"The practice again is subdivided into two parts, or quadripartite, as Ptolomy (lib. 2) declares: the first considers the general state of the world, and from eclipses and comets, great conjunctions, annual revolutions, quarterly ingressions and lunations, also the rising, culminating, and setting of the fixed stars, together with the configurations of the planets both to the sun and among themselves, judgment is deduced, and the astrologer doth frame his annual predictions of all sensitive and vegetative things lying in the air, earth, or water; of plague, plenty, dearth, mutations of the air, wars, peace, and other general accidents of countries, provinces, cities, etc.
"The second of these subdivided parts, in particular, respects only the private state of every single man and woman, which must be performed from the scheme of the nativity, the knowledge of which is of most excellent use to all persons. Therefore let the nativities of children be diligently observed for the future, that is to say, the day, hour, and minute of birth as near as can be, which will be of use to the astrological physician, for the most principal conjecture of the malignity of the disease, whether it be curable, or shall end with death, depends upon the knowledge of the nativity; and very rarely any disease invades a person, but some unfortunate direction of the luminaries or ascendant to the body, or beams of malignant planets preceded the same, or did then operate, or at least some evil revolution, profection or transit, which cannot be discovered by any other way but by astrology. Moreover, it would be convenient that the true time of the first falling sick be observed precisely, and by that, together with the nativity, be judiciously compared, the physician shall gain more credit than by all his other skill; and herein, the astrologer's foresight shall often contradict the judgment of the physician; for when the astrologer foretells a phlegmatic man, that at such a time he shall be afflicted with a choleric disease, the doctor will perceive by his physical symptoms, the astrologer, from his knowledge in more secret causes of nature, hath excelled him in his art.
"Now if God Almighty do not countermand or check the ordinary course of nature, or the matter of elementary bodies here below be not unproportionable, and thereby unapt to receive their impressions, there is no reason why, in a natural and physical necessity, astrological predictions should not succeed and take effect, and by how much the knowledge which we have by the known causes is more demonstrative and infallible than that which we have either by signs or effects, so much by this companion doth Astrology appear worthy to be preferred before Physic." Cardan, who was an excellent physician saith: "If by the art of Astrology he had not better attained to the knowledge of his diseases, than the physician that would have administered to him by his skill, he had been assuredly cured by death, rather than preserved alive by physic. (Vide his Comment. upon Ptol. Quidrepart.) From hence it appears it is necessary that the physician should be skilful in astrology, but on the contrary,ex quovis legno non fit Mercurius, every astrologer cannot be a physician; if the nativity be but precisely known, or if, buttempus ablatumorsuppositum, and withal some notable accidents of sickness, danger of drowning, peril by fire, marriage, or other, the like accidents may be foreseen."
The astrologers were a set of cunning, equivocal rogues; the more cautious of whom only uttered their prognostications in obscure and ambiguous language, which might be applied to all things, times, princes, and nations whatever. An almanack maker, a Spanish friar, predicted, in clear and precise words, the death of Henry the Fourth of France; and Pierese, though he had no faith in star-gazing, yet, alarmed at whatever menaced the life of a beloved sovereign, consulted with some of the king's friends, and had the Spanish almanack laid before his Majesty, who courteously thanked them for their solicitude, but utterly slighted the prediction: the event occurred, and in the following year, the SpanishLillyspread his own fame in an new almanack. This prediction of the friar, was the result either of his being acquainted with the plot, or from his being made an instrument for the purposes of those who were.
Cornelius Agrippa rightly designates astrologers "a perverse and preposterous generation of men, who profess to know future things, but in the meantime are altogether ignorant of past and present; and undertaking to tell all people most obscure and hidden secrets abroad, at the same time, know not what happens in their own houses."
