THE OMENS OF GERMANICUS.
[To THE EDITOR Of THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—I think the best comment upon the uncanny portents of
our time would not be your Latin tag, but the following quotation from Shakespeare :- " When these prodigies Do so conjointly meet, let not men say ' These are their reasons ; they are natural;' For I believe they are portentous things Unto the climate that they point upon."
Junius CASAII, Act 1, Scene iii.
How strange that just of all ambassadors the German repre- sentative should have his state coach disabled during the royal procession ! Yet no more strange than the fact that the last Constantinople earthquake which followed upon Kiamil Pasha's downfall should have caused also a minor eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I am inclined to put more trust in Shakespeare than in the modern sceptic who takes his refuge in a shallow rationalism, much the same as the ostrich buries his head in the sand in order not to see a coming danger. The smell of battle is plainly in the air now in Germany, and
all the latest increases of armaments are war preparations pure and simple. They are distinctly not intended to meet a future danger from the Balkans, which after the exhaustion of the present war could not become acute for at least two years, but to nip the danger in the bud.—I am, Sir, &e., GERMANICITS.
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