point of cunning to borrow the name of the world; as to say, “The world says,” or “There is a speech abroad.”
I knew one, that when he wrote a letter, he would put that which was most material in a postscript, as if it had been a by-matter.
I knew another, that when he came to have speech,220 he would pass over that that he intended most; and go forth and come back again, and speak of it as a thing that he had almost forgot.
Some procure themselves to be surprised at such times as it is like the party that they work upon will suddenly come upon them, and to be found with a letter in their hand, or doing somewhat which they are not accustomed, to the end they may be apposed of221 those things which of themselves they are desirous to utter.
It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a man’s own name, which he would have another man learn and use, and thereupon take advantage. I knew two that were competitors for the secretary’s place in Queen Elizabeth’s time, and yet kept good quarter222 between themselves, and would confer one with another upon the business; and the one of them said, that to be a secretary in the declination of a monarchy was a ticklish thing, and that he did not affect it;223 the other straight caught up those words, and discoursed with divers of his friends, that he had no reason to desire to be secretary in the declination of a monarchy. The first man took hold of it, and found means it was told the queen, who, hearing of a declination of a monarchy, took it so ill, as she would never after hear of the other’s suit.
There is a cunning, which we in England call “the turning of the cat in the pan;” which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him; and, to say truth, it is