FORTUNE.

(Opinion of the Ancients concerning.)

If I were to collect all that they have said on this subject, I should be obliged to write a whole book on that head. I only propose to glean a few ears in this spacious field. It may be affirmed that no hypothesis is better established in the writings of the ancients, than that human industry and prudence have a much less share in events than our good or ill fortune; or in other words, an unforeseen concourse or disposition of circumstances not in the least depending upon us. “Sunt in his quidem virtutis opera magna, sed majora Fortunæ. - - - Among these, indeed, the actions of virtue are great, but those of fortune yet greater?’ Pliny speaks thus, after having related several events; but who doubts that he might have said the same of an infinite number of other particular occurrences? He lays down a little farther the same maxim, though somewhat more obscurely.

“Plurimum refert in quæ cujusque virtus tempora incident. - - - The times in which each person’s virtue happens to appear are of very great importance.” Though Quintus Curtius should not expressly tell us that Alexander’s conquests were less owing to valour than to fortune; his history alone would have sufficiently declared it. Cornelius Nepos affirms that in the division of military glory, fortune lias always the greatest share:—“Jure suo nonnulla ab Imperatore miles, plurima vero Fortuna vindicat, seque his plus valuisse quam ducis prudentiam verè potest prædicare. - - - The soldier justly claims some share with the general, but fortune much more than either, since her assistance may truly be said to be of greater consequence than his conduct.”

You may see in Mr Spanheim Spanheim sur les Cæsars de Julien, page 428 et 255. ²⁰ what Livy, Diodorus Siculus, and others, have acknowledged concerning this empire, either in express words, or by declaring that we ought not to judge of personal merit by the success of actions, which is entirely subject to fortune, but by the means that are used. Scarcely any one of the poets has expressed himself so nervously on this subject as Juvenal.

Si fortuna volet, fies de rhetore consul;
Si volet hæc eadem, fies de consule rhetor.
Vintidius quid enim? quid Tullius? anne aliud quam
Sidus et occulti miranda potentia fati?
Juven. Sat. VII. ver. 197.

'Tis fate that flings the dice; and as she flings,
Of kings makes pedants, and of pedants kings.
What made Ventidius rise, and Tullius great,
But their kind stars, and hidden power of fate?

Juvenal also says,

Plus etenim fati valet hora benigni
Quam si nos Veneris commendet epistola Marti,
Et Samia genitrix quæ delectatur arena.
Juven. Sat. XVI. ver. 4.

For one lucky hour is of more consequence to a soldier, than a recommendation to Mars, either from his mistress or his mother.

The sentiment of princes being here of greater force than that of a poet; I shall cite the answer of Dionysius the younger, when he was asked this question by Philip king of Macedon: “Wherefore did you not maintain yourself in the kingdom which your father left you?” “Do not be surprised at that,” replied he, “for my father, who left me all his other effects, did not leave me the fortune by which he acquired them.” Ælian. Div. Hist. lib. xii. cap. ix. ²¹

I might subjoin to these quotations the thoughts of several modern authors; but shall content myself with a passage in Montaigne. “It is commonly observable in human actions, that Fortune, in order to convince us of the great power she bears over all things, and of the pleasure she takes in checking our presumption, not being able to make fools wise, makes them fortunate in spite of virtue. And she is most inclined to favour those executions, where the design is more especially her own. Hence we daily see the most simple among us defeat the greatest enterprizes, both public and private. And as Sirannez the Persian answered those, who were very much surprised at the ill success of his affairs, considering that his designs were so well laid; that he alone was master of his designs, but as to the success that was in the breast of fortune; so these may answer in the same manner, but in a different sense, that the greatest part of the affairs of the world are done of themselves. “Fata viam inveniunt. Fate finds the way.”

The event frequently authorizes a very foolish conduct. Our interposition is only a thing of course, and more commonly in consideration of custom and

example than reason. When I have been astonished at the greatness of an action, and upon enquiry of those who have accomplished it, have been let into the motives and management; I have found their counsels very common, and the most vulgar and customary are perhaps also the most secure and best adapted to practice, if not for shew. — Good luck and ill luck are in my opinion two sovereign powers. It is ridiculous to think that human prudence is able to act the same part as fortune will do. And his enterprize is very vain, who presumes to secure both the causes and consequences, and lead as it were by the hand the progress of his undertaking. Vain more particularly in martial councils. Montaigne, Essays, Tom. iv. lib. iii. ch. viii. ²²”

Notwithstanding all the authorities just now cited, it is certain that several good writers have maintained that every one is the author of his own fortune, and is either miserable or happy as he acts imprudently. Plautus has laid down this maxim.

