there are few who can endure to hear it without being nettled, those who
hazard the undertaking it to us manifest a singular effect of friendship;
for 'tis to love sincerely indeed, to venture to wound and offend us, for
our own good. I think it harsh to judge a man whose ill qualities are
more than his good ones: Plato requires three things in him who will
examine the soul of another: knowledge, benevolence, boldness.

I was sometimes asked, what I should have thought myself fit for, had any
one designed to make use of me, while I was of suitable years:

"Dum melior vires sanguis dabat, aemula necdum
Temporibus geminis canebat sparsa senectus:"

["Whilst better blood gave me vigour, and before envious old age
whitened and thinned my temples."--AEneid, V. 415.]

"for nothing," said I; and I willingly excuse myself from knowing
anything which enslaves me to others. But I had told the truth to my
master,--[Was this Henri VI.? D.W.]--and had regulated his manners, if
he had so pleased, not in gross, by scholastic lessons, which I
understand not, and from which I see no true reformation spring in those
that do; but by observing them by leisure, at all opportunities, and
simply and naturally judging them as an eye-witness, distinctly one by
one; giving him to understand upon what terms he was in the common
opinion, in opposition to his flatterers. There is none of us who would
not be worse than kings, if so continually corrupted as they are with
that sort of canaille. How, if Alexander, that great king and
philosopher, cannot defend himself from them!

I should have had fidelity, judgment, and freedom enough for that