at doth his offerings bear?
By the white hair and beard I know him plain,
The Roman king.

Shortly thereafter was he adopted by Trajan, and succeeded to him in the
empire. Moreover, to the lot of the praiseworthy Emperor Claudius befell
this line of Virgil, written in the Sixth of his Aeneids--

Tertia dum Latio regnantem viderit aestas.

Whilst the third summer saw him reign, a king
In Latium.

And in effect he did not reign above two years. To the said Claudian also,
inquiring concerning his brother Quintilius, whom he proposed as a
colleague with himself in the empire, happened the response following in
the Sixth of the Aeneids--

Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata.

Whom Fate let us see,
And would no longer suffer him to be.

And it so fell out; for he was killed on the seventeenth day after he had
attained unto the management of the imperial charge. The very same lot,
also, with the like misluck, did betide the Emperor Gordian the younger.
To Claudius Albinus, being very solicitous to understand somewhat of his
future adventures, did occur this saying, which is written in the Sixth of
the Aeneids--

Hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu
Sistet Eques, &c.

The Romans, boiling with tumultuous rage,
This warrior shall the dangerous storm assuage:
With victories he the Carthaginian mauls,
And with strong hand shall crush the rebel Gauls.

Likewise, when the Emperor D. Claudius, Aurelian's predecessor, did with
great eagerness research after the fate to come of his posterity, his hap
was to alight on this verse in the First of the Aeneids--

Hic ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono.

No bounds are to be set, no limits here.

Which was fulfilled by the goodly genealogical row of his race. When Mr.
Peter Amy did in like manner explore and make trial if he should escape the
ambush of the hobgoblins who lay in wait all-to-bemaul him, he fell upon
this verse in the Third of the Aeneids--

Heu! fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum!

Oh, flee the bloody land, the wicked shore!

Which counsel he obeying, safe and sound forthwith avoided all these
ambuscades.

Were it not to shun prolixity, I could enumerate a thousand such like
adventures, which, conform to the dictate and verdict of the verse, have by
that manner of lot-casting encounter befallen to the curious researchers of
them. Do not you nevertheless imagine, lest you should be deluded, that I
would