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 show 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 oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long; so that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of dissimulation, which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is simulation and false profession, that I hold more culpable, and less politic, except it be in great and rare matters; and, therefore, a general custom of simulation (which is this last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness, or fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults, which, because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The advantages of simulation and dissimulation are threefirst, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise; for where a man's intentions are published, it is an alarm to call up all that are against them: the second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat; for if a man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or take a fall: the third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to him that opens himself, men will hardly show themselves averse, but will (fair3) let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of thought; and therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard, ‘Tell a lie and find a troth,' as if there were no way of discovery but by simulation. There be also three disadvantages to set it even: the first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of round' flying up to the mark; the second,

1 Indifferent. Impartial. That they may truly and indifferently minister justice.'-Prayer for the Church Militant.

2 Oraculous. Oracular.

'He spoke oraculous and sly;

He'd neither grant the question nor deny.'-King.

3 Fair (adverb). Complaisantly.

Thus fair they parted till the morrow's dawn.'-Dryden.
Direct.

'Let her be round with him.'-Shakespere.

that it puzzleth and perplexeth the conceits' of many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends; the third, and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for action, which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit; dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign, if there be no remedy.

It is a pity that our language has lost the word 'simulation ;' so that we are forced to make dissimulation' serve for both

senses.

'Id quod abest, simulat, dissimulat quod adest.'3

'The ablest men have all had an openness and frankness,' &c. There is much truth in Bacon's remark in the Antitheta, that those whose whole conduct is open and undisguised deceive

1 Conceits. Conceptions-as:

Temperature.

brain.'-Watts.

You have a noble and a true conceit

Of godlike amity.'-Shakespere.

Constitution. Memory depends upon the temperature of the

3 Simulates that which is not; dissimulates that which is.

people not the less, because the generality either do not understand them, or do not believe them. And this is particularly the case when those you have to deal with are of a crafty character. They expend great ingenuity in guessing what it is you mean, or what you design to do, and the only thing that never occurs to them is just what you have said.

It is to be observed, however, that some persons, who are not really frank and open characters, appear such from their want of delicacy and of refined moral taste. They speak openly of things pertaining to themselves (such as most people would suppress), not from incapacity for disguise, or from meaning to make a confidant of you, but from absence of shame. And such a person may be capable of much artifice when it suits his purpose. It is well, therefore, that the inexperienced should be warned against mistaking shamelessness for sincerity of character.

Those who are habitually very reserved, and (as Miss Edgeworth expresses it in one of her tales), 'think that in general it is best not to mention things,' will usually meet with fewer tangible failures than the more communicative, unless these latter possess an unusual share of sagacity; but the latter will (unless excessively imprudent) have a greater amount of success, on the whole, by gaining many advantages which the others will have missed.

They will so beset a man with questions.'

There is, as Bacon observes, a great difficulty in dealing with such persons; for a true answer to their impertinent questions might do great mischief; and to refuse an answer would be understood as the same thing. 'Pray, do you know the author of that article? Is it your friend Mr. So-and-so?' or, 'Is it true that your friend Such-a-one has had heavy losses, and is likely to become insolvent?' or, 'Is he concealed in such-andsuch a place?' &c. If you reply, 'I do not chuse to answer,' this will be considered as equivalent to an answer in the affirmative.

It is told of Dean Swift, that when some one he had lampooned came and asked him whether he was the writer of those verses, he replied, that long ago he had consulted an experienced

lawyer what was best to be done when some scoundrel who had been shown up in a satire asked him whether he were the author; and that the lawyer advised him always, whether he had written it or not, to deny the authorship,—and, 'accordingly,' said he, 'I now tell you that I am not the author.'

Some similar kind of rebuke is, perhaps, the best answer to give.

A well-known author once received a letter from a peer with whom he was slightly acquainted, asking him whether he was the author of a certain article in the Edinburgh Review. He replied, that he never made communications of that kind, except to intimate friends, selected by himself for the purpose, when he saw fit. His refusal to answer, however, pointed him outwhich, as it happened, he did not care for-as the author. But a case might occur, in which the revelation of the authorship might involve a friend in some serious difficulties. In any such case, he might have answered something in this style: 'I have received a letter purporting to be from your lordship, but the matter of it induces me to suspect that it is a forgery by some mischievous trickster. The writer asks whether I am the author of a certain article. It is a sort of question which no one has a right to ask; and I think, therefore, that everyone is bound to discourage such enquiries by answering themwhether one is or is not the author-with a rebuke for asking impertinent questions about private matters. I say 'private,' because, if an article be libellous or seditious, the law is open, and anyone may proceed against the publisher, and compel him either to give up the author, or to bear the penalty. If, again, it contains false statements, these, coming from an anonymous pen, may be simply contradicted. And if the arguments be unsound, the obvious course is to refute them. But who wrote it, is a question of idle or of mischievous curiosity, as it relates to the private concerns of an individual. 'If I were to ask your lordship, 'Do you spend your income? or lay by? or outrun ? Do you and your lady ever have an altercation? Was she your first love? or were you attached to some one else before?' If I were to ask such questions, your lordship's answer would probably be, to desire the footman to show me out. Now, the present inquiry I regard as no less unjustifiable, and relating to private concerns; and, therefore, I

think everyone bound, when so questioned, always, whether he is the author or not, to meet the inquiry with a rebuke.

'Hoping that my conjecture is right, of the letter's being a forgery, I remain,' &c.

In any case, however, in which a refusal to answer does not convey any information, the best way, perhaps, of meeting impertinent enquiries, is by saying, 'Can you keep a secret?' and when the other answers, that he can, you may reply, 'Well, so can I.'

'The power to feign when there is no remedy?'

This power is certainly a dangerous one to possess, because one will be tempted to say, again and again, and on slighter and slighter occasions, 'Now, there is no remedy; there is nothing for it but to feign:' that is, perhaps, there is no other mode of effecting the object you have in view.

Certainly it is a nobler thing to have the power and not to use it, than to abstain from feigning, through incapacity. But there are few cases, and to most people none, in which it is justifiable. For a general to deceive the enemy by stratagems (so called from that very circumstance) is quite allowable; because where no confidence is reposed, none can be violated. And it is a kind of war that is carried on between policemen and thieves. In dealing with madmen, again, there is no more fraud in deceiving them than in angling for trout with an artificial fly; because you are not really dealing with fellow-men. But with the exception of such cases, feigning cannot be justified.

'Dissimulation is but a faint kind of policy?'

What Bacon says of the inexpediency of all insincere proceedings is very true. Nothing but the right can ever be the expedient, since that can never be true expediency which would sacrifice a greater good to a less,- For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul.' It will be found that all frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar,' with which men think to buttress up an edifice, tend to the decay of that which they are devised to support. This truth, however, will never be steadily acted on by those who have no moral detestation of falsehood. It is not given to