But this Agrippa, for profoundAnd solid lying, was renown'd:The Anthroposophus, and Floud,And Jacob Behmen, understood;Knew many an amulet and charmThat would do neither good nor harm.He understood the speech of birdsAs well as they themselves do words;Could tell what subtlest parrots meanThat speak and think contrary, clean;What member 'tis of whom they talk,Why they cry, rope and—walk, knave, walk.He could foretell whatever wasBy consequence to come to pass;As death of great men, alterations,Diseases, battles, inundations:All this without th' eclipse o' th' sun,Or dreadful comet, he hath doneBy inward light, a way as good,And easy to be understood:But with more lucky hit than thoseThat use to make the stars deposeAs if they were consenting toAll mischief in the world men do:Or like the devil, did tempt and sway 'emTo rogueries, and then betray 'em.
We shall conclude our astrological strictures with the following advertisement, which affords as fine a satirical specimen of quackery as is to be met with. It is extracted from "poor Robin's" almanack for 1773; and may not be without its use, to many at the present day. We will vouch for it being harmless, but as we are not in the secret of all that it contains, our readers must endeavour to get the information that may be wanted, on certain important points, from other quarters. It will shew, however, that the almanack astrologers did not live upon the best terms, but like their predecessors, were constantly abusing and attacking each other.
"The best time to cut hair. How moles and dreams are to be interpreted. When most proper season to bleed. Under what aspect of the moon best to draw teeth, and cut corns. Pairing of nails, on what day unlucky. What the kindest sign to graft or inoculate in; to open bee-hives, and kill swine. How many hours boiling my Lady Kent's pudding requires. With other notable questions, fully and faithfully resolved, by me Sylvester Patridge, student in physic and astrology, near the Gun in Moorfields."
"Of whom likewise may be had, at reasonable rates, trusses, antidotes, elixirs, love-powders. Washes for freckles, plumpers, glass-eyes, false calves and noses, ivory-jaws, and a new receipt to turn red hair into black."
Old Robin's almanack was evidently the best of the time, and free from all the astrological cant with which Patridge's Merlinus Liberatus was filled; against which Poor Robin did not a little declaim. The motto to his title runs thus:—
"We use no weather-wise predictionsNor any such-like airy fictions;But (which we think is much the best)Write the plain truth, or crack a jest:And (without any further pretence)Confess we write, and think of the pence:For that's the aim of all who write,Profit to gain, mixed with delight."
Poor old Robin attacked the astrologers of his day with no little vehemence: "How different a task is it," says he, "for man to behave so in this world as to please all the people that inhabit it! A man who makes use of his best endeavours to please every body is sure to please but very few, and by that means displease a great many; which may very possibly be the case with poor Robin this year. But (be that as it will)old Bobis sometimes well pleased, when rogues, prick-eared coxcombs, fools, and such like, are the most displeased at him: be it therefore known, that it is only men of sense and integrity, (whether they have much money or no money) that he has any, (the least) regard for: I see very plainly, that an humble man is (generally) accountedbase; if otherwise, he is esteemedproud; a bold look is looked upon asimpudence; if modest, (then to be sure) he must behypocritical; if his behaviour is grave, it is owing to asullennessof temper; if affable, he is butlittleregarded; if strictly just, thencruelmust be his character; but, if merciful and forbearing, then (of consequence) a silly, sheepish-headed fool! Now, I challenge all the ASS-TROLOGERS and CONJURERS, throughout the whole kingdom, to demonstrate that all the whimsey-headed opinions which different men retain of different actions, together with their being so vastly different at different times, one from another; I say, I call upon them ALL to prove, that they are (wholly) owing to the STARRY influences! There being, (I believe) in general as many different ideas and conceptions in the mind of mankind, as there are variety of complexions and countenances."
