as by his speech. As for
equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long. So that
no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of
dissimulation; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy.

But for the third degree, which is Simulation and false profession:
that I hold more culpable and less politic, except it be in great and
rare matters. And therefore a general custom of simulation (which is
this last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness or
fearfulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults; which because a
man must needs disguise, it maketh him practice simulation in other
things, lest his hand should be out of use.

The great advantages of simulation and dissimulation are three. First,
to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise; for where a man's intentions
are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against them. The
second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat; for if a man
engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through or take a
fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another; for to
him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves adverse, but will
fair let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom of
thought. And therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard,
"Tell a lie and find a troth;" as if there were no way of discovery but
by simulation. There be also three disadvantages to set it even. The
first, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a show
of fearfulness; which in any business doth spoil the feathers of round
flying up to the mark. The second, that it puzzleth and perplexeth the
conceits of many that perhaps would otherwise co-operate with him, and
makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends. The third and greatest
is, that it depriveth a man of one of the most principal instruments for
action; which is trust and belief. The best composition and temperature
is, to have openness in fame and opinion; secrecy in habit;
dissimulation in seasonable use; and a power to feign if there be
no remedy.

OF TRAVEL

From the 'Essays'

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a
part of experience. He that traveleth into a country before he hath some
entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. That
young men travel under some tutor or grave servant, I allow well: so
that he be such a one that hath the la