Ly. Ne opprobre, pater. Mui ta eveniunt homini quæ volt quæ nevolt.
Ph. Mentire edepol, gnate: atque id nunc facis haud consuetudine,
Nam sapiens quidem pol ipse fingit fortunam sibi.
Eo ne multa quæ nevolt eveneunt nisi sictor malu’st.
Plautus, in Trinummo, Act. ii. Sc. ii. ver. 80.

Ly. Sir, blame me not. We cannot command events.
Ph. Son, you’re mistaken: that’s a vulgar error.
A wise man always cuts out his own fortune.

Nothing proves cross but from an ill contriver.

It is also to be found as cited from an ancient poet, in a discourse attributed to Sallust; and Cornelius Nepos, alleges it twice in his life of Pomponius Atticus. Those who have exclaimed so much

against Theophrastus Vexatur idem Theophrastus et libris et scholis omnium philosophorum, quod in Callisthene suo laudaret illam sententiam. Vitam régit fortuna non sapientia. Cicero, Tusculan, lib. v. ²³ for praising the maxim, that fortune and not wisdom is the directress of life, have come very near to Plautus’s assertion. And what shall we say of Juvenal, who after having, in his 7th satire, preached up the omnipotence of fate tells us in his tenth satire that all depends on prudence?

Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia: sed te
Nos facimus, fortuna, deam cæloque locamus.

Fortune was never worshipp’d by the wise:
But, set aloft by fools, usurps the skies. Dryden.

Some moderns have approved Plautus’s opinion. Galeotto de gli Oddi pronounced an oration on this subject in the academy of the Insensati at Perugia. Regnier declares for the same opinion in one of his satires:

Nous sommes du bonheur de nous mesme artisans,
Et fabriquons nos jours ou fascheux ou plaisans.
La fortune est à nous, et n'est mauvaise ou bonne,
Que selon qu'on la forme ou bien qu'on se la donne. Regnier, Sat. XIV. ²⁴

Prosperity’s the work of our own hand,
And life is white, or black, as we command.
Fortune is but the creature of our will,
As we are pleas’d to form her, good, or ill.

Mr de Cailliere, in his book of the fortune of persons of quality maintains: that our good or ill fortune depends on our conduct, and although Mr de Silhon says, that fortune is a phantom which religion hath abolished, and whose invention was not useless since the unhappy and imprudent attribute to her the causes of their misery, and the effects of their ill conduct, yet I do not reckon him to be one of the

favourers of Plautus’s maxim; for he did not pretend, that, in order to succeed in our undertakings, it is sufficient to comport ourselves in them according to the rules of prudence, and to have a good cause. He owns a prosperity and adversity, dispensed by the providence of God, without any necessary regard to our intentions and measures. There appeared some time ago a very good book, intituled, “Reflections on what is called good or ill luck in lotteries.” Printed at Amsterdam, 1696. ²⁵ The author is undoubtedly of Plautus’s opinion; or, to speak more plainly, he does not believe that the fortunate lots run for or against certain persons with any sort of distinction. It is not therefore a general opinion that there is some unknown cause, which favours or crosses certain persons without any regard to their good or ill qualities, or the measures they take to attain their ends. But we must own, that the greatest number of suffrages is for the affirmative; however as that is no manner of proof of the truth of an opinion, I wish that some able pen would examine this subject to the bottom, and discuss what could be said on each side. In the mean time, I will here offer a few reflections.

I observe, first of all, that we ought not to imagine that the Pagans represented fortune as a being which blindly distributed good and evil, without knowing what she did. They called her blind, I own; but that was not in order to deprive her absolutely of all knowledge; it was only to signify that she did not act with a just discernment. So we say a prince is blind in the distribution of his favours, when he bestows and takes them away by caprice, and without any respect to the merits of his subjects. We do not pretend to say, that he does good or ill to such and such, without knowing that he gives or takes away the respective place from the respective person. We only mean,

that he doth not govern himself according to the rules of reason and justice, and that he is determined rashly by the instigation of his inconstant passions. This is the idea which the Heathens formed of fortune. They were all persuaded, except a few philosophers, that the Divine Nature was a sort of being divided into several individuals. They attributed to every god a large share of power; but did not exempt them from the imperfections of our nature; they believed them susceptible of anger and jealousy, literally speaking; they made no scruple to affirm, in their most serious writings, that a malignant and secret envy of the gods opposed their prosperity. They more particularly attributed to the goddess which they called Fortune, a conduct which was inconstant, rash, and capricious to the last degree. It was for this reason that an infinite number of temples were built to her, and that she was worshipped in a particular manner, in order to prevent the ill effects of her caprices. They did not therefore believe that she wanted either eyes, or ears, or thought. Those philosophers who acknowledged the unity of the deity, called that divine being Fortune, when they considered it only as a distributer of good and evil things, which did not conform itself in the least to what we call merit, constancy, or reason. But the wisest of them always owned that she never acted contrary to absolute justice, or without good reasons, which she understood very well. After all, God himself says, “That his ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts.”

