Yet witness every quaking limb,
My sunken pulse, mine eyeballs dim,
My soul with harrowing anguish torn,—
This for my chieftain have I borne!”
And therefore, says Sir Thomas Browne, in his moralisings on the undesirableness of all such foresight, “and therefore the wisdom of astrologers, who speak of future things, hath wisely softened the severity of their doctrines; and even in their sad predictions, while they tell us of inclination not coaction from the stars, they kill us not with Stygian oaths and merciless necessity, but leave us hopes of evasion.” Tant mieux for those who, like Hudibras,
... “still gape to anticipate
The cabinet-designs of fate,
Apply to wizards to foresee
What shall, and what shall never be;”