and rescue him in his greatest extremities; and no outward impression, nor inward neither, though his own conscience take part against him, is able to beat him from his guards.  Though innocence and a good conscience be said to be a brazen wall, a brazen confidence is more impregnable and longer able to hold out; for it is a greater affliction to an innocent man to be suspected than it is to one that is guilty and impudent to be openly convicted of an apparent crime.  And in all the affairs of mankind, a brisk confidence, though utterly void of sense, is able to go through matters of difficulty with greater ease than all the strength of reason less boldly enforced, as the Turks are said by a small, slight handling of their bows to make an arrow without a head pierce deeper into hard bodies than guns of greater force are able to do a bullet of steel; and though it be but a cheat and imposture, that has neither truth nor reason to support it, yet it thrives better in the world than things of greater solidity, as thorns and thistles flourish on barren grounds where nobler plants would starve.  And he that can improve his barren parts by this excellent and most compendious method deserves much better, in his judgment, than those who endeavour to do the same thing by the more studious and difficult way of downright industry and drudging.  For impudence does not only supply all defects, but gives them a greater grace than if they had needed no art, as all other ornaments are commonly nothing else but the remedies or disguises of imperfections; and therefore he thinks him very weak that is unprovided of this excellent and most useful quality, without which the best natural or acquired parts are of no more use than the Guanches’ darts, which, the virtuosos say, are headed with butter hardened in the sun.  It serves him to innumerable purposes to press on and understand no repulse, how smart or harsh soever, for he that can fail nearest the wind has much the advantage of all others; and such is the weakness or vanity of some men, that they will grant that to obstinate importunity which they would never have done upon all the most just reasons and considerations imaginable, as those that watch witches will make them confess that which they would never have done upon any other account.

He believes a man’s words and his meaning should never agree together; for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the most ignorant, and he who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out, like a traitor’s, and shown publicly to the rabble; for as a king, they say, cannot reign without dissembling, so private men, without that, cannot govern themselves with any prudence or discretion imaginable.  This is the only politic magic that has power to make a man walk invisible, give him access into all men’s privacies, and keep all others out of his, which is as great an odds