ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 257 



was his force of mind and genius, that wherever he had been 

 born he seemed formed for making his own fortune." * 



But if any one publicly professed or made open show of this 

 kind of prudence, it was always accounted not only impolitic, 

 but ominous and unfortunate, as was observed of Timotheus 

 the Athenian, who, after having performed many great exploits 

 for the honor and advantage of his country, and giving an 

 account of his conduct to the people, as the manner then was, he 

 concluded the several particulars thus : " And here fortune had 

 no share ;" after which time nothing ever succeeded in his 

 hands. This was, indeed, too arrogant and haughty, like that 

 of Pharaoh in Ezekiel : " Thou sayest, The river is mine, and I 

 made myself" \b or that of Habakkuk, " They rejoice, and sac- 

 rifice to their net" 'f or, again, that of Mezentius, who called his 

 hand and javelin his god 



" Dextra mihi deus, et telum, quod missile libro, 

 Nunc adsint;" d 



or, lastly, that of Julius Caesar, the only time that we find him 

 betraying his inward sentiments ; for when the Aruspex related 

 to him that the entrails were not prosperous, he muttered softly, 

 " They shall be better when I please," which was said not long 

 before his unfortunate death.* And, indeed, this excessive 

 confidence, as it is a profane thing, so it is always unhappy; 

 whence great and truly wise men think proper to attribute 

 all their successes to their felicity, and not to their virtue and 

 industry. So Sylla styled himself happy, not great ; and Caesar, 

 at another time, more advisedly said to the pilot, " Thou carriest 

 Caesar and his fortune." f 



But these expressions " Every one's fortune is in his own 

 hand," " A wise man shall control the stars," " Every way is 

 passable to virtue," etc. if understood, and used rather as 

 spurs to industry than as stirrups to insolence, and rather to 

 beget in men a constancy and firmness of resolution than arro- 

 gance and ostentation, they are deservedly esteemed sound and 

 wholesome ; and hence, doubtless, it is that they find reception 

 in the breasts of great men, and make it sometimes difficult for 

 them to dissemble their thoughts ; so 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 



