1809.] 
f 
to give an answer. Nothing is so pro- 
verbial, as the credulity of mankind, 
when under the influence of those strong 
passions, hope, or tear, 
And this was no vulgar error, the su- 
perstition was indulged by the greatest 
men and philosophers. Socrates, when 
in prison, hearing this line of Homer: 
Within three days, I Phthia’s mye shall 
see, 
immediately said, ‘ Within three days I 
shall be out of the world ;? gathering it 
from the double meaning of the word, 
Phthia, which in Greek, is both the name- 
of a country, and sigmifies corruption, or 
death. This predictiony addressed to 
n9 schinus, having actually been verified, 
was long remembered, Valerius Maxi- 
inus also relates the prognostick, which 
Brutus encountered of his unhappy fate, 
at the battle of Philippi, in this passage 
of the Ihad, 
Fate and Latona’s son demand my life, 
The explanation which thatillustrious Ro- 
man applied to himself, was completely 
fulfilled in the event. If Lampridius may 
be cercdited, the Emperor Macrinus, de- 
sirous of knowing whether his reign 
would be long and happy, first fixed his 
eyes on a verse, which with the next, 
formed a sentence to this effect, “ Alas! 
old man, the violence of youthful warri- 
ors bears you dowit; your strength is 
brought low, and calatnities await your 
declining years.” This Emperor, being 
at an adcanced age when he ascended 
the throne, and reigning but fourteen 
months; and Heliogabalus” being but 
fourteen years old, when he deprived him 
of his life and empire: the lines were con- 
sidered a prediction of the tragical end 
of Macrinus. . Homer was not the only 
poet ainong the Greeks, whose verses 
had the ‘honour of passing for oracles; 
the same regard was sometimes paid to 
Euripides; and from a passaze in Hero- 
dotus, it appears, that Muszus was also 
consulted.” Onomacritus, whose profes- 
sion was to interpret these predictions 
from Museus, was banished from 
- Athens, for talsifying.the writings of that 
poet, and interpolating a verse, import- 
ing that the islands near Lemnos would 
be overtlowed. 6 
- In time, not improbably from a spirit 
of emulation, the Romans began to at- 
tribate the same inspiration to Virgil’s 
Imes, and to consult them in their diffi- 
culties, as declaratory of the will of hea- 
ven. Of this, there are several instances 
in the history of the Roman Emperors, 
especially since the reign of ‘Trajan. 
‘The first was, that of Adrian, even bee 
Sortes Virgiliane, Ke. Ne 
\ 
fore the death of Trajan, who, in order 
to know on what terms he stodd with his 
adopted father, and whether he would 
appoint him his successor, took the 
Acneid, and opening it at a venture, 
read these lines of the sixth book : 
But what’s the man, who from a-far appears, 
His head with olive crown’d, his hand acenser 
bears ?. 
His hoary beard and holy vestments bring 
His lost idea back: J know the Roman king, 
He shall to peaceful Rome new laws ordain, 
Call’d from his mean abode, a sceptre ta 
Sustain. 
As we ‘are seldom inclined to raise diffi- 
culties where our desires are flattered, 
Adrian, how trifling’ soever might be 
the analogy between these lines, and his 
own peculiar circumstances, accepted 
them as a favourable omen, and was cone 
firmed in his hopes of swaying the scep- 
tre. Lampridius relates, that Alexander 
Severus, who at the time must have been 
very young, as he was only in his four= 
teenth year when called to the empire, 
addicting himself to musick and pluloso- 
phy, Mammea, his mother, advised him 
to turn his application to those scieiices, . 
which were of indispensable necessity to 
those who are born to government; and 
that he the more readily com; lied with 
the advice,‘from a certain presage of his 
elevation to -the purple, which be con- 
cluded he had inet with in these tines of- 
Virgil, whom he had consulted on his 
destiny: 
Let others better mould the running mass 
Of metals, and inform «he breathing brass 3 
Plead better at the bar, describe the skies, 
Tell when the stars descend, and when they 
rise: 
But- Kome, ‘tis thine alone, with Re 
sway, 
To rule mankind, and make the world obey, 
Disposing peace and war, thy own majes- 
tick way. : 
To tame the proud, the fettered slave to 
frees 
These are imperial arts, and worthy thee. 
The Emperor Claudius, the Gothick, dee 
sirous of knowing the duration of his 
reign, concluded from the ines tn Virgil, 
Till ——_—— the sun 
Thrice thro’ the signs his annual signs shall 
rub, 
This is his time prefixec== 
that three years were the most he had to 
live; for the loss of empire, in those ture 
bulent times, was seldom incurred with- 
out the’'loss of life. Trebellius. assures 
us, that he did not survive this prediction. 
above two years; and that the lines which 
he, at the same time, applied to his 
brother and his otispring , were also hters 
ally fulfilled. 
SD Lee 
