But they
that take offence where no name, character, or signature doth blazon
them seem to me like affected as women, who if they hear anything
ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are presently moved, as if the
contumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when they
hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs to them all. If I
see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer of
myself presently? No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if honest,
I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw
there noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand will
either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease. And the
wise and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves
that is written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be
such; and the ill to leave to be such. The person offended hath no
reason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so to
declare that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of all
men, as it could be no man's several, but his that would wilfully
and desperately claim it. It sufficeth I know what kind of persons
I displease, men bred in the declining and decay of virtue,
betrothed to their own vices; that have abandoned or prostituted
their good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, invested in all
deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden and
concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all evil.
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