My second reflexion is that, under the gospel dispensation, we attribute, to earthly benefits, all the defects which the pagans ascribed to the goddess Fortune. We say, that the possession of them is no sign of merit, that they are very fleeting and perishable, and that they miserably deceive those who rely on them, &c. It is easy to observe the reason for this diversity of language. The Christians acknowledge only one God,

and by that word they understand a nature infinitely perfect, which governs all things, and dispenses all events; but the Pagans lavished the name of God into an infinity of limited beings, imperfect, full of faults, and vicious passions. For this reason they made no scruple to charge on them the irregularities of human life, when they could not discover the cause of them amongst the free actions of men. The Christians, on the contrary, impute to the creature whatever infirmity they meet with in the universe, and ascribe to the nature of the benefit what the Pagans placed to the account of the benefactor.

In the third place, I contend that it can scarcely be denied that there are fortunate and unfortunate people; that is, according to. the Pagan language, that there are some people who are made the sport of fortune in the whole course of their affairs, whilst there are others, whose way she smooths, and takes care to show them numberless instances of her favour. Merchandise, gaming, and the court, have always furnished examples of these two things; but nothing so manifestly confirms this as the military life. It is there Fortune rules more than any where else; our Timoleon, Alexander, Sylla, Cæsar, and several other ancient warriors, have acknowledged it in the most authentic manner, and the moderns confess it also both in their memoirs and conversations. I have been told by a person of quality that the constable Wrangel assured him that nothing was more rash than to hazard a battle, which was liable to be lost by a thousand unforeseen accidents; though at the same time the most exact measures have been taken, which the most consummate military prudence can suggest. Girard, secretary to the duke of Epernon has shown, in the long life he has written of that famous favourite, so many happy events independent of precaution, that it is hardly possible to deny the truth of the popular opinion, concerning the fortune of some people. " After 5 3

this,” says the historian, “we ought not to wonder if the duke never complained of fortune in the adversity of his old age. On the contrary, some of his friends once talking on that subject, he told them that he should be very ungrateful for the benefits with which fortune had constantly favoured him for above sixty years, if he should be disgusted at her leaving him for the small time he had then to live; that he had scarcely ever observed an entire life fortunate, even when much shorter than his; and that, in the inconstant state of human affairs, it was no small advantage, that his disgraces were reserved to a time, when he was hardly any longer capable of relishing prosperity.”

My fourth reflection is, that it is very false, that what we call good fortune depends only on prudence; and that what we name ill fortune is only the result of imprudence. I freely own that the assertion of the author above cited, does not appear to me well grounded. It is not true that the winning gamester always plays better than the loser. It is not true that the merchant who grows rich always surpasses in the knowledge of trade, or industry, and circumspection, those who do not grow rich. No person is ignorant that, in those games which depend on chance, there is somewhat which contributes more to losing or winning, than whatever depends on the skill of the gamesters. There are days when a man wins large sums; this is not owing to his playing with greater application, or with a more ignorant gamester; but he has a good game; the very cards are dealt him which he wants, or the dice turn up according to his wishes. On other days he experiences quite the contrary. In the very same sitting, he finds sometimes the turn of Fortune; he is lucky in the beginning, and unlucky at the end; he loses in the last hour more than he won in all the foregoing. There are men who, immediately after they begin to play, perceive their good or

