fhall fee you fhortly. Quod ita contigit: Which accordingly (faith Cicero) came to pass. Thus much for Natural Divination. I come, in the next Place, to fpeak fomething of that which is call'd Artificial; in doing which, becaufe Divination, or Prediction by Dreams, feems to bear a more near Affinity to the Natural than the reft, and is by fome reckon'd amongst the Species of it; I fhall therefore in the first place give you an Account of the Customs practis'd in it. CHA P. XIII. Of Divination by Dreams. SHALL not in this Place trouble you with the various Divifions of Dreams, which do not concern my prefent Defiga, which is only to fpeak of those by which Predictions were made, commonly call'd Di vine; and of these there were three Sorts. The first was Xenuatious, when the Gods and Spirits in their own or under any affumed Form convers'd with Men in their Sleep: Such an one was Agamemnon's Dream, at the Beginning of the fecond Iliad; where the God of Dreams, in the Form of Neftor, adviseth him to give the Trojans Battle, and encourageth him thereto with the Promife of certain Success and Victory. Such an one also was the Dream of Pindar, in which (as Paufanias reports) Proferpina appear'd to him, and complained he dealt unkindly by her, for that he had compos'd Hymns in Honour of all the other Gods, and fhe alone was neglected by him: She added, that when he came into her Dominions, he should celebrate her Praises alfo. Not many Days after the Poet died, and in a fhort time appear'd to an old Woman, a Relation of his, that us'd to employ a great part of her Time in reading and finging his Verses, and repeated to her an Hymn made by him upon Proferpina. The fecond is Oeaua, wherein the Images of Things which are to happen are plainly reprefented in their own Shape and Likenefs; and this is by fome call'd waxos. Such an one was that of Alexander the Great, mention'd by Valerius Maximus, when he dream'd that he was to be murder'd by Caffander: And that of Crafus, King of Lydia, when he dream'd that his Son Atys, whom he defigned to fuc. ceed him in his Empire, should be flain by an Iron Spear, as Herodotus «* relateth. d The third Species, call'd Oveggs, is that in which future Events are revealed by Types and Figures; whence it is named Aangeixos, an Allegory, being, according to Heraclides of Pontus, a Figure by which one Thing is exprefs'd, and another fignify'd. Of this fort was Hecuba's, when The dream'd fhe had conceiv'd a Firebrand; and Cafar's, when he dream'd he lay with his Mother; whereby was fignified he should a Boeoticis. Lib. i. cap. vii. ‹ Lib. i. cap. xxxiv. a De Allegor. Homericis. enjoy enjoy the Empire of the Earth, the common Mother of all living Creatures. From this Species, thofe, whofe Profeffion it was to interpret Dreams, have defumed their Names, being call'd in Greek Ovengupitaι, Oveley.Twv oneiral, from Judging of Dreams; Oveσól; from Prying and Looking into them; and Ovengonor, because they were converfant about them. To one of these three Sorts may all Prophetical Dreams be reduc'd; but the Distinction of their Names is not always critically obferv'd. The first Author of all Dreams, as well as other Divinations, was Jupiter, as I have already intimated, e καὶ γάρ τ' ὄναρ ἐκ Διός ἐσιν. For Dreams too come from Jove. faith Homer. But this must not be understood, as if Dreams were thought immediately to proceed from Jupiter: It was below his Dignity to defcend to fuch mean Offices, which were thought more fit for inferior Deities. To omit therefore the Apparitions of the Gods, or Spirits in Dreams, upon particular Occafions, fuch as was that of Patroclus's Ghoft to Achilles, to defire his Body might be interr'd; The Earth was thought to be the cause of Dreams, faith Euripides & : ὦ πίτνια Χθών, Μελανοπτερύγων μᾶτερ ὀνείρων· Hail, reverend Earth, from whofe prolifick Womb Where the Scholiaft gives this Reafon for it, viz. That the Earth, by obftructing the Paffage of the Light of the Sun, caufeth the Night, in which Dreams prefent themselves, which are upon this account imputed to the Earth as their Mother. Or, that out of the Earth proceeds Meat, Meat caufeth Sleep (Sleep being nothing but the Ligation of the exterior Senfes, caus'd by humid Vapours afcending from the Stomach to the Brain, and there obftructing the Motion of the Animal Spirits, which are the Inftruments of Senfation, and all other Animal Operations) and from Sleep come Dreams; But these were efteem'd meer Cheats and Delufions, as Euftathius telleth us, in his Comment upon the nineteenth Book of Homer's Odyes, not far from the end; and fuch as these he faith the Poet speaks of, when he makes Dreams to inhabit near the Ocean, the great Receptacle of the humid Element, Παρ δ' ἴσαν Ωκεανόν τε έρας, καὶ Λευκάδα πέτραν, Ηδὲ παρ' ηελίοιο πύλας, καὶ δῆμον ὀνείρων • Near to that