actual "Omens" for him, as monitions of a most indisputable nature!
No Haruspex, I suppose, with or without "white beard, and long
staff for cutting the Heavenly Vault into compartments from the
zenith downwards," could, in Etruria or elsewhere, "watch the
flight of birds, now into this compartment, now into that," with
stricter scrutiny than, on the new terms, did this young King from
his Potsdam Observatory.


WAR-PHENOMENA IN THE WESTERN PARTS: KING GEORGE TRIES,
A SECOND TIME, TO DRAW HIS SWORD; TUGS AT IT VIOLENTLY,
FOR SEVEN MONTHS (February-October, 1742).

"The first phenomenon, cheering to Austria, is that of the
Britannic Majesty again clutching sword, with evident intent to
draw it on her behalf. [Tindal, xx. 552; Old Newspapers; &c. &c.]
Besides his potent soup-royal of Half-Millions annually, the
Britannic Majesty has a considerable sword, say 40,000, of British
and of subsidized;--sword which costs him a great deal of money to
keep by his side; and a great deal of clamor and insolent gibing
from the Gazetteer species, because he is forced to keep it
strictly in the scabbard hitherto. This Year, we observe, he has
determined again to draw it, in the Cause of Human Liberty,
whatever follow. From early Spring there were symptoms: Camps on
Lexden and other Heaths, much reviewing in Hyde-Park and elsewhere;
from all corners a universal marching towards the Kent Coast;
the aspects being favorable. 'We can besiege Dunkirk at any rate,
cannot we, your High Mightinesses? Dunkirk, which, by all the
Treaties in existence, ought to need no besieging; but which, in
spite of treatyings innumerable, always does?' The High