customary before undertaking any important action or enterprise to obtain from the augurs, or state prophets, some hint of its probable outcome; and one of their favorite and most trustworthy modes of divination consisted in observing the flight of birds — the omens thence derived being called
A Roman slave appeared one day
Before the Augur. “Tell me, pray,
If —” here the Augur, smiling, made
A checking gesture and displayed
His open palm, which plainly itched,
For visibly its surface twitched.
A
Successfully allayed the tickle,
And then the slave proceeded: “Please
Inform me whether Fate decrees
Success or failure in what I
To-night (if it be dark) shall try.
Its nature? Never mind — I think
‘Tis writ on this” — and with a wink
Which darkened half the earth, he drew
Another denarius to view,
Its shining face attentive scanned,
Then slipped it into the good man’s hand,
Who with great gravity said: “Wait
While I retire to question Fate.”
That holy person then withdrew
His scared clay and, passing through
The temple’s rearward gate, cried “Shoo!”
Waving his robe of office. Straight
Each sacred peacock and its mate
(Maintained for Juno’s favor) fled
With clamor from the trees o’erhead,
Where they were perching for the night.
The temple’s roof received their flight,
For thither they would always go,
When danger threatened them below.
Back to the slave the Augur went:
“My son, forecasting the event
By flight of birds, I must confess
The auspices deny success.”
That slave retired, a sadder man,
Abandoning his secret plan —
Which was (as well the craft seer
Had from the first divined) to clear
The wall and fraudulently seize
On Juno’s poultry in the trees.
G.J.
INCOME, n. The natural and rational gauge and measure of respectability, the commonly accepted standards being artificial, arbitrary and fallacious; for, as “Sir Sycophas Chrysolater” in the play has justly remarked, “the true use and function of property (in whatsoever it consisteth — coins, or land, or houses, or merchant-stuff, or anything which may be named as holden of right to one’s own subservience) as also of honors, titles, preferments and place, and all favor and acquaintance of persons of quality or ableness, are but to get money. Hence it followeth that all things are truly to be rated as of worth in measure of their serviceableness to that end; and their possessors should take rank in agreement thereto, neither the lord of an unproducing manor, howsoever broad and ancient, nor he who bears an unremunerate dignity, nor yet the pauper favorite of a king, being esteemed of level excellency with him whose riches are of daily accretion; and hardly should they whose wealth is barren claim and rightly take more honor than the poor and unworthy.”