ill luck, and finding that the day does not favour them, they are so wise as not to push any farther, and give out in good time. Not that they distrust their address and capacity, but they distrust what doth not depend on their skill. This somewhat is not so apparent in trade; it is nevertheless certain, that persons of mean capacity and of very little judgment, sometimes gain immense sums by such sort of dealings, as those of better understanding and greater experience would not run the hazard of engaging in. It may be affirmed in general, that those who acquire the most riches by trade, are neither more intelligent, nor more industrious than several others, whose gain is less considerable. The latter, therefore, are not so much the favourites of Fortune as the former. Consequently, there is a good or ill fortune in human life, independent on prudence or imprudence. I do not believe the author I am at present examining, will deny this, so far as relates to play and commerce; he only had in view the fortune which people of quality may make in the service of their prince. If he only intended to advise a gentleman to choose the prudent part, I have nothing to say against his opinion; but he goes much farther; he would persuade us, that those who succeed, owe their advancement to their wise conduct only, and those who do not make their fortune, ought to impute it to their imprudence. This is what I cannot believe. I will allow him to call it wise conduct, whatever a man does to conform himself to the present circumstances, as to be a braggadocio, a debauchee, a wag, a buffoon, &c. whenever it is the certain way to please; or to pretend to be mad, when without it he cannot escape imminent dangers. David, and Brutus, and several others, have been the better for such a conduct: see Cornelius à Lepide, in lib. i, Regum, cap. xxi. I allow every thing to be called imprudence, which is contrary to the humour of the present times; as to be a very honest man in a depraved court, where there is nothing to be got by any but rascals. Notwithstanding all this, I cannot help maintaining my assertion, that the rise and fall of great men are not commonly the mere effects of prudence or imprudence. Chance, precarious accidents, and fortune, justly claim a large share. Some occurrences, which we neither contrived nor foresaw, discover the way, and make us hasten our pace. A caprice, a jealousy, which it was impossible to foresee, stops us short all of a sudden, and throws us entirely out of the way.

The better to refute M. de Cailliere, I must add here a fifth reflexion. We must not affirm that all events, being connected with a determinate cause, fortune is a chimerical being, and so that we are no otherwise fortunate or unfortunate, but as we foresee, or do not foresee, the chain of natural causes and effects. To show the nullity of this objection, I will suppose a fact not only very possible, but which may also be proved by some examples. A prince causes a town to be besieged in the middle of winter: if rain, snow, or ice, come upon him, he is not likely to take it; but if the weather be dry, and the cold moderate, he will take it. There follow several successive weeks of fine weather; no rain, no snow: the siege advances daily, and the town capitulates before the frost comes. Another prince besieges a place in the middle of summer, and is likely to take it, if the season keep its ordinary course; but it rains hard for several days; if the nights be cold, if this occasion several distempers in the camp, he will not be able to take it. There happens a reverse of seasons, the summer is cold and rainy, the trenches advance but slowly, the army grows weaker daily by the diseases which this unseasonable weather produces, he finds himself forced to raise the siege. Can you possibly ascribe the happy success of the first siege to prudence, or the ill success of the second to imprudence? This would be asserting

two absurdities: for, in the first case, there was no foreseeing the fine weather, nor the ill weather in the latter; and consequently there was no prudence in attempting the first siege, nor imprudence in undertaking the latter. It is, therefore, purely owing to good fortune that the first succeeded, as it is to be ascribed to ill luck that the latter miscarried. I know very well, that if men could foresee rain and fair weather, it would have been an act of imprudence to have formed the latter siege. The ill success, in that case, would have been a great fault, and not a misfortune; but human foresight does not extend so far, and if we be ignorant that the summer will prove rainy, it is not owing to imprudence. There are a hundred fortuitous accidents, which we can no more foresee than these, that are equally capable of disappointing the best concerted military enterprises. Now as some generals are much more frequently perplexed with these cross occurrences than others, we may reasonably acquiesce in the popular opinion, that there are fortunate and unfortunate generals. But we must not hence infer, that the fortunate are always, or almost always, as prudent as the unfortunate. On the contrary, we must believe that the latter sometimes surpass the former, both in prudence and valour. One may say of several great captains, what Florus said of Sertorius, lib. iii, cap. xxii, “ vir summæ, quidem sed calami tosæ virtutis.” ²⁶ Consult Forstnerus in his notes on a passage of Tacitus, wherein that historian assures us, that all human affairs are a continual sport. This commentator will give several illustrious examples, which prove that the best concerted designs in this world are confounded by an invisible force, which human prudence cannot guard against: this is particularly observable in the conclaves. And as for those who pretend that every person is the author of his own fortune, you may find them solidly and amply confuted, in a book of Don Lancelotti. It is intituled, "Chi l’indovina e Savio, overo la Prudenza humana fallacissima"; the author refutes in the third Disganno of the second book of the Oration of Galeotto de gli Oddi. ²⁷

