indeed it will be judged, on reflection, that any advantage which might occasionally result from a belief of the interference of the Supreme Being in the suggestion of dreams, would be more than counterbalanced by the erroneous apprehensions and superstitious fears which such a persuasion would engender.

an

& translation is requested by Englahmen in in english &

Degurma auction by the Zuugh, Jall

CONCERNING OTHER/DREAMS RELATED IN
PROFANE ACCOUNTS OF ANCIENT HIS

TORY.

Nor call a god upon the stage to stand,
Unless the cause require a godlike hand.
Nec deus intersit.-Horace, De Art. Poet.

IT deserves to be remarked, as an objection
to many of the dreams mentioned in ancient
accounts, which lay claim to the reputation of
having been inspired, that they are represented
to have predicted events which it was of no
advantage to reveal, and of which no care
could avoid the accomplishment.

The dreams recorded in Scripture were calculated especially to establish the evidence, and conspire with the designs of religion; they un

folded the scenes of futurity for the consolation and encouragement of faith, for the attestation to character, and for the manifestation of God's councils. The threats and the promises, which they disclosed, were for adequate purposes, and sometimes suspended on conditions and revocable decrees, they were given with the evidence and clear manifestation of truth, were attested by signs, and explained to those who had reason to look to their completion, and to hope or to tremble without the imputation of credulity.

But the dreams, mentioned by heathen. writers, were delivered to persons who had often no especial claim to divine attention, and who had no reason to respect them till some correspondent event awakened regard.

If Alcibiades dreamt that he was clad in the robe of his mistress, which a few days after was affectionately wrapped round his unburied and neglected body; or if, as other writers represent, he dreamt that he was beheaded by

Magæus, we cannot perceive that any useful warning was designed. So if when Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, departed from that island, in order to repair to Oretes (the governor of Sardis under Cyrus) his daughter dreamed that she saw her father lifted up in the air, whilst Jupiter washed, and the Sun anointed him, we know not what good purpose was to be served, even though some Edipus should have explained to him, that the dream predicted that he should be hanged by Oretes; and that his body remaining, should be washed by the rain, and the fat be melted by the sun *.

The dream proclaimed the parent was deceived
By secret omens, nor his fate perceived t.

The inutility of such intimations may be farther illustrated by other relations when Croesus dreamed that his accomplished son Atys was transfixed by a javelin headed by

* Herod. L. iii. Camerar. Oper. Subsec. Cent. 2. C. 57. Claudian. L. ii.

iron, he did all that parental solicitude could suggest, in removing him from the command of the Lydian forces, and in giving him a wife whose affection might conspire, in all precautions, to secure him from injury; and when the prince was accidentally killed by the javelin of a faithful attendant at the hunting of a boar, we perceive that the fatal prediction of the dream could be calculated only to disturb the mind of Croesus, and to aggravate the affliction which drove the unhappy Adrastus to suicide *. While

"The wretched mortal did not 'scape the blow t”

Nay, sometimes attention to dreams seems to have been the cause of crimes and misfortunes, if we receive the accounts which are given to us; thus Paris is said to have eloped with Helen under the encouragement of a dream, in which Venus promised him her assistance.

Herod. L. i.

+ Sophocles-Consult Tertull. Lib. de Anim. C. 46. Plin, L. XXV. C.