Note 421 — ESSAYS. (continued 3)

“Every man is the architect of his own fortune.” Sallust, in his letters “De Republicâ Ordinandâ,” attributes these words to Appius Claudius Cæcus, a Roman poet whose works are now lost. Lord Bacon, in the Latin translation of his Essays, which was made under his supervision, rendered the word “poet” “comicus;” by whom he probably meant Plautus, who has this line in his “Trinummus” (Act ii, sc. 2): “Nam sapiens quidem pol ipsus fingit fortunam sibi,” which has the same meaning, though in somewhat different terms.