BOOK II.] History of Nature. 69 



think, of sundry Causes, which the Wit of ingenious Men is 

 able to devise. They have, indeed, been Forerunners of ex- 

 ceeding great Miseries ; but I suppose those Calamities to 

 have happened, not because these Appearances were seen, but 

 these were procreated to foretell the Accidents that ensued 

 afterward. Now, it is because they fall out so seldom, that 

 the Reason of them is hidden, as is the Case with the 

 Rising of Planets abovesaid, the Eclipses, and many other 

 Things. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



Of the Flame of Heaven. 



LIKEWISE there are seen Stars with the Sun 1 all Day long : 

 yea, and very often about the Compass of the Sun, other 

 Flames, like unto Garlands of Ears of Corn : also, Circles of 

 various Colours, such as those were when Augustus C&sar, 

 in the Prime of his Youth, entered the City of Rome after 

 the Decease of his Father, to take upon him his great 

 Name. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



Of Celestial Crowns. 2 



ALSO the same Garlands appear about the Moon, and 

 the brighter Stars which are fixed in the Firmament. Round 



1 The only star seen near the sun at mid-day is the planet Venus : 

 " No stars beside their radiance can display 

 In Phoebus' presence, the dread lord of day ; 

 E'en Cynthia's self, the regent of the night, 

 Is quite obscur'd by his emergent light ; 

 But Venus only, as if more divine, 

 With Phoebus dares in partnership to shine." 



Wern. Club. 



3 None of the appearances in this and the following chapters, to the 

 37th, can be regarded as unusual ; and the explanation of them is to be 

 found in the fact, of the refraction of the light by peculiar conditions of 

 the air. Records of those things would scarcely have been found in the 

 books of the augurs, if some political object had not been mixed with the 

 report of the occurrences. It is well known that during the Republican 

 days of Rome, the reckoning of dates by the years of the consuls was 

 the common order of chronology. The consulship of L. Opimius and 

 Q. Fabius Maximus was in the 630th year of Rome, and 123 years before 



