ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 375 



to injuries and reproaches ; but rather, in all cases, at times, 

 to dart out some sparks of a free and generous mind, that 

 have no less of the sting than the honey. This guarded be 

 havior, attended with a ready disposition to vindicate them 

 selves, some men have from accident and necessity, by means 

 of somewhat inherent in their person or fortune, as we find 

 in the deformed, illegitimate, and disgraced; who, if they 

 do not want virtue, generally prove fortunate. 



The expressing or declaring of a man s self is a very dif 

 ferent thing from the showing himself, as not relating to 

 virtue, but to the particular actions of life. And here noth 

 ing is more politic than to preserve a prudent or sound mod 

 eration or medium in disclosing or concealing one s mind as 

 to particular actions. For though profound silence, the hid 

 ing of counsels, and managing all things by blind and deaf 

 artifice, is a useful and extraordinary thing; yet it often 

 happens that dissimulation produces errors which prove 

 snares. And we see that the men of greatest repute for 

 politics, scruple not openly and generously to declare their 

 ends without dissimulation: thus Sylla openly declared, 

 &quot;He wished all mortals happy or unhappy, as they were 

 his friends or enemies.&quot; 80 So Caesar, upon his first expe 

 dition into Gaul, professed &quot;he had rather be the first man 

 in an obscure village, than the second at Kome. 81 And 

 when the war was begun, he proved no dissembler, if Cicero 

 says truly of him, &quot;That he did not refuse, but in a manner 

 required to be called tyrant, as he was.&quot; 82 So we find, in 

 an epistle of Cicero to Atticus, how little of a dissembler 

 Augustus was, who, at his first entrance upon affairs, while 

 he remained the delight of the Senate, used to swear in this 

 form when he harangued the people: &quot;Ita Parentis honores 

 consequi liceat&quot; : 88 which was no less than tyranny itself. 

 It is true, to salve the matter a little, he would at those 

 times stretch his hand toward the statue of Julius Caesar 

 erected in the place, while the audience smiled, applauded, 



M .Plut. 81 Ib. 82 Epist. ad Att. x. Ep. iv. 83 B. xvi. Ep. 15. 



