Page:The Prince.djvu/258

Rh resistance to its fury; which however does not, when it has returned within its natural limits, hinder us from constructing dykes and banks to prevent a recurrence of similar disasters. It is the same with Fortune; she exercises her power whẹn we oppose to her no barrier.

If we cast our eyes on Italy, which has been the theatre of these changes, and which has provoked them, we shall find it to be a defenceless country. If, as is the case with Germany, Spain, and France, she was placed in a situation to resist her enemies, she would not have been invaded by foreign powers, or at least their irruptions would have been less considerable.

I will not farther pursue the general means of triumphing over bad fortune, but shall confine myself to a few particular modes. I will previously observe that it is not uncommon to see princes fall from prosperity to adversity, without our being able to attribute their fate to any change either in their conduct or their eharacter; which I think may be deduced from the causes of which I have already copiously treated, viz. that princes who rely too much on Fortune almost necessarily fall when she abandons them.

Those princes who adapt their conduct to circumstances are rarely unfortunate. Fortune is only changeable to those who cannot coform themselves to the varying exigencies of the times: