318 ABVANCEMEin' OP LEARNING. [eOOK VIIL 



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 honour and advantage of 

 his country, and giving an account of his conduct to tho 

 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 my- 

 self ;"s or that of Habakkuk, "They rejoice, and sacrifice 

 to their net;"^ or, again, that of Mezentius, who called his 

 hand and javelin his god; 



** Dextra mihi deus, et telum, quod missile libro. 

 Nunc adsint ;"* 



or, lastly, that of Julius Csesar, 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 deaths 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 Csesar, at another time, more ad- 

 visedly said to the pilot, " Thou earnest Csesar and his for- 

 tune."'i 



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

 own hand," " A Avise man shall control the stars," " Every 

 way is passable to virtue," &c., — 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 resolu- 

 tion than arrogance and ostentation, they are deservedly 

 esteemed sound and wholesome ; and lience, doubtless, it is 

 that they find reception in the breasts of great men, and make 



' Plut. Sylla. s Ezek. xxix. 3. »» Habak. i. 15. 



' u^neid, x. 773. •' Suetonhis. 



* Plutarch. Compare with this a curious letter from Cato to Cicero 

 (ap. Cic. ad Fam. xv. 5), wherein he says, " Supplicationem decretam, si 

 tu, qu& in re nihil fortuito, sed sumraa tua ratione et continentia reipub- 

 licae, pro visum est diis immortal ibus gratulari nos quam tibi referre 

 Rcceptum mavis gati ieo," 



