s out of their own members. As for knaves, they
are commonly true enough to their own interests, and while they gain by
their employments, will be careful not to disserve those who can turn
them out when they please, what tricks soever they put upon others; and
therefore such men prove more useful to them in their designs of gain
and profit than those whose consciences and reason will not permit them
to take that latitude.

And since buffoonery is, and has always been, so delightful to great
persons, he holds him very improvident that is to seek in a quality so
inducing that he cannot at least serve for want of a better, especially
since it is so easy that the greatest part of the difficulty lies in
confidence; and he that can but stand fair and give aim to those that
are gamesters does not always lose his labour, but many times becomes
well esteemed for his generous and bold demeanour, and a lucky repartee
hit upon by chance may be the making of a man. This is the only modern
way of running at tilt, with which great persons are so delighted to see
men encounter one another and break jests, as they did lances
heretofore; and he that has the best beaver to his helmet has the
greatest advantage; and as the former passed upon the account of valour,
so does the latter on the score of wit, though neither, perhaps, have
any great reason for their pretences, especially the latter, that
depends much upon confidence, which is commonly a great support to wit,
and therefore believed to be its betters, that ought to take place of
it, as all men are greater than their dependents; so pleasant it is to
see men lessen one another and strive who shall show himself the most
ill-natured and ill-mannered. As in cuffing all blows are aimed at the
face, so it fares in these rencounters, where he that wears the toughest
leather on his visage comes off with victory though he has ever so much
the disadvantage upon all other accounts. For a buffoon is like a mad
dog that has a worm in his tongue, which makes him bite at all that
light in his way; and as he can do nothing alone, but must have somebody
to set him that he may throw at, he that performs that office with the
greatest freedom and is contented to be laughed at to give his patron
pleasure cannot but be understood to have done very good service, and
consequently deserves to be well rewarded, as a mountebank's pudding,
that is content to be cut and slashed and burnt and poisoned, without