Page:Omniana 2.djvu/148

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138
OMNIANA.

210. Eclipses.

It is well known in Valladolid, says a very learned and able catholic historian, that when any knight of the Castilla family is about to die, strokes are heard within a tomb which is in the choir of St. Clara's, as if to announce the decease of some of that illustrious lineage. "I never wondered at this," says the historian, "remembering what Aristotle says,, de nobilioribus majorem curam habet natura: for we see that to distinguish princes and kings from the vulgar, and from ordinary people, God is accustomed to send signs which prognosticate their death, such as comets, earthquakes, eclipses, and the like."

The book in which God is thus represented as a respecter of persons, is licensed by the inquisition, as containing no false doctrine. A pretty world it would be if this doctrine were true! if such an incarnation of the evil principle as Nadir Shah or Buonaparte could not