ceived, that an art so vague was often accommodated to the inclination and feelings of those whom it was the interest of interpreters to gratify. The mother of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, dreamed that she brought forth a satyr; and the Sicilian interpreters, called Galeotæ, explained the dream to import, that her son should be the most illustrious and prosperous among the Greeks +. Hippias, the leader of the barbarians to the plains of Marathon, fancied in a vision that he slept with his mother; and the popular construction led him to expect a return to prosperity, and a peaceful death at Athens. A similar dream is attributed to the emperor Claudius. It is remarkable that the word Galeotæ, or Galei, is derived from the Hebrew root nba, which signifies to reveal. + Herdfield in Sphin. C. 37. P. 893. Herod. L. v. C. 55. Philip of Macedon dreamed that he placed a seal upon his wife; he expounded his dream to signify, that his wife should be barren, but Aristonides, a soothsayer, interpreted it that it imported the pregnancy of his wife, inasmuch as empty vessels are not sealed. Domitian dreamed a few days before his death that a golden head rose upon the nape of. his neck, which was applied to prefigure the golden age which followed in the reigns of his five successors*. As to Cesar's dream (says Bacon, the profound writer from whom I have borrowed the two preceding articles,) 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. We shall conclude with the just remark of this great man, that the more it appears that divination * Bacon's Works, vol. iv. p. 5. Bacon, vol. iii. p. 354. has been polluted by vanity and superstition, the more we should receive and preserve its pure part *. Bacon, vol. ii. p. 57. And the Lord came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the Tabernacle and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forth, and he said, Hear now my words: if there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.-Numbers, xii. 5.6. THAT dreams were employed by God for the conveyance of his instructions to mankind from the earliest ages is indisputable, and though we are inclined to reject those dreams which are related in profane history, as not the result of preternatural suggestion, it is certain that the distinctions laid down by Macrobius had a foundation in reality. It appears also, that however we may deny that God imparted his immediate suggestions to those who were not subjected to his especial direction, or had a connection with the great scheme of revelation; yet we may still admit that the Grecian and Roman persuasions of the existence of inspired dreams were well founded, though formed only on a traditional knowledge of those modes which were occasionally adopted by God for the communication of the particulars that illustrated his designs. The visions which were imparted to Abraham and others *, in which the word of the Lord is represented to have addressed them, and they themselves to have spoken; and which seem to have happened as well during the day as after "the sun was gone down, and a deep sleep fell" on the favoured persont, may be * Gen. xv. xx. 3-7. xxvi. 24. † Gen. xv. xl. 1-5. Numb. xxiv. 4-16. See also Acts xxii. 2-17. 1 Kings iii. 5. Job xxxiii. 14-16. |