en, and forced to shift for themselves in a vast, dark, and
desert place, to strive and struggle with hunger, cold, desperation, and
death itself. 'Tis a patient and quiet mind (I say it again and again)
gives true peace and content. So for all other things, they are, as old
[3840]Chremes told us, as we use them.

"Parentes, patriam, amicos, genus, cognates, divitias,
Haec perinde sunt ac illius animus qui ea possidet;
Qui uti scit, ei bona; qui utitur non recte, mala."

"Parents, friends, fortunes, country, birth, alliance, &c., ebb and flow
with our conceit; please or displease, as we accept and construe them, or
apply them to ourselves." _Faber quisque fortunae suae_, and in some sort I
may truly say, prosperity and adversity are in our own hands. _Nemo
laeditur nisi a seipso_, and which Seneca confirms out of his judgment and
experience. [3841]"Every man's mind is stronger than fortune, and leads him
to what side he will; a cause to himself each one is of his good or bad
life." But will we, or nill we, make the worst of it, and suppose a man in
the greatest extremity, 'tis a fortune which some indefinitely prefer
before prosperity; of two extremes it is the best. _Luxuriant animi rebus
plerumque secundis_, men in [3842]prosperity forget God and themselves,
they are besotted with their wealth, as birds with henbane: [3843]
miserable if fortune forsake them, but more miserable if she tarry and
overwhelm them: for when they come to be in great place, rich, they that
were most temperate, sober, and discreet in their private fortunes, as
Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Heliogabalus (_optimi imperatores nisi imperassent_)
degenerate on a sudden into brute beasts, so prodigious in lust, such
tyrannical oppressors, &c., they cannot moderate themselves, they become
monsters, odious, harpies, what not? _Cum triumphos, opes, honores adepti
sunt, ad voluptatem et otium deinceps se convertunt_: 'twas [3844]Cato's
note, "they cannot contain." For that cause belike

[3845] "Eutrapilus cuicunque nocere volebat,
Vestimenta dabat pretiosa: beatus enim jam,
Cum pulchris tunicis sumet nova consilia et spes,
Dormiet in lucem scorto, postponet honestum
Officium"------

"Eutrapilus when he would hurt a knave,
Gave him gay clothes and wealth to make him brave:
Because now rich he would quite change his mind,
Keep whores, fly out, set honesty behind."

On the