lean oxen, famine and scarcity; and therefore it was but reasonable in Pharaoh to demand the interpretation from his magicians, who, being Egyptians, should have been well versed in symbols and the hieroglyphical notions of things. The greatest tyrant in such divinations was Nabuchodonosor, while, besides the interpretation, he demanded the dream itself; which being probably determined by divine immission, might escape the common road of phantasms, that might have been traced by Satan. The When Alexander, going to besiege Tyre, dreamt of a Satyr, it was no hard exposition for a Grecian to say, "Tyre will be thine." He that dreamed that he saw his father washed by Jupiter and anointed by the sun, had cause to fear that he might be crucified, whereby his body would be washed by the rain, and drop by the heat of the sun. dream of Vespasian was of harder exposition; as also that of the Emperor Mauritius, concerning his successor Phocas. And a man might have been hard put to it to interpret the language of Esculapius, when to a consumptive person he held forth his fingers; implying thereby that his cure lay in dates, from the homonomy of the Greek, which signifies dates and fingers. We owe unto dreams that Galen was a physician, Dion an historian, and that the world hath seen some notable pieces of Cardan; yet, he that should order his affairs by dreams, or make the night a rule unto the day, might be ridiculously deluded; wherein Cicero is much to be pitied, who having excellently discoursed of the vanity of dreams, was yet undone by the flattery of his own, which urged him to apply himself unto Augustus. However dreams may be fallacious concerning outward events, yet may they be truly significant at home; and whereby we may more sensibly understand ourselves. Men act in sleep with some conformity unto their awaked senses; and consolations or discouragements may be drawn from dreams which intimately tell us ourselves. Luther was not like to fear a spirit in the night, when such an apparition would not terrify him in the day. Alexander would hardly have run away in the sharpest combats of sleep, nor Demosthenes have stood stoutly to it, who was scarce able to do it in his prepared senses. Persons of radical integrity will not easily be perverted in their dreams, nor noble minds do pitiful things in sleep. Crassus would have hardly been bountiful in a dream, whose fist was so close awake. But a man might have lived all his life upon the sleeping hand of Antonius.* There is an art to make dreams, as well as their interpretations; and physicians will tell us that some food makes turbulent. some gives quiet dreams. Cato, who doated upon cabbage, might find the crude effects thereof in his sleep; wherein the Egyptians might find some advantage by their superstitious abstinence from onions. Pythagoras might have [had] calmer sleeps, if he [had] totally abstained from beans. Even Daniel, the great interpreter of dreams, in his leguminous diet seems to have chosen no advantageous food for quiet sleeps, according to Grecian physic. To add unto the delusion of dreams, the fantastical objects seem greater than they are; and being beheld in the vaporous state of sleep, enlarge their diameters unto us; whereby it may prove more easy to dream of giants than pygmies. Democritus might seldom dream of atoms, who so often thought of them. He almost might dream himself a bubble extending unto the eighth sphere. A little water makes a sea; a small puff of wind a tempest. A grain of sulphur kindled in the blood may make a flame like Etna; and a small spark in the bowels of Olympias a lightning over all the chamber. sleeping hand of Antonius.] Who awake was open-handed and liberal, in contrast with the close-fistedness of Crassus, and therefore would have been munificent in his dreams. But, beside these innocent delusions, there is a sinful state of dreams. Death alone, not sleep, is able to put an end unto sin; and there may be a night-book of our iniquities; for beside the transgressions of the day, casuists will tell us of mortal sins in dreams, arising from evil precogitations; meanwhile human law regards not noctambulos; and if a nightwalker should break his neck, or kill a man, takes no notice of it. Dionysius was absurdly tyrannical to kill a man for dreaming that he had killed him; and really to take away his life, who had but fantastically taken away his. Lamia was ridiculously unjust to sue a young man for a reward, who had confessed that pleasure from her in a dream which she had denied unto his awaking senses: conceiving that she had merited somewhat from his fantastical fruition and shadow of herself. If there be such debts, we owe deeply unto sympathies; but the common spirit of the world must be ready in such arrearages. If some have swooned, they may have also died in dreams, since death is but a confirmed swooning. Whether Plato died in a dream, as some deliver, he must rise again to inform us. That some have never dreamed is as improbable as that some have never laughed. That children dream not the first half-year; that men dream not in some countries, with many more, are unto me sick men's dreams; dreams out of the ivory gate,* and visions before midnight. the ivory gate.] The poets suppose two gates of sleep, the one of torn, from which true dreams proceed; the other of ivory, which sends forth false dreams. GOBLIN MARKET BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI M ORNING and evening Maids heard the goblins cry "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: -- Our grapes fresh from the vine, Rare pears and greengages, Taste them and try: Sweet to tongue and sound to eye; Evening by evening Among the brookside rushes, Laura bowed her head to hear, In the cooling weather, With clasping arms and cautioning lips, With tingling cheeks and finger tips. "Lie close," Laura said, Pricking up her golden head: "We must not look at goblin men, We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed "Come buy," call the goblins, Hobbling down the glen. "Oh," cried Lizzie, 66 Laura, Laura, You should not peep at goblin men." Covered close, lest they should look ; Laura reared her glossy head, And whispered like the restless brook: "Look, Lizzie, look, Lizzie, Down the glen tramp little men. One hauls a basket, One bears a plate, One lugs a golden dish |