this design of his, by which he stopped the private
chattering of mockers, and blunted all the point from this reproach.

As to ambition, which is neighbour, or rather daughter, to presumption,
fortune, to advance me, must have come and taken me by the hand; for to
trouble myself for an uncertain hope, and to have submitted myself to all
the difficulties that accompany those who endeavour to bring themselves
into credit in the beginning of their progress, I could never have done
it:

"Spem pretio non emo."

["I will not purchase hope with ready money," (or),
"I do not purchase hope at a price."
--Terence, Adelphi, ii. 3, 11.]

I apply myself to what I see and to what I have in my hand, and go not
very far from the shore,

"Alter remus aquas, alter tibi radat arenas:"

["One oar plunging into the sea, the other raking the sands."
--Propertius, iii. 3, 23.]

and besides, a man rarely arrives at these advancements but in first
hazarding what he has of his own; and I am of opinion that if a man have
sufficient to maintain him in the condition wherein he was born and
brought up, 'tis a great folly to hazard that upon the uncertainty of
augmenting it. He to whom fortune has denied whereon to set his foot,
and to settle a quiet and composed way of living, is to be excused if he
venture what he has, because, happen what will, necessity puts him upon
shifting for himself:

"Capienda rebus in malis praeceps via est:"

["A course is to be taken in bad cases." (or),
"A desperate case must have a desperate course."
---Seneca, Agamemnon, ii. 1, 47.]

and I rather excuse a younger brother for exposing what his friends have
left him to the courtesy of fortune, than him with whom the honour of his
family is entrusted, who cannot be necessitous but by his own fault.
I have found a much shorter and more easy way, by the advice of the good
friends I had in my younger days, to free myself from any such ambition,
and to sit still:

"Cui sit conditio dulcis sine pulvere palmae:"

["What condition can compare with that where one has gained the
palm without the dust of the course."--Horace, Ep., i. I, 51.]

judging rightly enough of my own strength, that it was not capable of any
great matters; and calling to mind the saying of the late Chancellor
Olivier, that the Fr