THE SECOND BOOK 357 



ledge itself falleth not under precept, because it is of 

 individuals, yet the instructions for the obtaining of it 

 may. 



We will begin therefore with this precept, according to 

 the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness 

 of belief and distrust ; that more trust be given to coun- 

 tenances and deeds than to words; and in words, rather 

 to sudden passages and surprised words, than to set and 

 purposed words. Neither let that be feared which is said, 

 fronti nulla fides, which is meant of a general outward 

 behaviour, and not of the private and subtle motions and 

 labours of the countenance and gesture ; which as Q. 

 Cicero elegantly saith, is animijanua, the .gate of the mind. 

 None more close than Tiberius, and yet Tacitus saith of 

 Gallus, Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat. So again, 

 noting the differing character and manner of his com- 

 mending Germanicus and Drusus in the senate, he saith 

 touching his fashion wherein he carried his speech of 

 Germanicus, thus ; Magis in speciem adornatis verbis, quam 

 ut penitus sentire videretur, but of Drusus thus ; Paucioribus, 

 sed intentior, et fida oratione, and in another place, speaking 

 of his character of speech when he did any thing that was 

 gracious and popular, he saith that in other things he was 

 velut eluctantium verborum, but then again, solutius loque- 

 batur quando subveniret. So that there is no such artificer 

 of dissimulation, nor no such commanded countenance 

 (vultus jussus] that can sever from a feigned tale some of 

 these fashions, either a more slight and careless fashion, or 

 more set and formal, or more tedious and wandering, or 

 coming from a man more drily and hardly. 



Neither are deeds such assured pledges, as that they 

 may be trusted without a judicious consideration of their 

 magnitude and nature : Fraus sibi in parvis fidem praestruit, 

 ut majore emolumento fallat, and the Italian thinketh himself 

 upon the point to be bought and sold, when he is better 

 used than he was wont to be without manifest cause. For 

 small favours, they do but lull men asleep, both as to 

 caution and as to industry, and are as Demosthenes calleth 

 them, Alimenta socordiae. So again we see how false the 



