Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 3.djvu/114

106 their own virtues, use to ascribe them to Providence and Fortune; for so they may the better assume them : and, besides, it is greatness in a man to be the care of the higher powers. So Cæsar said to the pilot in the tempest, Cæsarem portas, et fortunam ejus [You carry Caesar and his fortune]. So Sylla chose the name of Felix [the Fortunate], and not of Magnus [the Great]. And it hath been noted, that those who ascribe openly too much to their own wisdom and policy end infortunate. It is written that Timotheus the Athenian, after he had, in the account he gave to the state of his government, often interlaced this speech, and in this Fortune had no part, never prospered in anything he undertook afterwards. Certainly there be, whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have a slide and easiness more than the verses of other poets; as Plutarch saith of Timoleon's fortune, in respect of that of Agesilaus or Epaminondas. And that this should be, no doubt it is much in a man's self.

 

have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is a pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe. That the usurer is the greatest Sabbath-breaker, because his plough goeth every Sunday. That the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of;

[They drive away the drones, a slothful race, from the hives.] That the usurer breaketh the first law that was made for mankind after the fall, which was, in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum; not, in sudore vultus alieni [in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread — not in the sweat of another's face]. That usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, because they do judaize. That it is against nature for money to beget money; and the like. I say this only, that