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.

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 man to
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