["Nothing can be regular that does not proceed from a fixed ground
of reason.”—­Idem, ibid., c. 26.]

No valour can be more extreme in its kind than that of Alexander:  but it is of but one kind, nor full enough throughout, nor universal.  Incomparable as it is, it has yet some blemishes; of which his being so often at his wits’ end upon every light suspicion of his captains conspiring against his life, and the carrying himself in that inquisition with so much vehemence and indiscreet injustice, and with a fear that subverted his natural reason, is one pregnant instance.  The superstition, also, with which he was so much tainted, carries along with it some image of pusillanimity; and the excess of his penitence for the murder of Clytus is also a testimony of the unevenness of his courage.  All we perform is no other than a cento, as a man may say, of several pieces, and we would acquire honour by a false title.  Virtue cannot be followed but for herself, and if one sometimes borrows her mask to some other purpose, she presently pulls it away again.  ’Tis a vivid and strong tincture which, when the soul has once thoroughly imbibed it, will not out but with the piece.  And, therefore, to make a right judgment of a man, we are long and very observingly to follow his trace:  if constancy does not there stand firm upon her own proper base,

“Cui vivendi via considerata atque provisa est,”

     ["If the way of his life is thoroughly considered and traced out.” 
     —­Cicero, Paradox, v. 1.]

if the variety of occurrences makes him alter his pace (his path, I mean, for the pace may be faster or slower) let him go; such an one runs before the wind, “Avau le dent,” as the motto of our Talebot has it.

’Tis no wonder, says one of the ancients, that chance has so great a dominion over us, since it is by chance we live.  It is not possible for any one who has not designed his life for some certain end, it is impossible for any one to arrange the pieces, who has not the whole form already contrived in his imagination.  Of what use are colours to him that knows not what he is to paint?  No one lays down a certain design for his life, and we only deliberate thereof by pieces.  The archer ought first to know at what he is to aim, and then accommodate his arm, bow, string, shaft, and motion to it; our counsels deviate and wander, because not levelled to any determinate end.  No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain, port.  I cannot acquiesce in the judgment given by one in the behalf of Sophocles, who concluded him capable of the management of domestic affairs, against the accusation of his son, from having read one of his tragedies.