predictions, may be illustrated by two examples from antiquity. On the day that
Cæsar and Pompey contended at Pharsalia for the mastery of the world,
Cornelius, a priest and patrician of Padua, declared, under a sudden impulse of
passion, that he beheld the eddies and currents of a desperate battle, and the fall
and flight of many of the combatants, eventually exclaiming: “Cæsar has
conquered!” His hearers laughed at him, but his words were afterwards verified,
and it appeared that he had foretold not only the day, but the incidents, and the
result of the famous battle in Thessaly. The anecdote is related on the authority
of the “Noctes Atticæ” of Aulus Gellius.
Dio Cassius tells a similar story about the assassination of the Emperor Domitian
at Rome, by his freedman Stephanus. “It is to be admired,” he says, “that, as
accurately proved by persons in either place, Apollonius Thyanæus, ascending
an eminence at Ephesus or elsewhere, cried out before the multitude: ‘Well
done, Stephanus, well done! Strike the murderer! thou hast struck him, thou hast
wounded him, he is slain!’” But it may well be supposed that a secret
understanding existed between Apollonius and the murderer.
From “second sight” we pass on to “prediction” or “divination,” another of the
superstitious modes by which humanity has endeavoured to read the book of the
Future. In the north this power of prophecy was largely assumed by women, a
circumstance of which Scott has made ample and picturesque use in more than
one of his admirable fictions.
A woman foretold the tragical end of James I. of Scotland, in 1436. In the early
stage of a journey from Edinburgh to Leith, and in the midst of the way, arose a
woman of Ireland, who claimed to be a soothsayer, and as soon as she saw the
king, she cried with a loud voice, saying, “My lord king, an ye pass this water,
ye shall never turn again to live.” The king was astonished at her words, for but
shortly before he had fallen in with a prophecy, that in the self-same year the
King of Scots should be slain. And as he rode onward, he called to him one of
his knights, and commanded him to return and speak with this woman, and ask
of her what she would, and what she meant by her loud crying: and she began
and told him what would befall the king if he passed that water. The king asked
her how she knew so much, and she said that Huthart told her so. “Sire,” quoth
the knight, “men may gallantly talk, nor take heed of yonder woman’s words, for
she is but a drunken fool, and wots not what she saith.” And so with his folk he