His observations on the fourunequalquarters of the year, as he terms them, are no less satirical, humorous, and full of truth, and so much in "opposition" with others of the trade, that poor old Robin, in good sense and trite remarks, carries away the palm from all his predecessors and contemporaries; indeed, he is so little of an astrologer, that, instead of consulting the angles, aspects, conjunctions and trines, of the planets, he is vulgar enough to attach more importance to the substantials and doings of this nether world. We present our readers with the following as a specimen, which, though in his usual way, a little rough-mouthed, occasionally is free from that almanack-cant which characterises the vocations of his fellow-labourers in the same field.
which, being the most delightful season in the whole year, as it comes the next after a long and cold winter makes it as welcome as it is delightful; for now the lengthening days afford full time for every body but drunkards and watchmen to finish their respective day's works by day-light, besides some time to spare to walk abroad, to see the fine new livery with which Dame Flora has now decked out Mother Earth. In the opening of the Spring, when all nature begins to recover herself, the same animal pleasure which makes the bird sing, and the whole brute creation rejoice, rises very sensibly in the hearts of mankind. This quarter will bring whole shoals of mackerel, and plenty of green pease; likewise gooseberries, cherries, cheese-cakes, and custards.
But, let us now moralize,—and improve these vernal delights into real virtue; and, when we find within ourselves a secret satisfaction arising from the beauties of the creation, may we consider to whom we stand indebted for all these various gratifications and entertainments of sense; who it is that opens thus his hand, and fills the world with good! But so soon as this quarter is ended; i.e. there, or then, or thereabout, for in this case a day or two can break no great squares—I say this quarter (as usual) will be followed by the
when, and at which time the days will have attained their greatest, and consequently the nights the shortest lengths. June, in which month this quarter is said to begin, will retain some likeness, if not exhibit the perfections of the Spring; but the two next succeeding months will perhaps have less vigour, but a greater degree of heat; for, as they pass on, they will be ripening the fruits of the earth; whilst the Dog star is shooting his rays amongst, the industrious farmer will have business enough upon his hands: for now he expects to be reaping and gathering together the returns of his labour; but then he must expect, nevertheless, to bear the heat and burthen of the day.
This quarter very justly represents a man in the full vigour of health and strength; the beauty of the Spring is gone! The strength of Summer is of short continuance! It will very soon be succeeded by Autumn: thus, and thus (O reader) do then consider, hast thou seen the seasons, two, three, or four times return in regular succession: remember that the time is coming, when all opportunities of this sort will be for ever hid from thine eyes: remember if forty years have passed thee, I say, I would have thee remember, that thy spring is gone, thy summer almost spent! Have then, therefore, a very serious retrospective view of thy past, and, (if it please God) a fixed resolution to amend thy prolonged life: then being now arrived almost on the eve of
which begins this year (as usual) when, or then, or thereabouts, the time the Summer quarter ends—namely, when the nights begin to grow longer and the days shorter: this is the time when the barns are filled with wheat, which soon must be thrashed out, in order to be sowed again. This also is the time when the orchards abound with fruits of the kind, and consequently the properest time to make cider.
Lamentable now must be the case of those poor women who, in this quarter, happen to long for green pease or strawberries; for I dare assure them, upon thehonest wordof an astrologer, that they can get none on this side of next Easter. Some now-abouts under the notion of soldiers, shall sally out at night uponPullen, or perhaps lie in embuscade for a rope of onions, as if they were Welsh freebooters. Loss of time and money may be recovered by industry: but to be a fool-born, or a rogue in nature, are diseases incurable.
Remember that in any quarter of the year, this is almost always a certain presage of a wedding, when all parties are agreed, and the parson in readiness; and then you must be sure to have money in readiness too, or your intended marriage may happen to prove a miscarriage. But those who are able to pay for tying the knot, when it is fairly tied, may go home to dinner and be merry; go to the tavern and be merry; go to supper and be merry; rise next morning and be merry: and let the world know, that a married life is a plentiful life, when people have good estates; a fruitful life when they have many children; and an happy life, when man and wife love each other as they ought to do, and never quarrel nor disagree.
