know when to tell Truth and to doe it. Therfore it is the weaker Sort of Politicks[1] that are the great Dissemblers.
Tacitus saith; Livia sorted[2] well with the Arts[3] of her Husband and Dissimulation of her Sonne; Attributing Arts or Policy to Augustus, and Dissimulation to Tiberius. And againe, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take Arms against Vitellius, he saith; We rise not against the Piercing hidgment of Augustus, nor the Extreme Caution or Closenesse of Tiberius. These Properties of Arts or Policy, and Dissimulation or Closenesse, are indeed Habits and Faculties severall[4] and to be distinguished. For if a Man have that[5] Penetration of Judgment as[6] he can discerne what Things are to be laid open, and what to be secretted[7], and what to be shewed at Halfe lights[8], 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 Poorenesse[9]. But if a Man cannot obtaine[10] to that Judgment, then it is left to him, generally[11], to be Close[12], and a Dissembler. For where a Man cannot choose or vary in Particulars[13], there it is good to take the safest and wariest Way in generall; Like the Going softly[14] by one that cannot well see. Certainly the ablest Men that ever were, have had all an Opennesse and Francknesse of dealing, And a name of[15] Certainty, and Veracity; But then they were like Horses well mannaged[16], For they could tell passing[17] well when to stop or turne: And at such times, when they thought the Case indeed required Dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to passe that the former Opinion, spred abroad, of their good Faith and Clearnesse[18] of dealing, made them almost Invisible[19].
There be three degrees of this Hiding and Vailing of
