ray, are carefully signed by
himself, and I have also observed _postscripts_ written with his own
hand: they are always countersigned by his secretary. I mention this
circumstance, because, in the _Dictionnaire Historique_, it is said
that Charles, who died young, was so given up to the amusements of
his age, that he would not even sign his despatches, and introduced
the custom of secretaries subscribing for the king. This voluminous
correspondence shows the falsity of this statement. History is too
often composed of popular tales of this stamp.

[178] These _love-letters_ of Alencon to our Elizabeth are noticed
by Camden, who observes, that the queen became wearied by receiving
so many; and to put an end to this trouble, she consented that the
young duke should come over, conditionally, that he should not be
offended if her suitor should return home suitless.

PREDICTION.

In a curious treatise on "Divination," or the knowledge of future events,
Cicero has preserved a complete account of the state-contrivances which
were practised by the Roman government to instil among the people those
hopes and fears by which they regulated public opinion. The pagan creed,
now become obsolete and ridiculous, has occasioned this treatise to be
rarely consulted; it remains, however, as a chapter in the history of
man!

To these two books of Cicero on "Divination," perhaps a third might be
added, on POLITICAL and MORAL PREDICTION. The principles which may even
raise it into a science are self-evident; they are drawn from the heart
of man, and they depend on the nature and connexion of human events! We
presume we shall demonstrate the positive existence of such a faculty;
a faculty which Lord Bacon describes of "making things FUTURE and REMOTE
AS PRESENT." The aruspex, the augur, and the astrologer have vanished
with their own superstitions; but the moral and the political predictor,
proceeding on principles authorised by nature and experience, has become
more skilful in his observations on the phenomena of human history; and
it has often happened that a tolerable philosopher has not made an
indifferent prophet.

No great political or moral revolution has occurred which has not been
accompanied by its _prognostic_; and men of a philosophic cast of mind
in their retirement, freed from the delusions of parties and of sects,
at once intelligent in the _quicquid agunt homines_, w