re
bold on both sides to make their discovery. And as it is in the love of
the body, which is then at the height and full when it has power and
admittance into the hidden and worst parts of it; so it is in friendship
with the mind, when those _verenda_ of the soul, and those things which
we dare not shew the world, are bare and detected one to another.

Some men are familiar with all, and those commonly friends to none; for
friendship is a sullener thing, is a contractor and taker up of our
affections to some few, and suffers them not loosely to be scattered on
all men. The poorest tie of acquaintance is that of place and country,
which are shifted as the place, and missed but while the fancy of that
continues. These are only then gladdest of other, when they meet in some
foreign region, where the encompassing of strangers unites them closer,
till at last they get new, and throw off one another. Men of parts and
eminency, as their acquaintance is more sought for, so they are
generally more staunch of it, not out of pride only, but fear to let too
many in too near them: for it is with men as with pictures, the best
show better afar off and at distance, and the closer you come to them
the coarser they are. The best judgment of a man is taken from his
acquaintance, for friends and enemies are both partial; whereas these
see him truest because calmest, and are no way so engaged to lie for
him. And men that grow strange after acquaintance seldom piece together
again, as those that have tasted meat and dislike it, out of a mutual
experience disrelishing one another.

A MERE COMPLIMENTAL MAN

Is one to be held off still at the same distance you are now; for you
shall have him but thus, and if you enter on him farther you lose him.
Methinks Virgil well expresses him in those well-behaved ghosts that
AEneas met with, that were friends to talk with, and men to look on, but
if he grasped them, but air.[82] He is one that lies kindly to you, and
for good fashion's sake, and 'tis discourtesy in you to believe him. His
words are so many fine phrases set together, which serve equally for all
men, and are equally to no purpose. Each fresh encounter with a man puts
him to the same part again, and he goes over to you what he said to him
was last with him: he kisses your hands as he kissed his before, and is
your servant to be commanded, but you shall intreat of him nothing. His
proffers are universal and general, with exceptions agains