uu 
384 
While upon the subject of these pre- 
dictions from Virgil, I will add another 
of a much more recent date, with which 
T shall conclade this part of my subject, 
Teserving the discussion of the Sortes 
Sanctorum, to a separate and future pa- 
per. Itis taken from our own domestick 
annals, and though it has been mentioned 
before, will-bear a repitition here, from 
the singular accuracy with which every 
part of the prediction was fulfilled. 
Welwood, in his Memoirs, -velates that 
King Charles I. being at Oxford, during 
the civil wars, went to visit the pub- 
jic library, and among other curiosities, 
they exhibited to him an edition of Vir- 
gil, superbly printed and-bound. Lord 
FPalkiand, who was present, to divert the 
melancholy in which the king seemed to 
be so deeply plunged, proposed to him to 
try his fortune, by the Sortes Virgiliane, 
which, he observed, was an usual kind of 
~augury among the ancients. When the 
king opened the book, the passage which 
first met his eye, was part of Dido's ims 
precation against A‘neas, thus translated 
by Dryden; 4 
Yet let a race untam'd and haughty foes 
His peaceful entrance with-dire arms oppose}; 
Oppressed with numbers, in th’ unequal field, 
His men discouraged, and himself expelled, 
Let him, for succour, sue from placeto place, : 
Torn from «his subjects, and his son’s em- 
brace ; . 
First, let him see his friends in battle slain, 
And their untimely fate lament in vain; 
And when, at length, the cruel war shall 
cease, 
On hard conditions may he buy his peace : 
Nor let him, then, enjoy supreme command, 
But fall inglorious by some hostile hand, 
And lie unburied in the common sand, 
The king appeared to be struck with the 
accidental discovery of lines, w hich might 
be so applicable to his future fate, and his 
melancholy increased. To divert . it, 
Lord Falkland determined to make trial 
of his own fortune, presuming, that he 
would light upon some passage altogether 
foreign to his own case, and thus be able 
to expose the fallacy of these predictions. 
But he unfortunately fixed his attention 
upon a place, still more suited to bis des- 
tiny, than the preceding verses to the 
king’s. They are the expressions of 
Evander, upon the untimely fate of his 
sen Pallas. 
© Pallas! thou hast failed thy plighted word, 
To »fight with caution, not to tempt the 
: sword ; A 
I warned thee, but in vain; alas! I knew 
What perils youthful ardour would pursue, 
Mineralogy of the South-West of Staffordshire. 
-twenty pounds, 
‘in the measure called drassil. 
[Nov. ft; 
That thirst of fame would carry thee too far; 
Young as thou wast to dangers, raw to war- 
O curst essay of arms, disastrous doom! _ 
Prelude of bloody fields, and fights to come, 
Although, no inference was probably 
drawn at the time, yet when both these 
predictions were afierwards so-remark- 
ably fulfilled, the inauspicidus omen was 
long remembered, and deeply regretted. 
Your’s, &c. SE as 
(Lo be continued. ) 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
An account of the MinERALOGY of (he 
SOUTH-WEST PART Of STAFFORDSHIRE, 
Abridged by JAMES KIER, ESQ F.R.S. 
(Continued from page 268 of thzs volume.) 
Of Iron Stone. 
ROM the accounts given of the mea- 
s sures-above and below the maine ~ 
coal, it appeared that in several of them, 
especially in those of clunch, the ore of 
iron, called in this county 1pon-stone, is 
found. Of these several beds, two only 
are worked for the ore, viz. that which 
lies immediately under the breach-coal, 
and that which hes under the main-coal, 
In the neighbourhood of Wednesbury, 
the former bed is wrouglit; and in the 
other parts of the county, the other is 
more considerable. ke iron-stone is 
generally got in coal-works, after the 
coal has been extracted; particularly 
where it lies at_a moderate depth from 
the surface of the ground, that the exs 
pense of sinking pits may be less. 
Tron-stone, when dug, is put up in 
masses, called blooms, the dimensions of 
which are three feet by four feet, with a 
height of twenty-four inches, and the 
weight is estimated at thirty-five hundred, 
each hundred being one hundred and 
Sometimes one thou- 
sand, or one thousand two hundred of - 
such blooms, are got from one acre of 
good mine. The quantity of iron-stone 
now got, is sufficient to keep at work 
abaut one hundred and forty melting 
furnaces, in the coal country; which 
produce annually about one thousand 
eight hundred tons of pig-iron; all of 
which, and. more from other countries, is 
worked up in the forgeries and founderies 
of this neighbourhood. — - « 
~ 4. Substances occasionally intermixed 
with the coal.—Pyrites is found chiefly 
It. is 
known to be a compound of sulphur and 
iron. The quantity found in the coal of 
this county is very small, in ronparey 
dBi sh 
