Meantime others parted company, north and south, with the rapidity, if not with the force, of a modern Congreve rocket. In others the spark soon expired, while the gentle relict that was left behind, "like Patience on a monument," kept stationary on her ordeal bar of trial, tranquil and serene, until, in expiring embers she blazed, and was no more! The melting of lead, and various other dainty devices followed. All which were now succeeded by the grand finale of a ball, in which minuets, cotillions, and contre-danses followed in course, and were succeeded by a splendid supper.
The supper, which was superb and princely throughout, commenced and ended with delight to all the guests. And while sipping the noble beverage of the grape, pressed and brought from every generous clime, the following erudite discussion upon presages, prophecies, and predictions, occupied the grave and learned portion of the company:—
"Some presages," observed the Duke, "may certainly appear to have been casual, and subsequently adapted to the occasion by the ingenuity of others; but still there are others that appear supported by such a connected mass of evidence, that they can be neither questioned nor denied. Mariana, the famed historian of Spain, (A. D. 1453,) makes mention, in speaking of the tragical end of Don Alvaro, Earl of Luna, 'that it had been foretold to Alvaro that his death would be at Cadahalso, by which he supposed to be meant, a town he had of that name, and therefore he never went thither; but Cadahalso, in Spanish, means a scaffold,' (this prophecy thus 'paltered in a double sense,') for upon the scaffold Alvaro suffered, and there concluded a life eminent in glory."
"And you may recollect, my Lord," said the Duchess, "that George Buchanan, the famed Scottish historian, relates the very remarkable forewarning which James the Fourth of Scotland had in the church of St. Michael, Linlithgow, from an old man of venerable aspect, and clad in blue habiliments. This person forewarned the king from his proceeding in his expedition against England, fore-telling to him that it would prove his ruin. The queen also remonstrated with him against the project of invasion, by acquainting him with the visions and frightful dreams which she nightly encountered. But no warning could avert his destiny. And he fell with a number of his nobility in the ever memorable field of Flodden Sept. 9, 1513."
"There is," said the Duke, "another case in point; it is that of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, who foretold that his son, Robert Devereux, afterwards Earl of Essex, should never survive his thirty-sixth year; observing at the same time that his father had died at that period of life, and that he would himself die at that age. The death of his son, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who was beheaded in the thirty-fourth year of his age, 1567, is a well known and recorded fact."
Here the Duchess rejoined:—"And you may recollect too, my dear Lord, that Mezeray, the historian of France, records, that it had been foretold to Henry the Fourth of France and Navarre, that he should die in a coach; so that upon the least jolt he would cry out, as if he beheld the grave opened ready to swallow him. And it is as well known that this prediction took place, Henry the Fourth having been assassinated in his coach as he was proceeding to the arsenal to consult with the immortal Sully, when he was stabbed by the knife of an assassin, 1610."
"Sully too," rejoined Lady Lucy, "in his admirable memoirs, makes mention of those black presages which, it is but too certain, this unfortunate prince had of his cruel destiny; they were indeed dreadful and surprising to the last degree!"
Lady Adelaide next paid a short tribute to this learned and mystical investigation:—"It may not be amiss," she said, "briefly to notice the prediction of the death of the Duke of Buckingham, as related by Lord Clarendon in his history, and built, as he emphatically expresses it, upon better foundations of credit than usually such discourses are founded.—His account is strikingly remarkable; but to recount the accompanying circumstances would occupy too much time, and seriously intrude on the pleasantry of the company by entering into the awful and appalling detail; I must beg, therefore, to refer those friends who may be desirous to gratify their curiosity on this subject to consult the pages of the noble historiographer. The presages of our poet Dryden are deserving of notice, he was extremely addicted to judicial astrology: upon the birth of his son he took his horoscope, and all his calculations respecting him marvellously were accomplished; and which are too recent in the recollection of those present to render it necessary for me to dwell upon; only to observe, that these astrological calculations were fulfilled with an accuracy almost amounting to mathematical correctness."
It came next to Sir Patricius Placebo's turn to contribute to these ghostly recollections, who began with a stately hem. "I rather think I can notify to this noble company a very remarkable circumstance, and I flatter myself indeed it is one not generally known. It is recorded in the life of the very erudite and estimable scholar, John H. Hottinger, that when he ascended the pulpit of the academy of Basle to make a farewell oration to that society previous to his departure for the city of Leyden, where he had been appointed Professor of the Oriental Languages at the College of Leyden, he observed a line written upon it, which much disturbed him, and surprised the whole auditory, as being prophetical of his death, which happened soon after. The line was from Ovid:—
'Carmina jam moriens, canit exequialia cygnus.'