But now comes on the cold, dirty, dithering, pouting, rainy, shivering, freezing, blowing, stormy, blustering, cruel quarter called winter; the very thoughts of it are enough to fright one; but that it very luckily happens to be introduced (this year) by a good, fat merry Christmas: yet it is the last and worse, and very much resembles extreme old age accompanied by poverty; this quarter is also pretty much like Pharoah's lean kine; for it generally (we find) eats up and devours most of the produce of the preceding seasons: now the sun entering the southern tropic, affords us the least share of his light, and consequently the longest long nights: yet, nevertheless, in this uncomfortable quarter, you may possibly pick up some crumbs of comfort, provided you have good health, good store of the ready Rhino, a good wife, and other good things about you: and especially a good conscience: for then the starry influences must necessarily appear very benign, notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather; for in such cases there will be frequentconjunctionsof sirloins and ribs of beef;aspectsof legs and shoulders of mutton, withrefrenationsof loins of veal, shining near the watery triplicity of plumb-porridge—together with trine and sextile of minced pies; collared brawn from the Ursus major, and sturgeon from Pisces—all for the honour of Christmas: and I think it is a much pleasanter sight than a Covent-Garden comedy, to see a dozen or two of husbandmen, farmers, and honest tenants, at a nobleman's table (who never raised their rents) worry a sirloin, and hew down, (I mean cut up) a goose like a log: while a good Cheshire cheese, and plenty of nappy ale, and strong March beer, washes down the merry goblets, sets all their wit afloat, and sends them to their respective homes, as happy as kings.
And now, kind loving readers, every one,God send y'a good new-year, when the old one 's gone.
[75] The following prediction, and the verification of it are of so recent a date, that we cannot resist giving it a place in our pages. In the account of the late Captain Flinder's voyage of discovery, is the melancholy relation of the loss of the master, Mr. Thistle, with seven others, in a boat, on the inhospitable shores of Terra Australia. To this narrative, the following note is subjoined, which we shall here quote in Captain Flinder's own words: "This evening, Mr. Fowler, the lieutenant, told me a circumstance which I thought very extraordinary, and it afterwards proved to be more so. While we were lying at Spithead, Mr. Thistle was one day waiting on shore, and having nothing else to do, went to a certain old man, named Pine, to have his fortune told. The cunning man informed him that he was going on a long voyage, and that the ship, on arriving at her destination, would be joined by another vessel. That such was intended, he might have learnt privately; but he added that Mr. Thistle would be lost before the other vessel joined. As to the manner of his loss the magician refused to give any information. My boat's crew, hearing what Mr. Thistle said, went to consult the wise man, and after the prefatory information of a long voyage, they were told that they would be shipwrecked, but not in the ship they were going out in; whether they would escape and return to England, he was not permitted to reveal. This tale Mr. Thistle often told at the mess-table; and I remarked, with some pain, in a future part of the voyage, that every time my boat's crew went to embark in the Lady Nelson, there was some degree of apprehension amongst them, that the time of the predicted shipwreck was arrived. I make no comment, (says Capt. Flinders,) upon this story, but to recommend a commander, if possible, to prevent any of his crew from consulting fortune-tellers."—It should be observed that, strange as it may appear, every particular of these predictions came exactly to pass, for the master and his boat's crew were lost before the Investigator was joined by the Lady Nelson, from Port-Jackson; and when the former ship was condemned, the people embarked with their commander on board the Porpoise, which was wrecked on a coral reef, and nine of the crew were lost.
[76] In 1670, the passion for horoscopes and expounding the stars, prevailed in France among the first rank. The new-born child was usually presented naked to the astrologer, who read the first lineaments in its forehead, and the transverse lines in its hands, and thence wrote down its future destiny. Catherine de Médicis carried Henry IV, when a child, to old Nostradamus, who antiquaries esteem more for his Chronicle of Provence than for his vaticinating powers. The sight of the revered seer, with a heard which "streamed like a meteor in the air," terrified the future hero, who dreaded a whipping from so grave a personage.
