56

THE L 1 F E O F

Dr. Wel-

wood's JIÆfmain. btbEdit. London1718.

King Charlesconsults theSortesVirgili-anæ and LordFalkland.

6. And when in extream Adversity, he ssiould surrender himself, underthe Terms of a fallacious Peace.

7. Be dethroned.

8. And execrably murthered.

9. In the full Vigour, of Life and Health.

10. And at last denied the common Rights of a Christian Burial ; this fadPresage, or Vaticinium, ( scil . quod vates cecinit) being the Result only ofmeer Chance, upon a casual and ludicrous Trial, of the * Sortcs Virgi-lianœ, and is thus recounted by an eminent Memorialist.

“ There befell the King an Accident, which tho’ a Trifle in itself, and" that no Weight is to be laid on any thing of that Nature ; yet since the" best Authors, both antient and modern, have not thought it below the" Majesty of History to mention the like, it may be the more excusable to" insert it.

“ The King being at Oxford, during the Civil Wars, went one Day to" fee the publick Library, where he was showed, among other Books, a" Virgil nobly printed, and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland to di-" vert the King, would have his Majesty make a Try al of his Fortune, by" the Sortes Virgilianœ ; which every Body knows was an usual kind of" Augury , some Ages past. Whereupon the King opening the Book, the" Period which happened to come up, was Phis.

(\) At bcllo audacis populi vexatus ; et armis ;

(z)Finibus extorris (f complcxu avulfus Juli ;

(i\.) Aiixilium imploret ; (5) vide at que indigna fuorttmFuncra ; (6) nec , cum fe sub leges pads iniqueePradiderit ; (j) regno , (%) aut optatd luce fruatur ;

(<q) Sed cadat ante diem ; sio) medidque inhumatus ar end.

Fast. Oxon. " It is said, King Charles seemed concerned at this Accident; and that the8 H- " Lord Falkland observing it, would likewise try his own Fortune in the

. “ same manner, 1 hoping he might fall upon some Passage that could have

" no Relation to his Cafe, and thereby divert the King's Thoughts from any" Impression the other might have upon him : but the Place that Lord“ Falkland stumbled upon, was as much suited to his De/liny, as the other" had been to the King’s ; being the Expressions of Evander upon the un-timely Death of his Son Pallas.

It is not to be supposed his Majesty could be much concerned on so triflingan Event, who early in Youth had turned his Thoughts to the Lesion of Rea-son : It appears that at seventeen Years of Age, viz. 18th of Aug us, 1616.

he was pleased with hisown Hand-writing to matriculate himself a Memberof the University of Oxford, with this Symbols, or Sentence, Si vis omul afubjicere fubjice te rationi.

There was a very memorable Paragraph, conceived with a divine Ener-gy, and Elevation of Spirit, in his Majesty's Declaration subsequent to the Re-monfranceoi the State of the Nation, by the House of Commons, in 1642,which in the End proved prophetick.

" We are, (says his Majejly) from our Soul so fully satisfied, and assured," that the Religion now established in this Kingdom, is the most pure,« and agreeable to the sacred Word of God, of any Religion now practised" in the Christian World, that as we believe we can maintain the fame

Æneid. Lib.

4 -

*. Digression on the Sortes Virgillcma , &c.ture Events.

Evangelicœ, and various Modes of foretelling fu-

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