Francis Bacon - The Essays 1601
OF SUITORS
Many ill matters and projects are undertaken;
and private suits do
putrefy the public good. Many good matters,
are undertaken with bad minds;
I mean not only corrupt minds, but crafty minds,
that intend not performance. Some embrace suits,
which never mean to
deal effectually in them;
but if they see
there may be life in the matter,
by some other mean,
they will be content
to win a thank,
or take a second reward,
or at least to make use, in the meantime, of the suitor's hopes.
Some take hold of suits,
only for an occasion
to cross some other;
or to make an information,
whereof they could not
otherwise have apt pretext;
without care what become of the suit,
when that turn is served; or, generally,
to make other men's
business a kind of entertainment,
to bring in their own. Nay, some undertake suits,
with a full purpose
to let them fall;
to the end to
gratify the adverse party, or competitor.
Surely there is in
some sort a right in every suit;
either a right of equity,
if it be a suit of controversy;
or a right of desert,
if it be a suit of petition.
If affection lead a
man to favor the
wrong side in justice,
let him rather use
his countenance to compound the matter,
than to carry it.
If affection lead a
man to favor the
less worthy in desert,
let him do it,
without depraving or disabling the better deserver.
In suits which a
man doth not well understand,
it is good to
refer them to some
friend of trust and judgment, that may report,
whether he may deal
in them with honor:
but let him choose well his referendaries,
for else he may
be led by the nose.
Suitors are so distasted
with delays and abuses, that plain dealing,
in denying to deal
in suits at first,
and reporting the success barely,
and in challenging no
more thanks than one hath deserved,
is grown not only honorable, but also gracious.
In suits of favor,
the first coming ought
to take little place: so far forth,
consideration may be had of his trust,
that if intelligence of
the matter could not
otherwise have been had, but by him,
advantage be not taken of the note,
but the party left
to his other means;
and in some sort recompensed, for his discovery.
To be ignorant of
the value of a suit, is simplicity;
as well as to
be ignorant of the right thereof,
is want of conscience. Secrecy in suits,
is a great mean of obtaining;
for voicing them to be in forwardness,
may discourage some kind of suitors,
but doth quicken and awake others.
But timing of the
suit is the principal. Timing, I say,
not only in respect
of the person that should grant it,
but in respect of those,
which are like to cross it. Let a man,
in the choice of his mean,
rather choose the fittest mean,
than the greatest mean;
and rather them that
deal in certain things,
than those that are general.
The reparation of a denial,
is sometimes equal to the first grant;
if a man show
himself neither dejected nor discontented.
Iniquum petas ut aequum
feras is a good rule,
where a man hath strength of favor: but otherwise,
a man were better
rise in his suit; for he,
that would have ventured
at first to have lost the suitor,
will not in the
conclusion lose both the suitor,
and his own former favor.
Nothing is thought so
easy a request to a great person, as his letter; and yet,
if it be not
in a good cause,
it is so much
out of his reputation.
There are no worse instruments,
than these general contrivers of suits;
for they are but
a kind of poison, and infection, to public proceedings.
- Impressum -