mily shineth as it were with the radiant effulgency of an idea, model, or
representation of the joys of paradise; and perceive others, again, to be
so unluckily matched in the conjugal yoke, that those very basest of devils
which tempt the hermits that inhabit the deserts of Thebais and Montserrat
are not more miserable than they. It is therefore expedient, seeing you
are resolved for once to take a trial of the state of marriage, that, with
shut eyes, bowing your head, and kissing the ground, you put the business
to a venture, and give it a fair hazard, in recommending the success of the
residue to the disposure of Almighty God. It lieth not in my power to give
you any other manner of assurance, or otherwise to certify you of what
shall ensue on this your undertaking. Nevertheless, if it please you, this
you may do. Bring hither Virgil's poems, that after having opened the
book, and with our fingers severed the leaves thereof three several times,
we may, according to the number agreed upon betwixt ourselves, explore the
future hap of your intended marriage. For frequently by a Homeric lottery
have many hit upon their destinies; as is testified in the person of
Socrates, who, whilst he was in prison, hearing the recitation of this
verse of Homer, said of Achilles in the Ninth of the Iliads--

Emati ke tritato Phthien eribolon ikoimen,

We, the third day, to fertile Pthia came--

thereby foresaw that on the third subsequent day he was to die. Of the
truth whereof he assured Aeschines; as Plato, in Critone, Cicero, in Primo,
de Divinatione, Diogenes Laertius, and others, have to the full recorded in
their works. The like is also witnessed by Opilius Macrinus, to whom,
being desirous to know if he should be the Roman emperor, befell, by chance
of lot, this sentence in the Eighth of the Iliads--

O geron, e mala de se neoi teirousi machetai,
Ze de bin lelutai, chalepon de se geras opazei.

Dotard, new warriors urge thee to be gone.
Thy life decays, and old age weighs thee down.

In fact, he, being then somewhat ancient, had hardly enjoyed the
sovereignty of the empire for the space of fourteen months, when by
Heliogabalus, then both young and strong, he was dispossessed thereof,
thrust out of all, and killed. Brutus doth also bear witness of another
experiment of this nature, who willing, through this exploratory way by
lot, to learn what the event and issue should be of the Pharsalian battle
wherei