Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/341

Rh gravers and imagers: in all which there is nothing to be seen that a man can say is done by chance or fortune, at leastwise when it is wrought absolutely and as it should be. And say that it may fall out otherwhiles that a good artisan, whether he be a cutter in brass or a mason, a smith or a carpenter, may meet with fortune and do some little thing by chance; yet the greatest pieces of work and the most number are wrought and finished respectively by their arts, which a certain poet hath given us secretly to understand by these verses:

For this Ergane (that is to say, Minerva) all artisans and artificers acknowledge and honour for their patroness, and not fortune. True it is that the report goes of a certain painter, who drawing the picture of an horse, had done very well in all respects, both in portraiture and also colours, save only that he pleased not himself in painting the foam and swelling froth which useth to gather about the bit as he champeth upon the same, and so falleth from his mouth when he snuffeth and bloweth; this, I say, he liked not, neither thought he it workmanly done, insomuch as he wiped it out many times and began it anew; but never was it to his mind; at last, in a pelting cafe because it would frame no better, he takes me his sponge full as it was of colours, and flang it against the table wherein he wrought; but see the wonderful chance; this sponge, lighting as it did upon the right place, gave such a print, and dashed so, as that it represented the froth that he so much desired most lively; and to my remembrance there is not in any history set down an artificial thing but this that fortune ever did.

Artificers use altogether in every piece of work their squires, their rules, their lines and levels; they go by measures and numbers, to the end that in all their works there should not be anything found done either rashly or at aventure. And verily these arts are petty kinds of prudence and so called; or rills and riverets flowing from prudence, or certain parcels rather of it, sprinkled and dispersed among the necessities of this life: and thus much is covertly signified by the fable of the fire that Prometheus divided by sparkles, which slew some here, some