"Credit jam digna pericula Caesar
Fatis esse suis; tantusne evertere, dixit,
Me superis labor est, parva quern puppe sedentem,
Tam magno petiere mari;"

["Caesar now deemed these dangers worthy of his destiny: 'What!'
said he, 'is it for the gods so great a task to overthrow me, that
they must be fain to assail me with great seas in a poor little
bark.'"--Lucan, v. 653.]

and that idle fancy of the public, that the sun bore on his face mourning
for his death a whole year:

"Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam,
Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit:"

["Caesar being dead, the sun in mourning clouds, pitying Rome,
clothed himself."--Virgil, Georg., i. 466.]

and a thousand of the like, wherewith the world suffers itself to be so
easily imposed upon, believing that our interests affect the heavens, and
that their infinity is concerned at our ordinary actions:

"Non tanta caelo societas nobiscum est, ut nostro
fato mortalis sit ille quoque siderum fulgor."

["There is no such alliance betwixt us and heaven, that the
brightness of the stars should be made also mortal by our death."
--Pliny, Nat. Hist., ii. 8.]