“Fortuna vitrea est:  turn, quum splendet, frangitur,”

     ["Fortune is glass:  in its greatest brightness it breaks.” 
     —­Ex Mim.  P. Syrus.]

and to turn all our barricadoes and bulwarks topsy-turvy, I find that, by divers causes, indigence is as frequently seen to inhabit with those who have estates as with those that have none; and that, peradventure, it is then far less grievous when alone than when accompanied with riches.  These flow more from good management than from revenue;

“Faber est suae quisque fortunae”

          ["Every one is the maker of his own fortune.” 
          —­Sallust, De Repub.  Ord., i.  I.]

and an uneasy, necessitous, busy, rich man seems to me more miserable than he that is simply poor.

     “In divitiis mopes, quod genus egestatis gravissimum est.”

     ["Poor in the midst of riches, which is the sorest kind of poverty.” 
     —­Seneca, Ep., 74.]

The greatest and most wealthy princes are by poverty and want driven to the most extreme necessity; for can there be any more extreme than to become tyrants and unjust usurpers of their subjects’ goods and estates?

My second condition of life was to have money of my own, wherein I so ordered the matter that I had soon laid up a very notable sum out of a mean fortune, considering with myself that that only was to be reputed having which a man reserves from his ordinary expense, and that a man cannot absolutely rely upon revenue he hopes to receive, how clear soever the hope may be.  For what, said I, if I should be surprised by such or such an accident?  And after such-like vain and vicious imaginations, would very learnedly, by this hoarding of money, provide against all inconveniences; and could, moreover, answer such as objected to me that the number of these was too infinite, that if I could not lay up for all, I could, however, do it at least for some and for many.  Yet was not this done without a great deal of solicitude and anxiety of mind; I kept it very close, and though I dare talk so boldly of myself, never spoke of my money, but falsely, as others do, who being rich, pretend to be poor, and being poor, pretend to be rich, dispensing their consciences from ever telling sincerely what they have:  a ridiculous and shameful prudence.  Was I going a journey?  Methought I was never enough provided:  and the more I loaded myself with money, the more also was I loaded with fear, one while of the danger of the roads, another of the fidelity of him who had the charge of my baggage, of whom, as some others that I know, I was never sufficiently secure if I had him not always in my eye.  If I chanced to leave my cash-box behind me, O, what strange suspicions and anxiety of mind did I enter into, and, which was worse, without daring to acquaint anybody with it.  My mind was eternally taken up with such things as these, so that, all things