uishers insolence, would recall them: which course when
the others faile, is good: but very ill is it to leave the other
remedies for that: for a man wou'd never go to fall, beleeving another
would come to take him up: which may either not come to passe, or if it
does, it is not for thy security, because that defence of his is vile,
and depends not upon thee; but those defences only are good, certaine,
and durable, which depend upon thy owne selfe, and thy owne vertues.

CHAP. XXV

How great power Fortune hath in humane affaires, and what meanes there
is to resist it.

It is not unknown unto me, how that many have held opinion, and still
hold it, that the affaires of the world are so governd by fortune, and
by God, that men by their wisdome cannot amend or alter them; or rather
that there is no remedy for them: and hereupon they would think that it
were of no availe to take much paines in any thing, but leave all to be
governd by chance. This opinion hath gain'd the more credit in our
dayes, by reason of the great alteration of things, which we have of
late seen, and do every day see, beyond all humane conjecture: upon
which, I sometimes thinking, am in some parte inclind to their opinion:
neverthelesse not to extinguish quite our owne free will, I think it may
be true, that Fortune is the mistrisse of one halfe of our actions; but
yet that she lets us have rule of the other half, or little lesse. And I
liken her to a precipitous torrent, which when it rages, over-flows the
plaines, overthrowes the trees, and buildings, removes the earth from
one side, and laies it on another, every one flyes before it, every one
yeelds to the fury thereof, as unable to withstand it; and yet however
it be thus, when the times are calmer, men are able to make provision
against these excesses, with banks and fences so, that afterwards when
it swels again, it shall all passe smoothly along, within its channell,
or else the violence thereof shall not prove so licentious and hurtfull.
In like manner befals it us with fortune, which there shewes her power
where vertue is not ordeind to resist her, and thither turnes she all
her forces, where she perceives that no provisions nor resistances are
made to uphold her. And if you shall consider Italy, which is the seat
of these changes, and that which hath given them their motions, you
shall see it to be a plaine field, without any trench or bank; which had
it been fenc'd with convenient