fool, because he maketh wrong
judgments and valuations of things, and accordingly driveth on silly
bargains for himself, in result whereof he proveth a great loser.
He means by his calumnious stories either to vent some passion
boiling in him, or to compass some design which he affects, or to
please some humour that he is possessed with: but is any of these
things worth purchasing at so dear a rate? can there be any valuable
exchange for our honesty? Is it not more advisable to suppress our
passion, or to let it evaporate otherwise, than to discharge it in
so foul a way? Is it not better to let go a petty interest, than to
further it by committing so notorious and heinous a sin; to let an
ambitious project sink, than to buoy it up by such base means? Is
it not wisdom rather to smother or curb our humour, than by
satisfying it thus to forfeit our innocence? Can anything in the
world be so considerable, that for its sake we should defile our
souls by so foul a practice, making shipwreck of a good conscience,
abandoning honour and honesty, incurring all the guilt and all the
punishment due to so enormous a crime? Is it not far more wisdom,
contentedly to see our neighbour to enjoy credit and success, to
flourish and thrive in the world, than by such base courses to sully
his reputation, to rifle him of his goods, to supplant or cross him
in his affairs? We do really, when we think thus to depress him,
and to climb up to wealth or credit by the ruins of his honour, but
debase ourselves. Whatever comes of it, whether he succeeds or is
disappointed therein, assuredly he that useth such courses will