y
than I can find, when I sound and employ it by myself. By which means,
the things I say are better than those I write, if either were to be
preferred, where neither is worth anything. This, also, befalls me, that
I do not find myself where I seek myself, and I light upon things more by
chance than by any inquisition of my own judgment. I perhaps sometimes
hit upon something when I write, that seems quaint and sprightly to me,
though it will appear dull and heavy to another.--But let us leave these
fine compliments; every one talks thus of himself according to his
talent. But when I come to speak, I am already so lost that I know not
what I was about to say, and in such cases a stranger often finds it out
before me. If I should make erasure so often as this inconvenience
befalls me, I should make clean work; occasion will, at some other time,
lay it as visible to me as the light, and make me wonder what I should
stick at.

CHAPTER XI

OF PROGNOSTICATIONS

For what concerns oracles, it is certain that a good while before the
coming of Jesus Christ they had begun to lose their credit; for we see
that Cicero troubled to find out the cause of their decay, and he has
these words:

"Cur isto modo jam oracula Delphis non eduntur,
non modo nostro aetate, sed jam diu; ut nihil
possit esse contemptius?"

["What is the reason that the oracles at Delphi are no longer
uttered: not merely in this age of ours, but for a long time past,
insomuch that nothing is more in contempt?"
--Cicero, De Divin., ii. 57.]

But as to the other prognostics, calculated from the anatomy of beasts at
sacrifices (to which purpose Plato does, in part, attribute the natural
constitution of the intestines of the beasts themselves), the
scraping of poultry, the flight of birds--

"Aves quasdam . . . rerum augurandarum
causa natas esse putamus."

["We think some sorts of birds are purposely created to serve
the purposes of augury."--Cicero, De Natura Deor., ii. 64.]

claps of thunder, the overflowing of rivers--

"Multa cernunt Aruspices, multa Augures provident,
multa oraculis declarantur, multa vaticinationibus,
multa somniis, multa portentis."

["The Aruspices discern many things, the Augurs foresee many things,
many things are announced by oracles, many by vaticinations, many by
dreams, many by portent