CHAP. II. j ART OF RISING IN LIFE. 319 



it sometimes difficult for them to dissemble their thoughts; 

 BO we find Augustus Caesar, who was rather different from 

 than inferior to his uncle, though doubtless a more moderate 

 man, required his friends, as they stood about his death 

 bed, to give him their applause at his exit, m as if conscious to 

 himself that he had acted his part well upon the stage of 

 life. And this part of doctrine also is to be reckoned as 

 deficient, not but that it has been much used and beaten in 

 practice, though not taken notice of in books. Wherefore, 

 according to our custom, we shall here set down some heads 

 upon the subject, under the title of the Self-politician, or the 

 Art of rising in Life. 



It may seem a new and odd kind of thing to teach men 

 how to make their fortunes, a doctrine which every one 

 would gladly learn before he finds the difficulties of it ; for 

 the things required to procure fortune are not fewer or less 

 difficult than those to procure virtue. It is as rigid and 

 hard a thing to become a true politician as a true moralist, 

 yet the treating of this subject nearly concerns the merit 

 and credit of learning. It is of great importance to the 

 honour of learning, that men of business should know eru 

 dition is not like a lark, which flies high and delights in 

 nothing but singing, but that it is rather like a hawk, which 

 soars aloft indeed, but can stoop when she finds it convenient 

 to pounce upon her prey. Again, this also regards the per 

 fection of learning ; for the true rule of a perfect inquiry is, 

 that nothing can be found in the material globe which has not 

 its correspondent in the crystalline globe the understanding, 

 or that there is nothing found in practice which has not its 

 particular doctrine and theory. But learning esteems the 

 building of a private fortune as a work of an inferior kind ; 

 for no man s private fortune can be an end any way worthy 

 of hie existence; nay, it frequently happens that men of 

 eminent virtues renounce their fortune to pursue the things 

 of a sublimer nature. Yet even private fortune, as it is the 

 instrument of virtue and doing good, is a particular doctrine, 

 worthy of consideration. 



This doctrine has its precepts, some whereof are summary 

 or collective, and others scattered and various. The collective 

 precepts are fourclec} in a just knowledge, 1. of ourselves; 

 * Suetoniua. 



