low, and shone on their enemies’ back), and so to shoot off before the time; or to teach dangers to come on by over early buckling towards them, is another extreme. The ripeness or unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well weighed; and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands, first to watch and then to speed; for the helmet of Pluto,211 which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the council, and celerity in the execution; for when things are once come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.
XXII.—OF CUNNING.
We take cunning for a sinister, or crooked wisdom; and, certainly, there is great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards,212 and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men. Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to understand matters; for many are perfect in men’s humors that are not greatly capable of the real part of business, which is the constitution of one that hath studied men more than books. Such men are fitter for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in their own alley. Turn them to new men, and they have lost their aim; so as the old rule, to know a fool from a wise man, “Mitte ambos nudos ad ignotos, et videbis,”213 doth scarce hold for them; and, because these cunning men are like haberdashers214 of small wares, it is not amiss to set forth their shop.
It is a point of cunning to wait upon215 him with whom you speak with your eye, as the Jesuits give it in precept; for there