THE SECOND BOOK 355 



And therefore those that were great politiques indeed ever 

 ascribed their successes to their felicity, and not to their 

 skill or virtue. For so Sylla sur named himself Felix , not 

 Magnus. So Caesar said to the master of the ship, 

 Caesar em portas et fortunam ejus. 



But yet nevertheless these positions, Faber quisque for- 

 tunae suae; Sapiens dominabitur astris ; Invia virtuti nulla 

 est via ; and the like, being taken and used as spurs to 

 industry, and not as stirrups to insolency, rather for 

 resolution than for presumption or outward declaration, 

 have been ever thought sound and good, and are no 

 question imprinted in the greatest minds; who are so 

 sensible of this opinion as they can scarce contain it within. 

 As we see in Augustus Caesar, (who was rather diverse 

 from his uncle than inferior in virtue,) how when he died, 

 he desired his friends about him to give him a Plaudite ; 

 as if he were conscient to himself that he had played his 

 part well upon the stage. This part of know- Faber For- 

 ledge we do report also as deficient : not but ^Ambltu 

 that it is practised too much, but it hath not **/*. 

 been reduced to writing. And therefore lest it should 

 seem to any that it is not comprehensible by axiom, it is 

 requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down some 

 heads or passages of it. 



Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted 

 argument to teach men how to raise and make their for- 

 tune ; a doctrine wherein every man perchance will be 

 ready to yield himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty : 

 for Fortune layeth as heavy impositions as Virtue ; and it 

 is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to 

 be truly moral. But the handling hereof concerneth 

 learning greatly, both in honour and in substance : in 

 honour, because pragmatical men may not go away with 

 an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount and 

 sing and please herself, and nothing else ; but may know 

 that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, 

 and can also descend and strike upon the prey : in sub- 

 stance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth, 

 that nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not 



