out mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian," that Hercules, "when he went to unbind Prometheus, (by "whom human nature is represented), sailed "the length of the great ocean in an earthen "pot or pitcher, lively describing Christian re

solution, that saileth in the frail bark of the “flesh through the waves of the world." But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many herselike airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon

a lightsome ground: judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMU

LATION.

DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and to do it: therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, "Livia sorted well with the "arts of her husband, and dissimulation of her "son; attributing arts or policy to Augustus, "and dissimulation to Tiberius :" and again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, "We rise not "against the piercing judgment of Augustus, "nor the extreme caution or closeness of Ti"berius:" these properties of arts or policy,

and dissimulation or closeness are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be distinguished; for if a man have that penetration of judgment as he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be shewed at half lights, and to whom and when, (which indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them), to him a habit of dissimulation is a hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot attain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally to be close and a dissembler; for where a man cannot choose or vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way in general, like the going softly by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity: but then they were like horses well managed, for they could tell passing well when to stop or turn; and at such times when they thought the case indeed required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass, that the former opinion, spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness of dealing made them almost invisible.

There be three degrees of this hiding and veiling of a man's self; the first, closeness, reservation, and secrecy, when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is; the second, dissimulation in the negative, when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that he is; and the third, simulation in the affirmative, when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.

For the first of these, secrecy, it is indeed the virtue of a confessor; and assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions, for who will open himself to a blab or a babbler? But if a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more open and as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the ease of a man's heart, so secret men come to the knowledge of many things in that kind; while men rather discharge their minds than impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to secrecy. Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely, as well in mind as in body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions if they be not altogether open. As for talkers

and futile persons, they are commonly vain and credulous withal: for he that talketh what he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not; therefore set it down, that an habit of secrecy is both politic and moral: and in this part it is good, that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak; for the discovery of a man's self by the tracts of his countenance is a great weakness and betraying, by how much it is many times more marked and believed than a man's words.

For the second, which is dissimulation, it followeth many times upon secrecy by a necessity; so that he that will be secret must be a dissembler in some degree: for men are too cunning to suffer a man to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret without swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man with questions and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that without an absurd silence he must shew an inclination one way; or if he do not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for equivocations or eraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long. So that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of