urther stratagem was invoked even in silent prayer, but the stratagem
of flight. Yet Caesar himself, objects a celebrated doctor (viz., Bishop
Warburton), was reduced by his own rashness at Alexandria to a condition
of peril and embarrassment not less alarming than the condition of
Pompey at Pharsalia. How far this surprise might be reconcilable with
Caesar's military credit, is a question yet undecided; but this at least
is certain, that he was equal to the occasion; and, if the surprise was
all but fatal, the evasion was all but miraculous. Many were the sudden
surprises which Caesar had to face before and after this--on the shores
of Britain, at Marseilles, at Munda, at Thapsus--from all of which he
issued triumphantly, failing only as to that final one from which he had
in pure nobility of heart announced his determination to shelter himself
under no precautions.

Such eases of personal danger and escape are exciting to the
imagination, from the disproportion between the interests of an
individual and the interests of a whole nation which for the moment
happen to be concurrent. The death or the escape of Caesar, at one
moment, rather than another, would make a difference in the destiny of
many nations. And in kind, though not in degree, the same interest has
frequently attached to the fortunes of a prince or military leader.
Effectually the same dramatic character belongs to any struggle with
sudden danger, though not (like Caesar's) successful. That it was _not_
successful becomes a new reason for pursuing it with interest; since
equally in that result, as in one more triumphant, we read the altered
course by which history is henceforward destined to flow.

For instance, how much depended--what a weight of history hung in
suspense, upon the evasions, or attempts at evasion, of Charles I. He
was a prince of great ability; and yet it confounds us to observe, with
how little of foresight, or of circumstantial inquiry, either as
regarded things or persons, he entered upon these difficult enterprises
of escape from the vigilance of military guardians. His first escape,
viz., that into the Scottish camp before Newark, was not surrounded with
any circumstances of difficulty. His second escape from Hampton Court
had become a matter of more urgent policy, and was proportionally more
difficult of execution. He was attended on that occasion by two
gentlemen (Berkely and Ashburnham), upon whose qualities of courage and
readin