The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1866-10-25

| NPA ouuiIICI3 IAutulAIl tlllSl w lutGI
were the children of Neptune. This is
not the case, for although they are called
| seasons, the name is modern one, and
has no allusion to their parentage.
The WOrld of Chance.
The poet sings:
Man fain would shun, but it is not in his
power,
To evade the dangers of each threatening
hour"
Caesar would have avoided assassi-
nation in the capitaP' if, in going to
the Senate, he had read paper handed
to him on the way, warning him of his
fate. The plot of Pelopidas to kill Ar
chias, tyrant of Thebes, would have
been fully frustrated had he opened a
package sent to him by an Athenian,
saying business Tomorrow" While
amounting the eyes of patient, Caius
Julius, the physician, had his own closed
by death. Indeed, death has all means,
as we'll as all seasons, for his own. Es-
chuvous, moving out of a house in the
fear Of it tumbling down, got knocked
on the head by a tortoise falling out of
an eagles claws. An emperor killed
himself by a single scratch Of comb in
arranging his hair. Another high func-
tionary was choked to death by grape
stone. Another lost his life by stumbling
at his own door, and another by being
jostled by hog.
Pomponius Atticus, being sick, and
having found all means for his cure to
be in vain, resolved to end his life by
starvation. But, in persuing this de-
termination, it was discovered that the
means employed to produce death re-
lieved him of his disease. Nevertheless,
he did not change his purpose, and told
his friends that he must one day die,
and, being now so far on his way, he
would save himself the labor of Begin
ming again. And so of Clethanthese.
His gums being swollen and rotten, he
was advised to abstinence, and, after
fasting two days, was entirely cured, but
having tasted some sweetness in star
walton, he could not be afterward
persuaded to partake of food. Pliny
relates that Jason of Phereus, having q
dangerous abscess in the breast, which
the physicians had pronounced incurable,
resolved to throw away his life in battle,
and, going into the thickest Of the fight,
was so wounded through the body that
the abscess broke, and he recovered.
Galen reports that he happened to be
cured Of a leprosy by drinking wine out
of vessel into which viper had
CHANGED to drop.
Chance, indeed, works in many ways.
The story is that King Robert, having
besieged a city, and being away at Or
leans to keep the feast of st. Afghan,
was at prayers, when the walls of the
beleaguered city tumbled down without
any effort of the besiegers. In one of
| the encounters Germanicus had with the
Romans, two great parties We're so
stricken with fear that they ran in OPP
posite directions, the one retreating to
the same place whence the other started.
In the first pitched battle the Romans
lost against Hannibal, under the Consul
Sempronius, body of 1000 soldiers,
seeing no other escape for their coward
ice, rushed headlong upon the enemy,
charging through and through, and rout-
ing the Carthagenians with vast slaugh-
ter, "thus purchasing an ignominious
flight at the same price they might have
won a glorious victory"
Montague relates that in the Milan
war Captain Beuse laid siege to the city
of Aroma, and, having carried a mine
mine was sprung and the wall lifted
from its base, but dropped down again
whole and entire, and so exactly upon
its foundation that the besieged suffered
no inconvenience by that attempt
Queen Isabella, of England. sailing from
Zealand into her own kingdom, with an
army in favor of her son against her
husband, would have been lost had she
not landed, against her will, in differ
ent harbor than the one she had chosen.
The life of Timoleon was preserved at
Arano, in Sicily, by a man who slew his
fathers murderer at the moment when,
unknown to any, the latter and another
assassin were about to kill Timoleon.-
In revenging fathers murder the life
was saved Of the protector of Sicily.
Monsieur d'Anghien, at the battle OF
Serisolles, twice tried to cut his throat,
despairing of the day, but lived and en-
joyed the glory of a grand victory on
that field.
Pliney reports that man dreaming
he was blind, found himself in the