are more allowed. And the poets indeed have been busy with it; for it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery; nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian ; that Hercules, when he went to unbind Prometheus, 2 (by whom human nature is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or pitcher; lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail bark of the flesh thorough the waves of the world. But to speak in a mean.3 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 hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in

1 Mystery. Hidden meaning, as in the word 'myth,' which is a fable containing elements of truth.

He

2 Prometheus was the son of Iapetus, one of the Titans. formed men of clay, and animated them with fire brought from heaven. For this Jupiter sent Mercury to bind him to the Caucasus, where a vulture preyed upon his liver until killed by Hercules. 'Prometheus' means 'the Foreknower,' as in Mrs. Browning's drama, Prometheus Bound,

"Unto me the foreknower."

W. M. Rossetti, in his Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley, p. 97, places Shelley's drama, Prometheus Unbound, 1820, "at the summit of all latter poetry." "It is the ideal poem of perpetual and triumphant progression-the Atlantis of Man Emancipated." Prometheus; or the State of Man, in Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, is Bacon's version of the myth of Prometheus.

To speak in a mean. To speak with moderation.
"the golden mean, and quiet flow,

Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife."

Wordsworth. Ecclesiastical Sonnets. Part III. Sacheverel. 13-14.

describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities1 of Salomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad2 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.

1 VI. OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION.5

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 politics that are the great dissemblers.

Tacitus saith, Livia sorted well with the arts of her

1 Felicities. Prosperous circumstances, successes.

2 Sad. Dark-colored. "This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a clean virtuoso-a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the curled back of a mug-ewe." Scott. The Monastery. Introductory Epistle.

8 Incensed. Enkindled, set on fire. "The same Mr. Bettenham [Reader of Gray's Inn] said: That virtuous men were like some herbs and spices, that give not their sweet smell, till they be broken and crushed." Bacon. Apophthegmes New and Old. 253.

4 Simulation. The act of simulating or feigning; pretense, usually for the purpose of deceiving.

5 Dissimulation. Deceit, hypocrisy.

husband and dissimulation of her son;1 attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius,2 he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius.3 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 obtain 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;

5

1 Mater impotens, uxor facilis et cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita, as a mother imperious, as a wife compliant and well matched with the subtlety of her husband and the dissimulation of her son. P. Cornelii Taciti Annalium Liber V. Fragmentum. Caput 1. Cf. Advancement of Learning. II. xxiii. 36. 2 Aulus Vitellius, 15-69 A.D., Roman emperor immediately before Vespasian.

3 Non adversus divi Augusti acerrimam mentem, nec adversus cautissimam Tiberii senectutem, ne contra Gai quidem aut Claudii vel Neronis fundatam longo imperio domum exsurgimus. Cornelii Taciti Historiarum Liber II. Caput 76.

"Obtain. To attain to; to reach; to gain; intransitive, with 'to' or 'unto.'

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.1 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 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 dis

1 Before Milton set out on his Italian journey, he received a letter of advice from Sir Henry Wotton, then Provost of Eton. Wotton said that in Siena he had been "tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. 'Signor Arrigo mio,' says he, 'I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto' [honest thoughts and an open countenance] will go safely over the whole world.'"

charge 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 body; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions, if they be not altogether open. As for talkers and futile2 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. it is good that a man's face give 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.

And in this part his tongue leave

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 manto 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 5

1 "A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men: mystery the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones." Maxims: Enclosed in Letter of January 15, 1753. The Letters of Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, with the Characters. Edited with Introduction, Notes, and Index, by John Bradshaw. II. 572.