'My errors are sometimes natural and incorrigible,' he says; 'but the good which virtuous men do to the public in making themselves imitated, _I, perhaps, may do in making my manners avoided_. While I publish and accuse my own imperfections, somebody will learn to be afraid of them. _The parts that I most esteem in myself_, are more honoured in decrying than in commending _my own manners_. Pausanias tells us of an ancient player upon the lyre, who used to make his scholars go to hear one that lived over against him, and played very ill, that they might learn to hate his discords and false measures. _The present time_ is fitting to reform us _backward_, more by _dissenting_ than _agreeing_; by differing than consenting.' That is his application of his previous confession. And it is this _present time_ that he impersonates, holding the mirror up to nature, and provoking opposition and criticism for that which was before buried in the unconsciousness of a common absurdity, or a common wrong. 'Profiting little by good examples, I endeavour to render myself as agreeable as I see others offensive; as constant as I see others fickle; as good as I see others evil.' 'There is no fancy so frivolous and extravagant that does not seem to me a suitable product of the human mind. All such whimsies as are in use amongst us, deserve at least to be hearkened to; for my part, they only with me import _inanity_, but they import _that_. Moreover, _vulgar and casual opinions are something more than nothing in nature_.