Observe carefully what I am going to say. Princes commonly judge of things by the success. A general stands very well in their favour who succeeds in a military enterprise; but, if the contrary happen, he forfeits their esteem and friendship. Even when they are sensible that the victory was barely a piece of good fortune, and the defeat was not in the least owing to any fault of the general, they are always more disposed to prefer the victor than the vanquished; for with them, to be fortunate, is a recommendatory character; as on the other side, an unfortunate, though shining merit, is but a disagreeable quality. Since, therefore, battles are lost and won by unforeseen accidents, it is clear that misfortunes happen independently on imprudence, and that some make their fortune independently on prudence. A lucky rashness, you will tell me, doth not deserve the name of temerity; for since it has succeeded, it is a sign that it was proper to produce its wished effect. Now wherein does prudence consist? Is it not in making use of proper means to accomplish our designs? My answer is, that to act prudently, we ought to know that the means we use are proportioned to the end. A rash fortunate man is unacquainted with this proportion; he is hurried on by an impetuous fury; there appears nothing in his conduct but what is to be met with in that of the rash unfortunate; and therefore the success of the enterprize ought not to be ascribed to prudence but to fortune. Observe also another thing; it is no manner of imprudence not to be precautioned against those things which human capacity

cannot discover, and consequently if a person do not succeed at court, or if he lose the fortune he has already made, it is not always to be attributed to imprudence. Is it possible for him to discover all the caprices, disgusts and jealousies that arise in the mind either of a monarch, or of his mistresses or favourites? Can he discover all the grimaces of false friends, obviate their calumnies, and prevent their lies and false reports which wound without threatening. This was the confession of a great minister, whose genius was not less than his authority. “In the post which you are in,” said Cardinal Richelieu to Mr de Fabert, who was Marshal of France, “it is easy for you to know your friends and your enemies. No disguise can conceal them from your discernment; but with respect to mine, in the post which I hold, I cannot penetrate into their sentiments, they all speak to me in the same language. They all make the same earnest court to me, and those who would ruin me, give me as great marks of amity, as those who are sincerely attached to my interests;” Histoire de Maréchal de Fabert, p. 53. ²⁸ Reignier, in the satire already cited, tells us:

La faveur est bizarre, à traicter indocile,
Sans arrest, inconstante et d’humeur difficile,
Avecq' discrétion il la faut caresser,
L’un la perd bien souvent pour la trop embrasser,
Ou pour s’y fier trop, l’autre par insolence,
Ou pour avoir trop peu ou trop de violence,
Ou pour se la promettre ou se la denier,
Enfin c’est un caprice étrange à manier,
Son amour est fragile, et se rompt comme verre,
Et fait aux plus matois donner du nez en terre.
Regnier, Satire XIV.

Most fickle is the favour of the great,
Unsteady, whimsical, and strange to treat.
Men ne’er can be enough upon their guard,
Some lose her by caressing her too hard;

Some by dependence; some by insolence;
Some by too much, or little violence;
Some by presumption, some by self-denial;
In short, she’ll baulk your skill on ev’ry trial.
Brittle as glass itself, she's quickly broke;
Nor can the wisest ward the fatal stroke.

Let us then take it for granted, that the prudence of a man is not the sole nor even the principal cause of his fortune. There are some fortunate people, whose conduct is very imprudent: and others unfortunate, though their conduct is prudent. The difficulty is to know what this fortune is, which favours some people and persecutes others, without regard to their merit or the measures they take. To recur to God, is not to remove the difficulty; for acknowledging him the general cause of all things, it will be asked whether he directs immediately, and by particular acts of his will, all those unforeseen occurrences which cause the designs of one man to succeed, and confound the enterprizes of another. If you answer in the affirmative you will bring all the philosophers, especially the Cartesians on your back, who will maintain that you attribute a conduct to the Supreme Being, which is inconsistent with an infinite agent. He ought, they will tell you, to establish a few general laws, and by this means produce an infinite variety of events, without recurring every moment to exceptions, or particular acts, which must needs be miracles, though we should not call them so, because they would be so frequent. You may indeed reply to them, that the occurrences favourable to the fortunate, and contrary to the unfortunate, are a natural consequence of general laws; but they will not easily believe you. You will never be able to persuade me, that chance can produce what I am about to say. Let a hundred tickets well sealed be ranged in order on a table; let ten of them be blanks, and ten of them marked with the letter A, and write

