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THE SECOND BOOK OF THE COURTIER said: 'Since you will have it so, I will believe it for your sake, for indeed I would do even a greater thing than this for you.' "Don Giovanni di Cardona'"' said something nearly of this sort about a man who wished to leave Rome: 'To my thinking the fellow is ill advised, for he is so great a rascal that by staying on at Rome he might in time become a cardinal.' Of this sort also is what was said by Alfonso Santacroce,"*' who had shortly be- fore suffered some outrage from the Cardinal of Pavia."^ "While strolling with several gentlemen near the place of public execu- tion outside Bologna, he saw a man who had recently been hanged, and turning towards the body with a thoughtful air, he said loud enough for everyone to hear him: 'Happy thou,. who hast naught to do with the Cardinal of Pavia.' 73 — " And this sort of pleasantry which is tinged with irony seems very becoming to great men, because it is dignified and sharp, and can be used in jocose as well as in serious matters. Hence many ancients (and those among the most esteemed) have used it, like Cato and Scipio Africanus the Younger; but above all men, the philosopher Socrates is said to have excelled in it. And in our own times King Alfonso I of Aragon,"" who, being about to eat one morning, took off the many precious rings that he had on his fingers, in order not to wet them in washing his hands, and so gave them to the first person he happened on, almost without looking to see who it was. This servant supposed that the king had taken no notice who received them, and by reason of weightier cares would easily forget them altogether; and in this he was the more confirmed, seeing that the king did not ask for them again ; and as he saw^ days, weeks and months pass without hearing a word about them, he thought he was surely safe. Accordingly, nearly a year after this had happened, he presented himself again one morning as the king was about to eat, and held out his hand to receive the rings; whereupon the king bent close to his ear and said to him: 'Let the first ones suffice thee, because these will do for someone else.' You see how biting, clever and dignified the sally was, and how truly worthy the exalted spirit of an Alexander. 74-—" Similar to this manner (which savours of the ironical) is another method, that of describing an evil thing in polite terms. 146