bad successe of things.
The life of man is like a game at Tables; skill availes much I
grant, but that's not all: play thy game well, but that will not
winne: the chance thou throwest must accord with thy play.
Examine this; play never so surely, play never so probably,
unlesse the chance thou castest, lead thee forward to advantage,
all hazards are losses, and thy sure play leaves thee in the
lurch. The sum of this is set down in Ecclesiastes chap. 9. v.
11. The race is not to the swift, nor the battell to the strong:
neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of
understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and
chance hapeneth to them all. Our cunning Author for all his
exact rules he delivere in his books, could not fence against
the despight of Fortune, as he complaines in his Epistle to this
booke. Nor that great example of policy, Duke Valentine, whome
our Author commends to Princes for his crafts-master, could so
ruffle or force his mistresse Fortune, that he could keep her in
obedience. Man can contribute no more to his actions than vertue
and wisdome: but the successe depends upon a power above. Surely
there is the finger of god; or as Prov. 16. v. 33. 'The lot is
cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the
Lord.' It was not Josephs wisdome made all things thrive under
his hand; but because the Lord was with him; and that which he
did, the Lord made it to prosper, Gen. 39. Surely this is a
blessing proceeding from the divine providence, which beyond
humane capacity so cooperateth with the causes, as that their
effects prove answerable, and sometimes (that we may know there
is something above the ordinary causes) the success returns with
such a supereminency of worth, that it far exceeds the vertue of
the ordinary causes.

CHAP. XXVI

An Exhortation to free Italy from the Barbarians.

Having then weighed all things above discours'd, and devising with my
self, whether at this present in Italy the time might serve to honor a
new Prince, and whether there were matter that might minister occasion
to a wise and valorous Prince, to introduce such a forme, that might do
honor to him, and good to the whole generality of the people in the
countrey: me thinks so many things concurre in favor of a new Prince,
that I know not whether there were ever any time mor