Why so it would have done at
the same Season, if your Mother's Cat had but kitten'd, tho' your self had
never been born_.

If we are to think so slightly of these uncommon Accidents, since the
Fashion of the Times will call them so, I would fain be resolved in one
Point, how it comes to pass, that the Birth and Death of so many eminent
Persons, and of Consequence to the World, have been mark'd and usher'd in
with such a Pomp of Prodigies. The same great Poet, whom I but now quoted,
observes finely, that,

_When Beggars die, there are no Comets seen:
The Heav'ns themselves blaze forth the Death of Princes._

The whole Concurrence of Historians, even of the most undoubted Authority,
have struck in, and espoused this Opinion. They are not all Fools and
superstitious Dotards, nor tied by any Obligations to record a Set of
Miracles, which in their own private Thoughts they counted absurd, and
laugh'd at. Every Pen, that has touch'd the Circumstance of _Julius
Caesar's_ Death, has consented to relate the Strange Things, which both
foresaw and foretold his Assassination. _Shakespear_ has communicated these
Terrors to his Audience with the utmost Art: The Night is attended with
Thunder and Lightning; and _Caesar_ comes forth in his Night-gown,
reflecting on the Unquietness of the Season, and ordering the Priests to do
present Sacrifice: _Calphurnia_ immediately follows him; and the
Undauntedness of his Spirit, attack'd by the Tenderness of his Wife's
Tears, gives an Occasion for the following Recital.

Caesar, _I never stood on Ceremonies;
Yet now they fright me: There is one within,
Besides the Things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid Sights seen by the Watch.
A Lioness hath whelped in the Streets;
And Graves have yawn'd, and yielded up their Dead:
Fierce fiery Warriours fight upon the Clouds,
(In Ranks and Squadrons, and right Forms of War)
Which drizzled Blood upon the_ Capitol.
_The Noise of Battle hurried in the Air,
Horses did neigh, and dying Men did groan,
And Ghosts did shriek, and squeal about the Streets.
O_ Caesar! _These Things are beyond all Use,
And I do fear them_.

The Poet, tho' he has adorned this Description by his Art, has been careful
to collect its Substance from the Historians. Every Particular is preserved
to us by the _Heathen_ Writers; and not a _Heathen_, that we know of, did
ever dispute the Truth of it. The Lov