an her own
father, which would have been yet a far greater fault in his
painting. When he came, therefore, to the making of her father's
face last of all, he had spent out so much of his craft and skill
that he could devise no manner of new heavy cheer and countenance
for him but what he had made there aleady in some of the others a
much more heavy one before. And therefore, to the intent that no
man should see what manner of countenance it was that her father
had, the painter was fain to paint him holding his face in his
handkerchief!

The like pageant (in a manner) played us there this good ancient
honourable flatterer. For when he saw that he could find no words
of praise that would surpass all that had been spoken before
already, the wily fox would speak never a word. But as one who were
ravished heavenward with the wonder of the wisdom and eloquence
that my lord's grace had uttered in that oration, he set up a long
sigh with an "Oh!" from the bottom of his breast, and held up both
his hands, and lifted up his head, and cast up his eyes into the
welkin, and wept.

ANTHONY: Forsooth, cousin, he played his part very properly. But
was that great prelate's oration, cousin, at all praiseworthy? For
you can tell, I see well. For you would not, I suppose, play as
Juvenal merrily describeth the blind senator, one of the flatterers
of Tiberius the emperor, who among the rest so magnified the great
fish that the emperor had sent for them to show them. This blind
senator--Montanus, I believe they called him--marvelled at the fish
as much as any that marvelled most. And many things he spoke of it,
with some of his words directed unto it, looking himself toward his
left side, while the fish lay on his right side! You would not, I
am sure, cousin, have taken upon you to praise it so, unless you
had heard it.

VINCENT: I heard it, uncle, indeed, and, to say the truth, it was
not to dispraise. Howbeit, surely, somewhat less praise might have
served it--less by a great deal more than half. But this I am sure:
had it been the worst that ever was made, the praise would not have
been the less by one hair. For those who used to praise him to his
face never considered how much the thing deserved, but how great a
laud and praise they themselves could give his good Grace.

ANTHONY: Surely, cousin, as Terence saith, such folk make men of
fools even stark mad. And much cause have their lords to be right
angry with them.

VINCENT: