What may be called the literary oracle, as distinguished from vocal oracles, was consulted in this wise: The operator having before him a copy of Virgil--the sortes were generally confined to the Æneid--opened the volume ad aperturam libri, anywhere, at random, when the first passage that accidentally struck the eye was carefully read and pondered with as little reference as possible to its immediate context, and a meaning extracted from it which was supposed to indicate the issue of the event in hand, and which was to be considered inevitable and irrevocable as the fates had so decreed. A man with the knowledge thus obtained could not by any precaution or change of conduct avert the impending doom, good or evil; he could only put his house in order, and so arrange matters the best way he could; that if evil came it might be borne with dignity and patience; if good, that it might be enjoyed with moderation and devout gratitude to the gods. It is said that at the outbreak of the troubles that culminated in the Commonwealth, Charles I. and Lord Falkland found themselves on a certain day in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, when the latter jocularly proposed that they should inform themselves of their future fortunes by means of the Sortes Virgiliæ; and certainly, read by the light of after events, it must be confessed that the passages stumbled upon seem singularly ominous of the fate that overtook both. The passage read by the Martyr King was from the fourth book of the Æneid, and is as follows:-- "At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis, Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli, Auxilium imploret, videatque, indigna suorum Funera: nec, cum se sub leges pacis iniquæ Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur, Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena." Which Dryden, if with rather too much amplification, still very beautifully translates thus:-- "Yet let a race untamed and haughty foes His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, His men discouraged and himself expell'd: Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain; And when at length the cruel wars shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace. Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And lie unburied on the barren sand." Lord Falkland's eye fell on the following lines in the eleventh book:-- "Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti. Cautius ut sævo velles te credere Marti! Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis, Et predulce decus primo certamine posset. Primitiæ juvenis miseræ! bellique propinqui Dura rudimenta! et nulli exaudita Deorum Vota, precesque meæ!" --which the same translator has rendered as follows:--