CHARLES THE FIRST AND LORD FALKLAND. 13 



jEneid opened the volume ad aperturam lilrri, anywhere, at 

 random, when the first passage that accidentally struck the eye was 

 carefully read and pondered with as little reference as possible to 

 its immediate context, and a meaning extracted from it which was 

 supposed to indicate the issue of the event in hand, and which was 

 to be considered inevitable and irrevocable as the fates had so 

 decreed. A man with the knowledge thus obtained could not by 

 a"ny precaution or change of conduct avert the impending doom, 

 good or evil ; he could only put his house in order, and so arrange 

 matters the best way he could ; that if evil came it might be borne 

 with dignity and patience ; if good, that it might be enjoyed with 

 moderation and devout gratitude to the gods. It is said that at the 

 outbreak of the troubles that culminated in the Commonwealth, 

 Charles L and Lord Falkland found themselves on a certain 

 day in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, when the latter jocularly 

 proposed that they should inform themselves of their future fortunes 

 by means of the Sortes Virgiliance ; and certainly, read by the light 

 of after events, it must be confessed that the passages stumbled 

 upon seem singularly ominous of the fate that overtook both. The 

 passage read by the Martyr King was from the fourth book of the 

 ^Eneid, and is as follows : 



" At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis, 

 Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus luli, 

 Auxilium imploret, videatque, indigna suorum 

 Funera : nee, cum se sub leges pacis iniquae 

 Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur, 

 Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena.*' 



Which Dryden, if with rather too much amplification, still very 

 beautifully translates thus : 



" Yet let a race untamed and haughty foes 

 His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, 

 Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, 

 His men discouraged and himself expell'd : 



