Panegyrists have also done their parts to promote the superstition of presages, as well as the flattering of poets and orators. When a hero is to be found and extolled, they exclaim, that _all nature adores him; that she exerts her utmost powers to serve him; that she mourns at his misfortunes, promises him long before hand to the world; and when the world, by its sins, is unworthy to possess him longer, heaven, which calls him home, hangs out new lights, etc._ With this hyperbole M. Balzac regaled Cardinal Richelieu, adding, that _to form such a minister, universal nature was on the stretch; God gives him first by promise, and makes him the expectation of ages_. For this he was attacked by the critics, but he defended himself; alleging, that other panegyrics had gone some notes higher: he, for example, among the ancients, who said of certain great souls that _all the orders of heaven were called together to fancy a fine destiny for them_, and that illustrious nation who wrote that _the eternal mind was wrapt in deep contemplation, and big with the vast design, when it conceived such a genius as Cardinal Hippolito d'Este_. Why could not this same writer have thought of one example more, such as that of the priest who told the Emperor Constantine that _divine Providence, not content with qualifying him for the empire of the world, had formed virtues in his soul, which should entitle him to reign in heaven with his only son_. Thus have flatterers seized the most surprising natural effects to enhance their hero's glory, and make their court to great men. The poets of the time of Augustus vied with each other in persuading the world that the murder of Julius Caesar was the cause of all the prodigies that followed. Horace, for instance, in one of his odes, attempts to prove that the overflowings of rivers were reckoned among bad presages; and pretends that the Tiber had not committed all those ravages, but in complaisance to his wife Ilia, who was bent on the death of his kinsman Caesar; and that all the other calamities which subsequently afflicted or threatened the Roman empire, were the consequences of his assassination. If Virgil may be credited,[127] the sun was so troubled at the death of Caesar that it went into deep mourning, and so obscured his beams, that the world was alarmed lest it never should appear again. In the mean time, no sooner was the comet observed, which followed this murder, than another set of flatterers pretended that it was Caesar's soul received into the order of the Gods; and they dedicated a temple[128] to the comet, and set up the image of Caesar with a star on his forehead.