Bacon's Essays, with annotations by Richard Whately and notes and a glossarial index, by Franklin Fiske Heard.

Essay xxii.] Annotations. 231' These small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite....
To these small wares, enumerated by Bacon, might be added
a very hackneyed trick, which yet is wonderfully successful,to affect a delicacy about mentioning particulars, and hint at
what you could bring forward, only you do not wish to give
offence.'We could give many cases to prove that such and
such a medical system is all a delusion, and a piece of quackery;
but we abstain, through tenderness for individuals, from bringing names before the Public.''I have observed many thingswhich, however, I will not particularize-which convince me
that Mr. Such-a-one is unfit for his office; and others have
made the same remark; but I do not like to bring them
forward,' &c. &c.
Thus an unarmed man keeps the unthinking in awe, by
assuring them that he has a pair of loaded pistols in his pocket,
though he is loth to produce them.
The following trick is supposed (for no certain knowledge
could be, or ever can be, obtained) to have been successfully
practised in a transaction which occurred in the memory of
persons now living:-A person whose conduct was about to
undergo an investigation which it could not well stand, communicated to one who was likely to be called on as a witness, all
the details-a complete fabrication-of some atrocious misconduct: and when the witness narrated the conversation,
utterly denied the whole, and easily proved that the things
described could not possibly have occurred. The result was, a
universal acquittal, and a belief that all the accusations were
the result of an atrocious conspiracy. But those who best
knew the characters of the parties, were convinced that the
witness had spoken nothing but the truth as to the alleged conversation, and had been tricked by the accused party, who had
invented a false accusation in order to defeat a true one.
One not very uncommon device of some cunning people is
an affectation of extreme simplicity; which often has the effect,
for the time at least, of throwing the company off their guard.
And their plan is to affect a hasty, blunt, and what the French
call'brusque' manner. The simple are apt to conclude that he
who is not smooth and cautious must be honest, and what they