IN PRISON.

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portent, and a sign of his own certain death that wasapproaching. “But afterwards,” he relates, “I beganthus to reason with myself: if so many princes, even intheir youth, and strength, and happiness, expose them-selves to certain death, that they may win approval fromtheir kings, when they have nothing else to win bydying, why should you, a withered and almost infamousold man, not suffer for your crime, if they hold youguilty, or by wrong if you are undeserving of this evilbefore God , who, by His mercy, shows that He beholdsall your affairs?” With these reflections he went homerefreshed and fearless.

This calamity had been preceded by another portent.He was writing a medical opinion for the use of his pa-tient, Cardinal Morone (it is published among his works),when a leaf of it fell to the ground. He rose that he mightstoop to pick it up, and as he did so the paper, marvellousto behold, lifted by a gentle wind, rose with him, and flewupon the table, where it remained fast in an erect position.Jerome called Rodolf to see the marvel, and both sawthat the leaf was scarcely stirred. From this he concludedthat his concerns would suffer sudden overthrow, but thatthey would be lifted up into a right position by a gentlebreeze of favour.

He had reason, therefore, to expect what happened, orhe would not have thought of drawing such an inference.

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