Another incident is related, which is somewhat curious, as illustrating the ideas and customs of the times. One of this Silvian line of sovereigns was named Alladius. This Alladius conceived the idea of making the people believe that he was a god, and in order to accomplish this end he resorted to the contrivance of imitating, by artificial means, the sound of the rumbling of thunder and the flashes of lightning at night from his palace on the banks of the lake at Alba Longa. He employed, probably, for this purpose some means similar to those resorted to for the same end in theatrical spectacles at the present day. The people, however were not deceived by this imposture, though they soon after fell into an error nearly as absurd as believing in this false thunder would have been; for, on an occasion which occurred not long afterward, probably that of a great storm accompanied with torrents of rain upon the mountains around, the lake rose so high as to produce an inundation, in which the water broke into the palace, and the pretended thunderer was drowned. The people considered that he was destroyed thus by the special interposition of heaven, to punish him for his impiety in daring to assume what was then considered the peculiar attribute and prerogative of supreme divinity. In fact, the rumor circulated, and one historian has recorded it as true, that Alladius was struck by the lightning which accompanied the storm, and thus killed at once by the terrible agency which he had presumed to counterfeit, before the inundation of the palace came on. If he met his death in any sudden and unusual manner, it is not at all surprising that his fate should have been attributed to the judgment of God, for thunder was regarded in those days with an extreme and superstitious veneration and awe. All this is, however, now changed. Men have learned to understand thunder, and to protect themselves from its power; and now, since Franklin and Morse have commenced the work of subduing the potent and mysterious agent in which it originates, to the human will, the presumption is not very strong against the supposition that the time may come when human science may actually produce it in the sky--as it is now produced, in effect, upon the lecturer's table.