Among the Romans a poet was called _vates_, which is as much as a
diviner, fore-seer, or prophet, as by his conjoined words _vaticinium_
and _vaticinari_ is manifest: so heavenly a title did that excellent
people bestow upon this heart-ravishing knowledge. And so far were
they carried into the admiration thereof, that they thought in the
chanceable hitting upon any such verses great foretokens of their
following fortunes were placed. Whereupon grew the word of _Sortes
Virgilianae_, when, by sudden opening Virgil's book, they lighted upon
any verse of his making, whereof the histories of the emperors' lives
are full: as of Albinus the governor of our island, who in his childhood
met with this verse
_Arma amens capio nee sat rationis in armis:_
and in his age performed it; which although it were a very vain and
godless superstition, as also it was to think that spirits were
commanded by such verses (whereupon this word charms, derived of
_Carmina_, cometh), so yet serveth it to show the great reverence those
wits were held in. And altogether not without ground, since both the
oracles of Delphos and Sibylla's prophecies were wholly delivered in
verses.
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