If the Romans were right in considering that crying in youth portended ill-fortune in old age, there can be little doubt it has been decreed that man's existence shall be more embittered with disappointments than sweetened with unalloyed pleasures; for it is nearly as common for children to cry as it is for them to come into the world. Parents may pray to their favourite gods for wise, happy children; expectant mothers may wear suspended from their girdles the image of Opis, in the fond expectation that their offspring shall find a smooth passage through life; and nurses may bring new-born babes into contact with sacred things before defiled hands have touched their tender skins,--yet the sad experience of every man and woman is, that misfortunes overtake them sooner or later. True, some people are more fortunate than others, but none are exempted from grief and pain. Have we not the best authority for saying that "man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards." This being so, every member of the human family must submit to his destiny, strive against it how he may. Since the time the old serpent beguiled Eve, to the present day, the half of man's time has been spent in bringing about prosperity and averting evil. He watches the signs of the times; he seeks for tokens and omens, as these, he supposes, are often sent for his guidance. That warnings were given to our fathers and mothers of old in mysterious ways, they fully believed; and if sent to them, there is no good reason for supposing, say our aged relations, that they should not be sent to us. Lord Bacon believed in presages; and so did other learned men of his time. Dugdale anticipated the approaching scenes in 1641, when many ancient monuments were destroyed. So convinced was he of their early destruction, that he hurried on his itinerant labours of taking sketches and engraving inscriptions, to preserve their history and appearance for future times. Sir Thomas More was enabled to judge from passing events of what was to happen in after years. Erasmus, when looking at the tomb of Becket at Canterbury, wished that the jewels with which it was loaded had been given to the poor; "for," said he, "those who have heaped up all this mass of treasure will one day be plundered, and fall a prey to rapacious tyrants in power." His prediction was literally fulfilled twenty years after it was uttered. Sir Walter Raleigh regarded omens, and from these predicted truly. Tacitus foresaw the calamities which long desolated Europe on the fall of the Roman empire, and wrote concerning the future events five hundred years before they happened. Solon predicted many of the miseries that overtook the Athenians. Aristotle collected remarkable information concerning predictions. Cicero always judged of the affairs of the republic by prediction; and he not only told what was to happen in his own time, but he also foretold important things that came to pass long after his death.