Explore "Prefigurations of Remote Events" by Thomas de Quincey on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(_April, 1823._)
With a total disbelief in all the vulgar legends of supernatural / agency, and _that_ upon firmer principles than I fear most people / could assign for their incredulity, I must yet believe that the 'soul / of the world' has in some instances sent forth mysterious types of the / cardinal events, in the great historic drama of our planet. One has / been noticed by a German author, and it is placed beyond the limits of / any rational scepticism; I mean the coincidence between the augury / derived from the flight of the twelve vultures as types of the / duration of the Roman empire, _i. e._ Western Empire, for twelve / centuries, and the actual event. This augury we know to have been / recorded many centuries before its consummation; so that no juggling / or collusion between the prophets and the witnesses to the final event / can be suspected. Some others might be added. At present I shall / notice a coincidence from our own history, which, though not so / important as to come within the class of prefigurations I have been / alluding to, is yet curious enough to deserve mention. The oak of / Boscobel and its history are matter of household knowledge. It is not / equally well known, that in a medal, struck to commemorate the / installation (about 1636) of Charles II., then Prince of Wales, as a / Knight of the Garter, amongst the decorations was introduced an / oak-tree with the legend -- 'Seris factura nepotibus umbram. '[24]