a sentence on all the rest; then let ten men be called in, and one of them directed to take up the 1, the 15, the 21, the 37, the 44, the 68, the 80, the 83, the 90, and the 99. Let another be ordered to take the 3, the 6, the 13, the 25, the 50, the 73, the 88, the 89, the 95, and the 100. Tell me, I pray, if the first of these men draw the ten blank tickets, and the other the ten marked A, can you ever hope to persuade me that this was the result of the general laws of the communication of motion? Do you not yourself perceive that these twenty tickets were placed in such an order, that one half of them by a premeditated design, should fall entirely into the hands of the first of these ten men, and the other into the hands of the second? I say also, that supposing certain gamesters had always, or almost always the best cards, or in general, that certain persons almost always favoured by accidental occurrences; this would require something besides the natural result of the communication of motion, it must proceed from a particular direction and determination; and I should rather choose with several learned men to deny the distinction of good or ill fortune, than to explain it only by the general laws of nature. But we argue here on the hypothesis, that there are fortunate and unfortunate people.

Cannot we recur to occasional causes, I mean, to the desires of some created spirits? Platonism might easily be brought to favour such an explication; but it is opposed by strong arguments, according to the idea which theology gives us of the angelical nature. This teaches us that the angels are some of them perfectly good, and others extremely wicked, and both endowed with an almost unlimited knowledge, under the general direction of God. This idea cannot easily be reconciled to the particular train of fortunate or unfortunate occurrences. But confining ourselves to hypotheses purely philosophical,

we shall be better able to answer these objections, if we suppose for example, that the invisible spirits are more different from one another, than men are amongst themselves; that there is a great subordination amongst these spirits; and that there are some who are sometimes good and sometimes evil, sometimes in a good humour, and sometimes in an ill one; that they are fantastical, inconstant, jealous, envious, that they thwart one another, that their power is very much limited in certain respects, and that if they can perform a thing which is very difficult, it does not hence follow that they can accomplish a thing which is much easier. Do not we see countrywomen ignorant of the alphabet, who know a thousand excellent secrets to cure diseases? Archimedes who invented such admirable engines, could he sow? could he spin? However it be, there is no fortune without the direction of an intelligent cause, but even if there were no Providence, but only a fortuitous effusion of good and evil throughout the universe, it must happen that some men would find themselves in happy circumstances, arid others the contrary.

My last reflection is, that men usually are excessive in their murmurs against fortune; for very often they impute to her what they ought to charge on their own imprudence. Homer was not ignorant of this fault, for he introduces the gods complaining of this injustice of men:—

Perverse mankind! whose wills, created free,
Charge all their woes on absolute decree;
All to the dooming gods their guilt translate,
And follies are miscall’d the crimes of fate. Homer, Odyss. lib. i, ver. 32. ²⁹
Pope.

La Fontaine hath ingeniously described the same injustice, but may it not be pretended, that on several occasions the person who is unhappy by his own fault, has not a less right to complain of fortune, than the

