256                                HISTORY OF
 

CHAPTER IV.
 

Philosophical reflections on the folly of being happy
in times of prosperity.-—Sundry troubles on the
southern frontiers.^How William the Testy
had well nigh ruined the province through a
cabalistic word.—As also the secret expedition
of Jan Jansen Alpendam, and his astonishing
reward.

If we could but get a peep at the tally of dame
Fortune, where, like a notable landlady, she regu¬
larly chalks up the debtor and creditor accounts
of mankind, we should find that, upon the whole,
good and evil are pretty nearly balanced in this
world; and that though we may for a long while
revel in the very lap of prosperity, the time will
at length come, when we must ruefully pay off the
reckoning. Fortune, in fact, is a pestilent shrew,
and withal a most inexorable creditor; for though
she may indulge her favourites in long credits,
and overwhelm them with her favours, yet sooner
or later she brings up her arrears, with the rigour
of an experienced publican, and washes out her
scores with their tears. " Since," says good old
Boetius, " no man can retain her at his pleasure,
and since her flight is so deeply lamented, what