[77] The Chaldean Sages were nearly put to the route by a quarto pack of artillery, fired on them by Mr. John Chamber, in 1691. Apollo did not use Marsyas more inhumanly than his scourging pen this mystical race; and his personalities made them sorely feel it. However, a Norwich knight, the very Quixote of Astrology, arrayed in the enchanted armour of his occult authors, encountered this pagan in a most stately carousal. He came forth with "A Defence of Judicial Astrologye, in answer to a treatise lately published by Mr. John Chamber. By Christopher Knight. Printed at Cambridge, 1693."
[78] Vide Amulets passim.
[79] Lilly's work, a voluminous quarto monument of the folly of the age, was sold originally for four guineas; it is entitled "Christian Astrology," modestly treated, in three books, by William Lilly, student in Astrology, 2nd. edition 1659. Every page is embellished with a horoscope which, sitting on the pretending tripod, he explains with the utmost facility. There is also a portrait of this arch rogue and star-gazer, an admirable illustration for Lavater. As to Lilly's great skill in prophecy, there goes a pleasant story related by a kinsman of Dr. Case, his successor—namely—that a person wanting to consult him on a certain point coming to his house one morning, Lilly himself going to the door, saw a piece of filthy carrion which some one, who had more wit than manners, had left there: and being much offended at its unsightly appearance wished heartily he did but know who had treated him in that manner by leaving such an unwelcome legacy, as it were, in his very teeth, that he might punish them accordingly; which his customer observing when the conjurer demanded his business, "Nothing at all," said he, "for I'm sure if you can't find out who has defiled your own door, it is impossible you should discover anything relating to me," and with this caustic remark he left him.
[80] The Reverend and learned Thomas Gataker, with whom Lilly was engaged in a dispute, in his Annotations on the tenth chapter of Jeremiah and 10th verse, called him a "blind buzzard," and Lilly reflected again on his antagonist in hisAnnus Tenebrosus. Mr. Gataker's reply was entitled Thomas Gataker, B.D. his Vindication of the annotation by him published upon these words, "thus saith the Lord," (Jer. x. 2) against the scurrilous aspersions of that grand impostor William Lilly; as also against the various expositions of two of his advocates Mr. John Swan, and another by him cited but not named. Together with the Annotations themselves, wherein the pretended grounds of judiciary astrology, and the scripture proofs produced to it, are discussed and refuted. London, 1653, in 4th part 192. Our author making animadversions on this piece in his English Merlin, 1654 produced a third piece from Mr. Gataker, called a Discourse apologetical, wherein Lilly's lewd, and loud lies in his Merlin or Pasquil for 1654, are clearly laid open; his shameless desertion of his own cause further discovered, his abominable slanders fully refuted, and his malicious andmurtherousmind, inciting to a general massacre of God's ministers, from his own pen, evidently known, etc. London 1654.
As we shall have to speak of the art practised through the medium, termed incubation, of curing diseases, it may be proper to say something previously on the interpretation of dreams through whose agency these events were said to be realized.
Oneirocritics, or interpreters of dreams, were called conjecturers, a very fit and proper name for these worldly wise men, according to the following lines, translated from Euripides—
He that conjectures least amissOf all, the best of prophets is.
To the delusion of dreams not a few of the ancient philosophers lent themselves. Among these were Democritus, Aristotle, and his follower Themistius, Siresius the Platonic; who so far relied on dreams which some accident or other brought about, that they thence endeavoured to persuade men there are no dreams but what are founded on realities. For, say they, as the celestial influences produce various forms and changes in corporeal matter, so out of certain influences, predominating over the power of the fancy, the impression of visions is made, being consentaneous, through the disposition of the heavens, to the effect produced; more especially in dreams, because the mind, being then at liberty from all corporeal cares and exercises, more freely receives the divine influences: it happens, therefore that many things are revealed to them that are asleep, which are concealed from them that are awake. With these and such reasons it is pretended that much is communicated through the medium of dreams:
When soft sleep the body lays at ease,And from the heavy mass the fancy frees,Whate'er it is in which we take delight,And think of most by day we dream at night.