unfortunate who has punctually discharged his duty? May we not say that this power, which we call fortune, occasions misery two ways? She sometimes permits a man to use all the means which prudence can suggest, and yet deprives him of the success he ought to expect; she pleases herself with this, in order to shew her superiority, and the insufficiency of our reason and of human wisdom. Sometimes also she plunges men into misery, by obstructing their use of the means which might have preserved them from it: she confounds their judgment, and hurries them on to irreparable mistakes. It was probably thus that she irretrievably ruined the affair of Pompey. She had declared for Julius Cæsar, and procured for him the triumph, by allowing him to act agreeably to all the qualifications of a great commander, and by eclipsing in Pompey’s soul those eminent qualities which he possessed. They did not appear at the battle of Pharsalia; Pompey there shewed himself a weak man, and an unskilful general. Was not this eclipse supernatural? Was it not the influence of some superior force, which had designed to raise Cæsar on the ruins of his competitor? Velleius Paterculus declares that when the destinies are resolved to ruin a man, they deprive him of prudence: Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii, cap. lvii. ³⁰ “Sed profecto ineluctabilis fatorum vis cujuscunque fortunam mutare constituit, consilia corrumpit . . . Id. ibid. cap. cxviii. ³¹ sed prævalebant jam fata consiliis omnemque animi ejus aciem præstrinxerant. Quippe ita se res habet, ut plerumque fortunam mutaturus deus, consilia corrumpat, efficiatque, quod miserrimum est, ut quod accidit, id etiam merito accidisse videatur, & casus in culpam transeant.—But indeed the irresistible power of fate designs a reverse of fortune, and corrupts their counsels: . . . . But now fate over-ruled their counsels, and clouded their understandings; for so it is, that when God intends a reverse of fortune, he generally corrupts human counsels, and so orders it, which is the most miserable circumstance, that what happens shall seem to have happened deservedly, and that the accident shall be construed into a fault.” The sentiment of this grave historian was very common amongst the Pagans; and every day we use this saying as a proverb, “quos Jupiter vult perdere prius dementat. Those whom Jupiter marks out for destruction, he first deprives of their understanding” A certain writer having to prove that it is possible for two authors to express the same thought without borrowing from one another, cites Philip de Commines, who without ever hearing of Paterculus’s name, yet said, as well as he, that when God begins to chastise princes, he first lessens their sense, and makes them avoid the counsels and company of the wise. I shall cite an excellent passage 'of Ammianus Marcellinus: “Ut soient manum injectantibus fatis hebetari sensus hominum & obtundi, his illecebris ad meliorum exspectationem erectus, egressusque Antiochiâ numine lævo ductante, prorsus ire tendebat de fumo, ut proverbium loquitur vetus, ad flammam. Amm. Marcell. lib. xiv, cap. xi, pag. m. 55. ³² ---- As men’s senses use to be clouded and stupified by the controuling power of fate, being encouraged by these inducements to hope for better things, and going out of Antioch under the conduct of his evil genius, he went as the proverb says, out of the smoke into the fire.” A little after speaking of Nemesis, he tells us that she turns men out of their way, and perverts the ends and designs of men: “Hæc ut regina causarum & arbitra rerum ac disceptatrix, urnam fortium temperat, accidentium vices alternans: voluntatumque nostrarum exorsa interdum alio, quàm quo contendebant, exitu terminans, multiplices actus permutando convolvit. Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii, cap. lvii. ³³— She, as queen, arbiter and disposer of causes and things presides over the turn of lots, varying accidents at her pleasure: and terminating very often what our wills had begun, with a conclusion quite different from that to which they were directed, makes a strange jumble and confusion in things.” She does not always effect this by error, she sometimes makes use of mere ignorance. What I call error is that false judgment which our mind makes of things, in comparing them together, and choosing the worst; and I call that ignorance, when a man is in such a state, that the necessary ideas do not offer themselves to his imagination. Now when he takes the wrong side, either by rejecting the proper means actually present to his mind, or by reason of the absence of those ideas, which ought to have presented those means to him, he passes for imprudent; but it is certain, that in the first case imprudence is more voluntary than in the second, and consequently more to be condemned. Several philosophers assert, that what is called pure omission is never free. Who would venture to maintain that we are masters of our memory, and that it is a moral fault not to remember certain things upon any occasion when we ought to remember them to conduct us in our deliberations? Those who acknowledge the empire of Fortune, would, I think, be unreasonable, if they supposed that she doth not influence our forgetfulness or omissions: for, on the contrary, it is by them that she frequently occasions our ill success. She removes those ideas which would naturally occur to us, and hinder our committing faults. How often has it happened that a man of judgment has very much prejudiced himself by the answers he has made to several questions proposed to him? All those to whom he relates the questions, ask why he did not make such an answer? He is immediately convinced that he should have done it. He owns it; he is surprised that he did not think of it; he protests that on all other occasions this idea must necessarily have occurred to him, so natural does he find it, so easy, and exactly conformable to common sense. Nevertheless, he is convinced that he did not in the least think of it, and that even the most confused notion of it never reached his thoughts. Why will you not allow him to believe that his ill fortune presided over this forgetfulness, and purposely directed it? Our divines do not deny that providence sometimes blinds men with respect to omissions, as well as with regard to actual judgment. Plutarch would never allow this doctrine, for he very strongly recommends to those who read the poets, the rectifying of all those passages which represent the gods deceiving us, and instigating us to evil. He particularly warns us of the verses in Euripides thus translated:—

The gods, whose nature pow’r superior knows,
By various frauds on man's weak mind impose.

He is so far from owning that a divine power influences us to choose the wrong way, while at the same time we know the right way, that he would have us ascribe it to a brutal passion.

Alas! from heaven to man all ill ensues,
We see the good, but want the pow’r to choose.

