THE SECOND BOOK 209 



obedient to occasion ; for nothing hindereth men s 

 fortunes so much as this : * Idem manebat, neque idem 

 decebat, men are where they were, when occasions 

 turn : and therefore to Cato, whom Livy maketh such 

 an architect of fortune, he addeth that he had versatile 

 inqenium. And thereof it cometh that these grave 

 solemn wits, which must be like themselves and cannot 

 make departures, have more dignity than felicity. But 

 in some it is nature to be somewhat viscous and in- 

 wrapped, and not easy to turn. In some it is a conceit 

 that is almost a nature, which is, that men can hardly 

 make themselves believe that they ought to change their 

 course, when they have found good by it in former 

 experience. For Machiavel noted wisely, how Fabius 

 Maximus would have been temporizing still, according 

 to his old bias, when the nature of the war was altered 

 and required hot pursuit. In some other it is want of 

 point and penetration in their judgement, that they 

 do not discern when things have a period, but come in 

 too late after the occasion ; as Demosthenes compareth 

 the people of Athens to country fellows, when they play 

 in a fence school, that if they have a blow, then they 

 remove their weapon to that ward, and not before. In 

 some other it is a loathness to leese labours passed, and 

 a conceit that they can bring about occasions to their 

 ply ; and yet in the end, when they see no other remedy, 

 then they come to it with disadvantage ; as Tarquinius, 

 that gave for the third part of Sibylla s books the treble 

 price, when he mought at first have had all three for 

 the simple. But from whatsoever root or cause this 

 restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most pre 

 judicial ; and nothing is more politic than to make the 

 wheels of our mind concentric and voluble with the 

 wheels of fortune. 



34. Another precept of this knowledge, which hath 

 some affinity with that we last spake of, but with differ 

 ence, is that which is well expressed, Fatis accede 

 deisque, that men do not only turn with the occasions, 

 but also run with the occasions, and not strain their 

 credit or strength to over-hard or extreme points ; but 



