FullReads

It remains, now, that we examine the sense and import of the inscription, which, after having long dwelt upon it, with the closest and most laborious attention, I must confess myself not yet able fully to comprehend. The following explications, therefore, are, by no means, laid down as certain and indubitable truths, but as conjectures not always wholly satisfactory, even to myself, and which I had not dared to propose to so enlightened an age, an age which abounds with those great ornaments of human nature, skepticks, antimoralists, and infidels, but with hopes that they would excite some person of greater abilities, to penetrate further into the oraculous obscurity of this wonderful prediction.

Not even the four first lines are without their difficulties, in which the time of the discovery of the stone seems to be the time assigned for the events foretold by it:

“Cum lapidem hunc, magni
Qui nunc jacet incola stagni,
Vel pede equus tanget,
Vel arator vomere franget,
Sentiet aegra metus,
Effundet patria fletus,
Littoraque ut fluctu,
Resonabunt oppida luctu.”

“Whene’er this stone, now hid beneath the lake,
The horse shall trample, or the plough shall break,
Then, O my country, shall thou groan distrest,
Grief in thine eyes, and terrour in thy breast.
Thy streets with violence of woe shall sound,
Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.”

“When this stone,” says he, “which now lies hid beneath the waters of a deep lake, shall be struck upon by the horse, or broken by the plough, then shalt thou, my country, be astonished with terrours, and drowned in tears; then shall thy towns sound with lamentations, as thy shores with the roarings of the waves.” These are the words literally rendered, but how are they verified! The lake is dry, the stone is turned up, but there is no appearance of this dismal scene. Is not all, at home, satisfaction and tranquillity? all, abroad, submission and compliance? Is it the interest, or inclination, of any prince, or state, to draw a sword against us? and are we not, nevertheless, secured by a numerous standing army, and a king who is, himself, an army? Have our troops any other employment than to march to a review? Have our fleets encountered any thing but winds and worms? To me the present state of the nation seems so far from any resemblance to the noise and agitation of a tempestuous sea, that it may be much more properly compared to the dead stillness of the waves before a storm.

“Nam foecunda rubri
Serpent per prata colubri,
Gramina vastantes,
Flores fructusque vorantes,
Omnia foedantes,
Vitiantes, et spoliantes;
Quanquam haud pugnaces,
Ibunt per cuncta minaces,
Fures absque timore,
Et pingues absque labore.”

“Then through thy fields shall scarlet reptiles stray,
And rapine and pollution mark their way;
Their hungry swarms the peaceful vale shall fright,
Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight;
The teeming year’s whole product shall devour,
Insatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow’r;
Shall glutton on the industrious peasants’ spoil,
Rob without fear, and fatten without toil.”

He seems, in these verses, to descend to a particular account of this dreadful calamity; but his description is capable of very different senses, with almost equal probability:

“Red serpents,” says he, (rubri colubri are the Latin words, which the poetical translator has rendered scarlet reptiles, using a general term for a particular, in my opinion, too licentiously,) “Red serpents shall wander o’er her meadows, and pillage, and pollute,” etc. The particular mention of the colour of this destructive viper may be some guide to us in this labyrinth, through which, I must acknowledge, I cannot yet have any certain path. I confess, that, when a few days after my perusal of this passage, I heard of the multitude of lady-birds seen in Kent, I began to imagine that these were the fatal insects, by which the island was to be laid waste, and, therefore, looked over all accounts of them with uncommon concern. But, when my first terrours began to subside, I soon recollected that these creatures, having both wings and feet, would scarcely have been called serpents; and was quickly convinced, by their leaving the country, without doing any hurt, that they had no quality, but the colour, in common with the ravagers here described.