II.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 231 



own defects, in seeming to conceive that he is best in those things 

 wherein he is failing ; and, to help that again, to seem on the other 

 side that he hath least opinion of himself in those things wherein he 

 is best ; like as we shall see it commonly in poets, that if they show 

 their verses, and you except to any, they will say,&quot; that that line cost 

 them more labour than any of the rest ; &quot; and presently will seem to 

 disable and suspect rather some other line, which they know well 

 enough to be the best in the number. But above all, in this righting 

 and helping of a man s self in his own carriage, he must take heed he 

 show not himself dismantled, and exposed to scorn and injury, by too 

 much dulrvncss, goodness, and facility of nature, but show some 

 sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge: which kind of fortified carriage, 

 with a ready rescuing of a man s self from scorns, is sometimes of 

 necessity imposed upon men by somewhat in their person or fortune, 

 but it e\x. succcedcth with good felicity. 



Another precept of this knowledge is, by all possible endeavour to 

 frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion ; for nothing 

 hindereth men s fortunes so much as this : &quot; Idem mancbat, ncquc idem 

 deccbat.&quot; Men arc where they were, when occasions turn ; and there 

 fore to Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he 

 addcth, that he had versatile ingcniitin. And thereof it comcth, 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\\ rapped, 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 

 notcth 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 penetra 

 tion in their judgment, that they do not discern when things have a 

 period, but come in too late after the occasion ; as Demosthenes com- 

 parcth 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 loalhncss to lose 

 labours passed, and a conceit that they can bring about occasions to 

 their ply ; and yet in the end, when they sec 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 might at first 

 have had all three for the simple. But from whatsoever root or cause 

 this rcstivcness of mind procccdcth, it is a thing most prejudicial, 

 and nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our mind con 

 centric and voluble with the wheels of fortune. 



Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity with 

 that we last spake of, but with difference, is that which is well expressed 

 &quot; fatis accede dcisque,&quot; 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 choose in their action that which 

 IS most passable : for this will preserve men from foil, and not occupy 



