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bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him ; and it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the sun made his body run with sweat, and the rain washed it. Philip of Macedon dreamed he sealed up his wife's belly; whereby he did expound it, that his wife should be barren; but Aristander the soothsayer told him his wife was with child, because men do not use to seal vessels that are empty. A phantom that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, said to him; " Philippis " iterum me videbis." Tiberius said to Galba,

"tu quoque, Galba, dagustabis imperium." In Vespasian's time there went a prophecy in the East, that those that should come forth of Judea should reign over the world; which though it may be was meant of our Saviour, yet Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his neck; and indeed the succession that followed him, for many years, made golden times. Henry the Sixth of England said of Henry the Seventh, when he was a gave him water, "This is the lad

and

lad, "that shall enjoy the crown for which we

strive." When I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the queen mother, who was given to curious arts, caused the king her husband's nativity to be calculated under a false name; and the astrologer gave a judgment, that he should be killed in a duel; at which the queen laughed, thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels; but he was slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery going in at his bever. The trivial prophecy which I heard when I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was;

"When hempe is spun
England's done!"

whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word hempe, (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth,) England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is verified in the change of the name; for that the king's style is now no more of England but of Britain. There was also another prophecy before the year of eighty-eight, which I do not well understand.

"There shall be seen upon a day,

Between the Baugh and the May,
The black fleet of Norway.

When that is come and gone,

England build houses of lime and stone,
For after wars shall you have none."

It was generally conceived to be meant of the Spanish fleet that came in eighty-eight; for that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is Norway. The prediction of Regiomonta

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was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet, being the greatest in strength, though not in number, of all that ever swam upon the sea. As for Cleon's dream, I think it was a jest; it was, that he was devoured of a long dragon; and it was expounded of a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are numbers of the like kind; especially if you include dreams, and predictions of astrology; but I have set down these few only of certain credit, for example. My judgment is, that they ought

all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fire side. Though when I say despised, I mean it as for belief; for otherwise, the spreading or publishing of them is in no sort to be despised; for they have done much mischief; and I see many severe laws made to suppress them. them grace and some

That, that hath given credit, consisteth in

three things, First, that men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss; as they do, generally, also of dreams. The second is, that probable conjectures or obscure traditions many times turn themselves into prophecies; while the nature of man, which covereth divination, thinks it no peril to foretel that which indeed they do but collect; as that of Seneca's ve e; for so much was then subject to demonstration, that the globe of the earth had great parts beyond the Atlantic, which might be probably conceived not to be all sea; and adding thereto the tradition in Plato's Timæus, and his Atlanticus, it might encourage one to turn it to a prediction. third and last, (which is the great one,) is that almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been impostures, and by idle and crafty

The

brains, merely contrived and feigned, after the

event past.

OF AMBITION.

AMBITION is like choler, which is an humour that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped; but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh adust, and thereby malign and ve nomous; so ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince or state; therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so, as they be still progressive, and not retrograde, which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all; for if they rise not with their service they will take order to make their service fall with them.

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