Tacitus saith, “Livia sorted well with the arts of her husband and dissimulation of her son;” attributing arts of 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 Tiberius.”  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 showed 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 hindrance 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:  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 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 a 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.