Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/215

Rh ''in one part or another of his Life: And the danger is the less when we are young: For having try'd it early, we shall not be apt to repeat it afterwards. Your Lordship therefore may properly be said to have chosen a Retreat; and not to have chosen it till you had maturely weigh'd the advantages of rising higher with the hazards of the fall''. Res non parta labore, sed relicta, ''was thought by a Poet, to be one of the requisites to a happy Life. Why shou'd a reasonable Man put it into the power of Fortune to make him miserable, when his Ancestours have taken care to release him from her? Let him venture, says'' Horace, Qui Zonam perdidit. ''He who has nothing, plays securely, for he may win, and cannot be poorer if he loses. But he who is born to a plentiful Estate, and is Ambitious of Offices at Court, sets a stake to Fortune, which she can seldom answer: If he gains nothing, he loses all, or part of what was once his own; and if he gets, he cannot be certain but he may refund.''

''In short, however he succeeds, tis Covetousness that induc'd him first to play, and Covetousness is the undoubted sign of ill sense at bottom. The Odds are against him that he loses, and one loss may be of more''