The transition from sleep is very natural to that of dreams, the wonderful and mysterious phenomena of that state, the ideal transactions and vain illusions of the mind. According to Wolfius, an eminent philosopher of Silesia, every dream originates in some sensation, and is continued by the succession of phantoms; but no phantasm can arise in the mind without some previous sensation. And yet it is not easy to confirm this by experience, it being often difficult to distinguish those slight sensations, which give rise to dreams, from phantasms, or objects of imagination.[81] The series of phantasms which thus constitute a dream, seems to be accounted for by the law of the imagination, or association of ideas; though it may be very difficult to assign the cause of every minute difference, not only in different subjects, but in the same, at different times, and in different circumstances. And hence M. Formey, who adopts the opinion of Wolfius, concludes, that those dreams are supernatural, which either do not begin by sensation, or are not continued by the law of imagination.[82]
The opinion is as old as Aristotle, who asserted, that a dream is only the [Greek: Phantasma] orappearanceof things, excited in the mind, and remaining after the objects are removed.[83] The opinion of Lucretius, translated in our motto, was likewise that of Tully.[84] Locke also traces the origin of dreams to previous sensations. "The dreams of sleeping men," says this profound philosopher, "are all made up of the waking man's ideas, though for the most part oddly put together."[85] And Dr. Hartley, who explains all the phenomena of the imagination by his theory of vibrations and associations, says, that dreams are nothing but the imaginations or reveries of sleeping men, and that they are deducible from three causes—viz, the impressions and ideas lately received, and particularly those of the preceding day, the state of the body, more especially of the stomach and brain, and association.[86]
Macrobius mentions five sorts of dreams. 1st. vision—2nd. a discovery of something between sleeping and waking—3rd. a suggestion cast into our fancy, called by Cicero,visum,—4th. an ordinary dream—and fifth, a divine apparition or revelation in our sleep; such as were the dreams of the prophets, and of Joseph, as also of the Eastern Magi.
Avicen makes the cause of dreams to be an ultimate intelligence moving the moon in the midst of that light with which the fancies of men are illuminated while they sleep. Aristotle refers the cause of them to common sense, but placed in the fancy. Averroes, an Arabian physician, places it in the imagination; Democritus ascribes it to little images, or representations, separated from the things themselves; Plato among the specific and concrete notions of the soul; Albertus to the superior influences, which continually flow from the sky, through many specific channels.
Some physicians attribute the cause of dreams to vapours and humours, and the affections and cares of persons predominant when awake; for, say they, by reason of the abundance of vapours, which are exhaled in consequence of immoderate feeding, the brain is so stuffed by it, that monsters and strange chimera are formed, of which the most inordinate eaters and drinkers furnish us with sufficient instances. Some dreams, they assert, are governed partly by the temperature of the body, and partly by the humour which mostly abounds in it; to which may be added the apprehensions which have preceded the day before; and which are often remarked in dogs, and other animals, which bark and make a noise in their sleep. Dreams, they observe, proceed from the humours and temperature of the body; we see the choleric dreams of fire, combats, yellow colours, etc. the phlegmatic of water baths, of sailing on the sea; the melancholies of thick fumes, deserts, fantasies, hideous faces, etc. they that have the hinder part of their brain clogged, with viscous humours, called by physicians Ephialtes incubus, dream that they are suffocated. And those who have the orifice of their stomach loaded with malignant humours, are affrighted with strange visions, by reason of those venemous vapours that mount to the brain and distemper it.
