husband and dissimulation of her son;[1] attributing arts or policy to Augustus, and dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus encourageth Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius,[2] he saith, We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius.[3] 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[4] he can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted, and what to be shewed 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 hinderance and a poorness. But if a man cannot obtain[5] 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;
- ↑ Mater impotens, uxor facilis et cum artibus mariti, simulatione filii bene composita, as a mother imperious, as a wife compliant and well matched with the subtlety of her husband and the dissimulation of her son. P. Cornelii Taciti Annalium Liber V. Fragmentum. Caput 1. Cf. Advancement of Learning. II. xxiii. 36.
- ↑ Aulus Vitellius, 15–69 A.D., Roman emperor immediately before Vespasian.
- ↑ Non adversus divi Augusti acerrimam mentem, nec adversus cautissimam Tiberii senectutem, ne contra Gai quidem aut Claudii vel Neronis fundatam longo imperio domum exsurgimus. Cornelii Taciti Historiarum Liber II. Caput 76.
- ↑ As. That.
- ↑ Obtain. To attain to; to reach; to gain; intransitive, with 'to' or 'unto.'
