himself endued with the spirit and experience of a complete captain, who had surmounted real difficulties, and intrepidly confronted real dangers; now that victory had smoothed his way, and fortune bade him advance, paused in his mid-career; fancied perils which no longer existed, and armies which had no being but in his own imagination; doubted, when he should have been confident; deliberated, where he should have been enterprising; and, finally, rejecting "the glorious golden opportunity," by a fatal, wretched affectation of prudence, lamentably contrived his own future defeat and the fall of Carthage! Thus, by a similar sort of wisdom, Pompey's oversight at Dyrra chium (where, had he but been bold, and despised "objections," the great Julius must have been irremediably undone,) drew after it, the aggrandisement of Cæsar, and his own destruction. 8. The greatest captains do never use long orations, when it comes to the point of execution. 9. A brave captain is as a root, out of which (as into branches,) the courage of his soldiers doth spring. Remark. One of the ancients used to say, that an army of stags, led by a lion, was more formidable than an army of lions, led by a stag. Without going so far, we may safely affirm that, in the crisis of a battle, confidence in a general goes a great way towards obtaining the victory. What were the Epirots without Pyrrhus? And the Carthaginians without Xantippus and Hannibal? What were the Thebans without Epaminondas; or the Macedonians without Philip and Alexander? 10. A just cause and a zealous defender, makes an imperious resolution cut off the tediousness of cautious discussions. 11. In combat, prepare your arms to fight, but not your heart to malice; since true valour needs no other whetstone than desire of ho nour. 12. Courage, without discipline, is nearer beastliness than manhood. 13. Victory, with advantage, is rather robbed than purchased. 14. Courage used to use victories as an inherit ance, can brook no resistance. 15. Over-much confidence, is an over-forward scholar of unconquered courage. 16. War ought never to be accepted, until it is offered by the hand of necessity. 17. A true knight is fuller of gay bravery in the midst than in the beginning of danger. 18. The soldier's thoughts can arm themselves better against any thing than shame. 19. The brave shew rising of courage, in the falling of fortune. He hath set the keeping or leaving of the body as a thing without himself; and so hath thereof, a free and untroubled consideration. Remark. To see a brave spirit contending with great calamities, and breasting them with an unconquered resolution, is to see him in a car of triumph. It is to behold the man, divested of the garments which adorn, or the veil that conceals him; it is to see him as he is: and to admire, venerate, and emulate a victory, which kings often essay in vain; a victory which awes oppression, commands respect, and wins the very soul of sensibility, who, like Desdemona, "Sits such things to hear; "And loves him, for the dangers he has past." With some natures such wooing "is witch craft!" 20. I do not see, but that true fortitude, look ing into all human things with a persisting resolution, carried away neither with wonder of pleasing things, nor astonishment of unpleasant, doth not yet deprive itself of discerning the difference of evil: but that rather is the only virtue, which in an assured tranquillity, shuns the greater, by the valiant entering into the less. Thus, for his country's safety, he will spend his life: for the saving of a limb, he will not niggardly spare his goods: for the saving of all his body, he will not spare the cutting of a limb; where, indeed, the weakhearted man will rather die than see the face of a surgeon; not having a heart actively to perform a matter of pain, he is forced, passively, to abide a greater damage. For to do, requires a whole heart; to suffer falleth easiliest on broken minds. Since valour is a virtue, and human virtue is ever limited, we must not run so infinitely, as to think the valiant man is |