Were we to enter more profoundly into the mysterious phenomena of dreams, our present lucubrations might become too abstruse; and, after all, no philosophical nor satisfactory account can be given of them. Such of our readers therefore, as may wish for a more minute inquiry into the opinions above stated, we beg leave to refer to the respective authors whom we have already quoted. The reader, who is fond to find amusement even in a serious subject, from the scenes of nocturnal imagination, will be glad, perhaps for a moment, to be transported into the regions of poetic fancy. And here we find that the fancy is not more sportive in dreams, than are the poets in their descriptions of her nocturnal vagaries. On the effects of the imagination in dreams, the following effusion, put into the mouth of the volatile Mercurio, is an admirable illustration:—
O, then I see, Queen Mab has been with you.She is the fancy's midwife, and she comesIn shape no bigger than an agate stoneOn the fore-finger of an Alderman,Drawn with a team of little atomies,Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;The cover of the wings of grasshoppers;The traces of the smallest spider's web;The collars of the moonshine's watery beams;Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;Her waggoner, a small grey coated gnat,Not half so big as a round little worm,Prickt from the lazy finger of a maid.Her chariot is an empty hazel nut,Made by the joiner squirril, old grub,Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers:And in this state she gallops night by night,Thro' lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies strait;O'er lawyers' fingers, who strait dream on fees;O'er ladies lips, who strait on kisses dream,Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plague,Because their breath with sweetmeats tainted are.Sometimes she gallops o'er a lawyer's nose,And then dreams he of smelling out a suit,And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig tail,Tickling the parson as he lies asleep;Then dreams he of another benefice;Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neckAnd then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades,Of healths fire fathom deep; and then anonDrums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes,And being thus frighted, swears a pray'r or two,And sleeps again.
Lucretius, and Petronius in his poem on the vanity of dreams, had preceded our immortal bard in a description of the effects of dreams on different kinds of persons. Both the passages here alluded to, only serve to shew the vast superiority of Shakspeare's boundless genius: their sense is thus admirably expressed by Stepney:
At dead of night imperial reason sleeps,And fancy with her train, her revels keeps;Then airy phantoms a mix'd scene display,Of what we heard, or saw, or wish'd by day;For memory those images retainsWhich passion form'd, and still the strongest reigns.Huntsmen renew the chase they lately run,And generals fight again their battles won.Spectres and fairies haunt the murderer's dreams;Grants and disgraces are the courtier's themes.The miser spies a thief, or a new hoard;The cit's a knight; the sycophant a lord,Thus fancy's in the wild distraction lost,With what we most abhor, or covet most.Honours and state before this phantom fall;For sleep, like death, its image, equals all.
Chaucer in his tale of the Cock and Fox, has a fine description, thus versified by Dryden:—
Dreams are but interludes which fancy makes:When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;Compounds a medley of disjointed things,A court of coblers and a mob of kings:Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad:Both are the reasonable soul run mad;And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,That neither were, or are, or e'er can be.Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.The nurse's legends are for truth received,And the man dreams but what the boy believed,Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,The night restores our actions done by day;As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.In short, the farce of dreams is of a pieceIn chimeras all; and more absurd or less.
Shakspeare again:—
I talk of dreams,Which are the children of an idle brain,Begot of nothing but vain phantasy,Which is as thin of substance as the air,And more inconsistant than the wind.
Nor must Milton be omitted—
In the soulAre many lesser faculties, that serveReason as chief; among these Fancy nextHer office holds; of all external things,Which the five watchful senses represent,She forms imaginations, airy shapes,Which reason joining, or disjoining, frames,And all that we affirm, or what deny, or callOur knowledge or opinion; then retiresInto her private cell, when nature rests.Oft in her absence mimic fancy wakes,To imitate her; but misjoining shapes,Wild works produces oft, but most in dreamsIll matching words or deeds, long past or tale.
From these practical descriptions let us proceed to take a view of the principal phenomena in dreaming. And first, Mr. Locke's beautifulmodes ofwhich will greatly illustrate the preceding observations.
"When the mind," says Locke, "turns its view inward upon itself, and contemplates its own actions,thinkingis the first that occurs. In it the mind observes a great variety of modifications, and from thence receives distinctideas. Thus the perception, which actually accompanies, and is annexed to any impression on the body, made by an external object, being distinct from all other modifications of thinking, furnishes the mind with a distinct idea which we callsensation; which is, as it were, the actual entrance of an idea into the understanding by the senses.
