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3Epicurus also says, that fortune is of little assistance to the wise, since all that is of consequence or necessary may be obtained by the exercise of the mind and understanding. The poets, not less than the philosophers, have argued in this way; and those who formerly wrote the Greek comedies delivered the same sentiments in verse; as Euchrates, Chionides, Aristophanes, and, above all, Alexis, who said, that the Athenians deserved particular commendation, since, inasmuch as the laws of all the Greeks make it imperative on children to support their parents, those of the Athenians are only obligatory on those children who have been instructed, by the care of their parents, in some art. Such as possess the gifts of fortune are easily deprived of them: but when learning is once fixed in the mind, no age removes it, nor is its stability affected during the whole course of life.
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