“So far is this from being true,” says Plutarch, “that evil is beastly, brutish, and wretched, instead of heavenly; and it is our intemperance and folly that hurry us away to ill, while the good is full in our view.” But how solid soever these reflections of Plutarch may be in some respects, we ought always to remember that our theology, and the universal language of all Christians, founded on all passages of holy writ, lay it down as a certain truth, that the blindness of man, his rashness, folly, and cowardice, are frequently

the effect of a particular providence, which inflicts them on him as a punishment; and that his prudence, his wise answers to questions, his resolution, and his understanding, are favours inspired by providence, in order to his preservation and prosperity. The heathens were not ignorant of this doctrine; for we find that Manlius declared to the Roman citizens that, if if the gods prevented his ruin, it would not be by descending on earth, but by inspiring the Romans with a wise resolution, as they had inspired him with that valour and courage which saved the republic: “Benè facitis quôd abominamini; dii prohibebunt hæc: zed nunquam propter me de cœlo descendent: vobis dent mentem oportet, ut prohibeatis: sicut mihi dederunt armato togatoque, ut vos à barbaris hostibus, à superbis defenderem civibus. Titus Livius, lib. vi. ³⁴ - - -You do well in declaring your abhorrence: the gods will prevent these measures; but they will never descend from heaven for my sake: let them give you the courage to prevent them, as they did me, both armed and unarmed, to preserve you from barbarian enemies, and haughty fellow-citizens.”

Let me farther observe that, if on the one side, we call that ill fortune, which is sometimes the natural consequence of imprudence, on the other side, we name that good fortune, which is sometimes the result of prudence. We have seen some men so rash in their conduct, that there was no room to doubt but that it would end in some cruel mortification; they attacked and fell foul of all the world, and if the first engagement discovered them to be wrong-headed, the following were only a long train of rash, irregular and violent sallies. According to all rules, these men ought to have been shamefully crushed, and nevertheless we have seen them triumph, or at least retire from the battle without any mark of dishonour. This is a great piece of good fortune, say some. But it is

certain that some stratagem, some refined stroke of policy, had a greater share in this good success than fortune. These pretended rash men had taken their measures long before hand, with a great deal of prudence; they had rendered themselves necessary to those who were capable of extricating them out of every embarrassment. They had found the secret of being subservient either to their private pleasures or ambition. The circumstances of the times favoured them; the trade of directing spies, or some other secret service, was of extraordinary use. They were sure of succeeding in their unreasonable quarrels; they did not therefore act rashly.

To conclude, Cardinal Richelieu would not allow any other cause of unhappiness than imprudence. Mr Auberi informs us of this particular. He says that Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke d’Olivarez, two prime ministers, the one of France, the other of Spain, were rivals and antagonists; that their power was much of an equal duration; that they were compared to two stars of the first, or at least of the second, magnitude, which drew on them the eyes, the esteem, and admiration, of all Christendom. That the cardinal was first eclipsed by a natural death, the 4th of December, 1642; and that the other enjoyed the advantage of shining alone, not above five or six weeks, being disgraced the 17th of January, 1643. The motive or pretext of his disgrace was the ill success which accompanied all his enterprizes. This was in effect accusing him of imprudence. In Cardinal Richelieu’s opinion, imprudent and unfortunate are but two words to express the same thing. Thus he willingly put in practice one of his most constant maxims, which was, to give it you in his own terms; “That in state-affairs it is impossible to be over-cautious, to look out for too great security. That a statesman, if he can, ought always to have two strings to his bow; that to succeed he ought not to take too

exact measures, but that in order to do much, he ought to exert himself, and make preparation for doing yet more: that, in a word, in all important affairs, if he did not take those measures which seemed too extensive in theory, he would always find them too short in practice.” It is hard to believe that the cardinal, on occasion of the failure of success in some of his enterprizes, never acknowledged that he had, notwithstanding, taken all those measures which prudence could suggest. If, therefore, on such occasions he thought himself guilty of some imprudence, he extended the idea of prudence beyond its true bounds; for if he believed that those who trust a man who deceives them are imprudent, he supposed prudence to comprehend the certainty of events which depend on free-will; but that is a palpable error. There are persons who have given so many successive proofs of their fidelity, and in so signal a manner, that one may trust them in an important affair without the least shadow of imprudence, and yet they may discharge their duty very ill; begin their treachery on this occasion, and betray their trust. It would be requiring a more than human knowledge from a prime minister, to pretend that he has rashly and imprudently relied on this man; that it is not his misfortune, but his fault, if the affair miscarry, since he ought to have been aware of the inward change of this person. You see, then, that this question is liable to several equivocations or disputes about words. The ill fortune of an enterprise is always attended with some want of knowledge. If, indeed, you call this imprudence, and will argue in consequence of this definition, you may fully and without reserve maintain Cardinal Richelieu’s position; but your definition will be false, and, at the bottom, you will agree with your adversary.—Art. Timoleon.