There lived in this latter age six
famous painters in Italy, who were excellent and emulous of the
ancients--Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Titian,
Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea
Sartorio.
Parasiti ad mensam.--These are flatterers for their bread, that
praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false;
invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears;
and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a
point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about,
deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their
discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and
devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the
master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend,
and compound, and dilate business of the house they have nothing to
do with. They praise my lord's wine and the sauce he likes; observe
the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord's favour, speak
for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord's least
distaste, or change of his palate.
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