any meaning. For since the essence of friendship consists in this, that
one mind is, as it were, made out of seveial, how can this be, if in one
of the several there shall be not always one and the same mind, but a
mind varying, changeful, manifold? And what can be so flexible, so far
out of its rightful course, as the mind of him who adapts himself, not
only to the feelings and wishes, but een to the look and gesture, of
another?


"Does one say No or Yes? I say so too My rule is to assent to
everything,"

as Terence, whom I have just quoted, says, but he says it in the person
of Gnatho,[Footnote: A parasite in Terence's play of _Eunuchus_, from
which these verses are quoted.]--a sort of friend which only a frivolous
mind can tolerate. But as there are many like Gnatho, who stand higher
than he did in place, fortune, and reputation, then subserviency is the
more offensive, because then position gives weight to their falsehood.

But a flattering friend may be distinguished and discriminated from a
true friend by proper care, as easily as everything disguised and
feigned is seen to differ from what is genuine and real. The assembly of
the people, though consisting of persons who have the least skill in
judgment, yet always knows the difference between him who, merely
seeking popularity, is sycophantic and fickle, and a firm inflexible,
and substantial citizen. With what soft words did Caius Papirius
[Footnote: Caius Papirius Carbo, the suspected murderer of Scipio.]
steal [Footnote: Latin _influebat_ flowed in, a figure beautifully
appropriate, but hardly translatable.] into the ears of the assembly a
little while ago, when he brought forward the law about the re-election