winds. King Philip did not detract from the nation,
when he said, he sent his armada to fight with men,
and not to combat with the winds. Where there is a
manifest disproportion between the powers and forces
of two several agents, upon a maxim of reason we may
promise the victory to the superior: but when unex-
pected accidents slip in, and unthought-of occurrences
intervene, these must proceed from a power that owes
no obedience to those axioms; where, as in the writing
upon the wall, we may behold the hand, but see not
the spring that moves it. The success of that petty
province of Holland (of which the Grand Seignior
proudly said, if they should trouble him, as they did
the Spaniard, he would send his men with shovels and
pickaxes, and throw it into the sea) I cannot altogether
ascribe to the ingenuity and industry of the people, but
the mercy of God, that hath disposed them to such a
thriving genius; and to the will of his providence, that
disposeth her favour to each country in their preordinate
season. All cannot be happy at once; for, because the
glory of one state depends upon the ruin of another,
there is a revolution and vicissitude of their greatness,
and must obey the swing of that wheel, not moved by
intelligencies, but by the hand of God, whereby all
estates arise to their zenith and vertical points, accord-
ing to their predestinated periods. For the lives, not
only of men, but of commonwealths and the whole
world, run not upon a helix that still enlargeth; but
on a circle, where, arriving to their meridian, they
decline in obscurity, and fall under the horizon again.