o undertake things beyond his strength, nor to row
against the stream.

_Third_, Not to wait for occasions always, but sometimes to challenge
and induce them, according to that saying of Demosthenes: "In the same
manner as it is a received principle that the general should lead the
army, so should wise men lead affairs," causing things to be done
which they think good, and not themselves waiting upon events.

_Fourth_, Not to take up anything which of necessity forestalls a
great quantity of time, but to have this sound ever ringing in our
ears: "Time is flying--time that can never be retrieved."

_Fifth_, Not to engage one's-self too peremptorily in anything, but
ever to have either a window open to fly out at, or a secret way to
retire by.

_Sixth_, To follow that ancient precept, not construed to any point
of perfidiousness, but only to caution and moderation, that we are to
treat our friend as if he might one day be a foe, and our foe as if he
should one day be friend.

All these Bacon called the good arts, as distinguished from the evil
arts that had been described years before by Machiavelli in his
famous book _The Prince_, and also in his _Discourses_. Bacon called
Machiavelli's sayings depraved and pernicious, and a corrupt wisdom,
as indeed they are. He was conscious that his own maxims, too, stood
in some need of elevation and of correction, for he winds up with
wise warnings against being carried away by a whirlwind or tempest
of ambition; by the general reminder that all things are vanity and
vexation of spirit, and the particular reminder that, "Being without
well-being is a curse, and the greater being, the greater curse," and
that "all virtue is most rewarded, and all wickedness most punished in
itself"; by the question, whether this incessant, restless, and, as it
were, Sabbathless pursuit of fortune, leaves time for holier duties,
and what advantage it is to have a face erected towards heaven, with a
spirit perpetually grovelling upon earth, eating dust like a serpent;
and finally, he says that it will not be amiss for men, in this eager
and excited chase of fortune, to cool themselves a little with that
conceit of Charles V. in his instructions to his son, that "Fortune
hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, who, if she be too closely
wooed, is commonly the further off."

There is Baconian humour as well as a curious shrewdness in such an
admonition as that which I will here transcribe, and the