Place, where with impetuous & Force, Iliad, á. £ Iliad. '. g Hecub. v. 70. Near Near Phoebus's glitt'ring Gates, and that dark Cell, Others were afcrib'd to Infernal Ghofts. Thus Virgil at the end of his fixth Eneid: Sed falfa ad cælum mittunt infomnia Manes. Into the upper World phantaftick Dreams. Hence Sophocles brings in Electra faying, that Agamemnon, out of a concern for Orefies and his Defigns, haunted Clytemnestra with fearful Dreams, * Οἶμαι μὲν ἦν, εἶμαί τι κακέινῳ μέλον, For He, folicitous of those Affairs, In frightful Dreams doth Clytamneftra haunt. Others were imputed to Hecate, and to the Moon, who were Goddeffes of the Night, and fometimes taken for the fame Perfon; they were alfo fuppos'd to have a particular Influence, and to prefide over all the Accidents of the Night, and therefore invoked at Incantations, and other Night-myfteries, as fhall be fhewn afterwards. But the chief Caufe of all was the God of Sleep, whofe Habitation, as i Ovid defcribes it, was among the Cimmerii, in a Den dark as Hell, and in the Way to it; around him lay whole Swarms of Dreams of all forts and fizes, which he fent forth when, and whither, he pleafed; but Virgil affigns to the falfe and deluding Dreams another place, upon an Elm at the Entrance of Hell: In medio ramos annofaque brachia pandit Ulmus opaca, ingens: quam fedem fomnia vulgo I' th' midst an ancient spreading Elm doth grow, H. H. It may be, he fuppofes this to have been the Receptacle of fome part of them, and the reft to accompany the God of Sleep. Ovid tells us, He had three Attendants more ingenious than the reft, which could tranfform themselves into any Form; their Names were Morpheus, Phobetor, or Icelos, and Phantafus: The Employment of the firft was to counterfeit the Forms of Men, the second imitated the Likeness of Brutes, and the last that of inanimate Creatures; h Electra, v. 480. i Metam, lib. xi. Fab. x. X neid. vi. v. 283; Excitat 1 Excitat artificem, fimulatoremque figuræ Exprimit inceffus, vultumque, fonumque loquendi ; Phantafos ; ille in humum, faxumque, undamque, trabemque, He rous'd the Antick Fiend; than whom none can Phantafus next, but He, diftin&t from thefe, H. H. In Virgil, the God of Sleep defcended from Heaven upon Palinurus ; which is not to be understood, as if Heaven was his proper Seat; but that he was fent thence, by fome of the Ethereal Gods, by whom He had been call'd thither: Or elfe He is to be fuppos'd to rove up and down through the Heavens, or Air, to difperfe his Dreams among Men, as He fees convenient: The Poet's Words are these : levis æthereis delapfus Somnus ab afiris H. H. There was another Deity alfo, to whom the care of Dreams was committed, call'd Brizo, from the old Greek word 6pile, to fleep: Caelius faith fhe was worship'd in the Island Delos, and that Boats full of all forts of Things were offer'd to her, except Fish. But she was thought rather to affift at the Interpretation of Dreams, than to be the efficient Cause of them, and is therefore by Hefychius call'd Begóμarns Antiq. Lect. lib. xxvli. c. x. Ovid. Loc. citat. in Æneid. v. v. 838. ณ This Account Calius hath taken out of the eighth Book of Athenæus who adds farther, that they used to pray to her for the Publick Safety and Profperity; but more particularly, that she would vouchfafe to protect and preferve their Ships. Laftly, 'Twas believed that Hawks or Vultures (igéanes) when they were dead, did μαντεύεσθαι, καὶ ὀνείρατα ἐπιπέμπειν prophely and fend Dreams; being then divefted of their Bodies, and become qual tuxai, naked Souls °. Having treated of the reputed Authors of Dreams, I fhall in the next Place defcribe the Ways by which they were fuppos'd usually to come. These were two, one for delufive Dreams, which pafs'd thro' a Gate of Ivory; another for the true, which pafs'd through a Gate of Horn. Descriptions of these two Gates occur both in the Greek and Latin Poets, one of which I fhall give you in each Tongue: The first fhall be that of Homer, where fpeaking of Dreams, he faith, Τῶν οἱ υφ' κ' ἔλθωσι διὰ πρις8 ἐλέφαντος, Οἱ ὁ ἔτυμα κραίνεσι βροτῶν ὅτε κέν τις ἴδηται· The second shall be that of Virgil, imitated from the former : Sunt gemina Somni porta, quarum altera fertur Vain and phantaftick are the Dreams that fly When Sleep conveighs our Dreams thro' th' other Gate, } H. H. In allufion to thefe Gates, we are told by Philoftratus, that it was cuftomary to reprefent any Dream in a white Garment, wrap'd over a black one, with a Horn in his Hand. And Euftathius, in his Comment upon the fore-mention'd Paffage of Homer, hath made feveral Conjectures concerning it, moft of which are fo frivolous, that to mention them would be loft Labour. Such as defire farther fatisfaction may confult the Author. • Elianus de Animal. lib. xi. cap. xxxix. • Æneid. vi. v. 893. P Odyff. xix. v. 562. X 2 The |