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ESSAY XXXV. OF PROPHECIES.

I MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural predictions, but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythonissa' to Saul, 'To-morrow thou and thy sons shall be with me." Virgil hath these verses from Homer: At domus Æneæ cunctis dominabitur oris,

Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis :' 3

a prophecy, as it seems, of the Roman empire. Seneca the tragedian hath these verses:

'Venient annis

Sæcula seris, quibus Oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes; nec sit terris
Ultima Thule :' 4

a prophecy of the discovery of America. The daughter of Polycrates dreamed that Jupiter 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.5 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, degustabis 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

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1 Pythonissa. Pythoness.

2 I Sam. xxviii. 19.

3 Over every shore the house of Æneas shall reign; his children's children, and their posterity likewise.'-Æneid, iii. 97.

4 There shall come a time, in later ages, when Ocean shall relax his chains, and a vast continent appear; and a pilot shall find new worlds, and Thule shall be no more earth's bound.'-Sen. Med. xi. 375.

5 Hesiod, iii. 24.

6 Plut. Vit. Alexan. 2.

7 Thou shalt see me again at Philippi.'-Appian, Bell. Civ. iv. 134. 8Thou, also, Galba, shalt taste of empire.'-Stat. Vit. Galba.

expounds it of Vespasian.1 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 VI. of England said of Henry VII. when he was a lad, and gave him water, 'This is the 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 beaver. 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 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 Baugh3 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 Regiomontanus,

'Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus ;'

was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great

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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 despisedfor they have done much mischief, and I see many severe laws made to suppress them. That that hath given them grace, and some 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 coveteth divination, thinks it no peril to foretell that which indeed they do but collect, as that of Seneca's verse; 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. The 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 brains, merely contrived and feigned, after the event past.

1 Aristoph. Equit. 195.

2 Of. By. 'Lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him.'-Luke xiv. 8. 3 Critias.

ANNOTATIONS.

'The spreading or publishing of them is in no sort to be despised, for they have done much mischief.'

A political prediction, publicly uttered, will often have had, or be supposed to have had, a great share in bringing about its own fulfilment. Accordingly, when a law is actually passed, and there is no reasonable hope of its repeal, we should be very cautious in publicly uttering predictions of dangers and discontents, lest we should thus become the means of engendering or aggravating them. He who gives out, for instance, that the people will certainly be dissatisfied with such and such a law is in this doing his utmost to make them dissatisfied. And this being the case in all unfavourable, as well as favourable, predictions, some men lose their deserved credit for political sagacity, through their fear of contributing to produce the evils they apprehend; while others, again, contribute to evil results by their incapacity to keep their anticipations locked up in their own bosoms, and by their dread of not obtaining deserved credit. It would be desirable to provide for such men a relief like that which the servant of King Midas found, due care, however, being taken that there should be no whispering reeds to divulge it.

In another New Atlantis,' entitled An Expedition to the Interior of New Holland,' a Prediction-office is supposed to exist in several of the States, namely, an establishment consisting of two or three inspectors, and a few clerks, appointed to receive from any one, on payment of a trifling fee, any sealed-up prediction, to be opened at a time specified by the party himself. His name is to be signed to the prediction within; and on the outer cover is inscribed the date of its delivery, and the time when the seal is to be broken. There is no pretence made to supernatural prophetic powers; only to supposed political sagacity.

Unless in some case in which very remarkable sagacity has been evinced, the predictions are not made public. But pre

1 Published by Bentley.

viously to the appointment of any of the authors to any public office, the inspectors are bound to look over their register, and produce, as a set-off against a candidate's claims, any unsuccessful prediction he may have made. Many a man there is to whom important public trusts are committed, who, wherever such an institution had been established, would be found to have formally recorded, under the influence of self-conceit, his own incapacity.

'Men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss.'

This remark, as well as the proverb, 'What is hit is history; what is missed is mystery,' would admit of much generalization. The most general statement would be nearly that of the law maxim, 'De non apparentibus et non existentibus, eadem est ratio for in all matters, men are apt to treat as altogether non-existent, whatever does not come under their knowledge or notice.

No doubt, if all the pocket-books now existing could be inspected, some thousands of memoranda would be found of dreams, visions, omens, presentiments, &c., kept to observe whether they are fulfilled; and when one is, out of some hundreds of thousands, this is recorded; the rest being never heard of. So Bion, when shown the votive offerings of those who had been saved from shipwreck, asked, 'Where are the records of those who were drowned in spite of their vows?"

Mr. Senior has remarked in his Lectures on Political Economy, that the sacrifice of vast wealth, on the part of a whole people, for the gain—and that, comparatively, a trifling gain—of a handful of monopolists, is often submitted to patiently,' from the gain being concentrated and the loss diffused. But this would not have occurred so often as it has, were it not that this diffusion of the loss causes its existence-that is, its existence as a loss so increased-to be unperceived. If a million of persons are each virtually taxed half-a-crown a year in the increased price of some article, through the prohibition of free-trade, perhaps not above a shilling of this goes to those who profit by the monopoly. But this million of shillings, amounting to £50,000

1 See Annotations on Essay xxiii.

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