1 791' OMENS, ALBANICUS. 279 



! Hickes to Dr Charlett, dated January 23, 1710-ir, 

 from which the following pafTage was tranfcribed : 



" I can defer fending my humble thanks no longer 

 for your kind new-year's gift, the ftately almanack, an4 

 the Orationes ex Poetis Latinis i where, after looking 

 upon the title-page, I happened to dip in p. 46. where 

 I call my eye on the Sortes Virgiliana of Charles I. 

 At bello audacis populi vexatis, &c. 



" This gave me fome melancholy reflections for an 

 hour or two, and made me call to my mind the omens 

 that happened at the coronation of his fon James II. 

 which I faw, viz. the tottering of his crown upon his 

 head, the broken canopy over it, and the rent flag hang- 

 ing upon the White Tower over againft my door, when 

 I came home from the coronation. It was torn by the 

 wind, at the fame time the fignal was given to the 

 Tower that he was crowned. I put no great ftrefs 

 upon omens, but I cannot defpife them. Moft of them, 

 I believe, come by chance, but fome from fuperior in- 

 telledlual agents, efpecially thofe which regard the fate 

 of nations." 



General Burgoyne, who was chairman of the com- 

 mittee of the Houfe of Commons, when the plunder- 

 ers and oppreflbrs of the Eafl were fuff>;red to pafs un- 

 punifhed, was the firft Britifli general who was forced 

 to behold a Britifti army pile their arms to rebellious 

 fubje£ts. 



Scotland was the great abettor of the unjuft war 

 with the American colonies, and on St. Andrew's day 

 the Parliament of England pafled the refolution to re- 

 duce America to obedience by force. On the fame 

 annivcrfary, did the whole power of Britain by its re- 

 prefentative at Paris fign the preliminary articles, by 

 which America was acknowledged to be a fovereign 

 and independent nation, and the great Franklin figned 

 the definitive treaty on the 23J of January, in the 

 fame drcfs he had been infulted in the Houfe of Lords, 

 that day being alio the anniverfary of the motion of 