"The same idea, when it occurs again without the operation of the like object on the external sensory, isremembrance: if it be sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavour found, and brought again in view, it isrecollection: if it be held there long under consideration, it iscontemplation; when ideas float in our mind without any reflexion or regard of the understanding, it is that which the French callréverie;[87] our language has scarce a name for it. When the ideas that offer themselves (for as I have observed in another place, while we are awake, there will always be a train of ideas succeeding one another in our minds) are taken notice of, and, as it were, registered in the memory, it isattention; when the mind, with great earnestness, and of choice, fixes its view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off by the ordinary solicitations of other ideas, it is what we callintentionorstudy. Sleep without dreaming is rest from all these: anddreamingitself, is the having of ideas (while the outward senses are stopped, so that they receive not outward objects with their usual quickness) in the mind, not suggested by any external objects, or known occasion, nor under any choice or conduct of the understanding at all, and whether that which we callecstasy, be not dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined."
Dr. Beattie, in his "Dissertations moral and critical," has an ingenious essay on this subject, in which he attempts to ascertain, not so much theefficientas thefinalcauses of the phenomenon, and to obviate those superstitions in regard to it, which have sometimes troubled weak minds. He labours, with great earnestness, to shew, that dreams may be of use in the way of physical admonition: that persons, who attend to them with this view, may make important discoveries with regard to their health; that they may be serviceable as the means of moral improvement; that, by attending to them, we may discern our predominant passions, and receive good hints for the regulation of them; that they may have been intended by Providence to serve as an amusement to the mental powers; and that dreaming is not universal, because, probably, all constitutions do not require such intellectual amusement. In observations of this kind, we may discover the ingenuity of fancy and the sagacity of conjecture. We may find amusement in the arguments, but we look in vain for satisfaction. Nature, certainly, does nothing in vain, yet we are far from thinking, that man is able, in every case, to discover her intentions. Final causes, perhaps, ought never to be the subject of human speculation, but when they are plain and obvious. To substitute vain conjectures, instead of the designs of Providence, on subjects where those designs are beyond our reach, serves only to furnish matter for the cavils of the sceptical, and the sneers of the licentious.
Among the many striking phenomena in our dreams, it may be observed, that, while they last, the memory seems to lie wholly torpid, and the understanding to be employed only about such objects as are then presented, without comparing the present with the past. When we sleep, we often converse with a friend who is either absent or dead, without remembering that the grave or the ocean is between us. We float, like a feather, upon the wind; for we find ourselves this moment in England, and the next in India, without reflecting that the laws of nature are suspended, or inquiring how the scene could have been so suddenly shifted before us. We are familiar with prodigies; we accommodate ourselves to every event, however romantic; and we not only reason, but act upon principles, which are in the highest degree absurd and extravagant. Our dreams, moreover, are so far from being the effect of a voluntary effort, that we neither know of what we shall dream, or whether we shall dream at all.
But sleep is not the only time in which strange and unconnected objects involve our ideas in confusion. Besides theréveriesof the day, already spoken of, we have, in a moral view, ourwaking-dreams, which are not less chimerical, and impossible to be realized, than the imaginations of the night.
Night visions may befriend——Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamtOf things impossible (could sleep do more?)Of joys perpetual in perpetual change!Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!How richly were my noon-tide trances hung,With gorgeous tapestries of pictur'd joys!Till at deaths' toll,——Starting I woke, and found myself undone.
Many of the fabulous stories of ghosts or apparitions have originated unquestionably in dreams. There are times of slumber when we are sensible of being asleep. "When the thoughts are much troubled," says Hobbes, "and when a person sleeps without the circumstance of going to bed, or pulling off his clothes, as when he nods in his chair, it is very difficult to distinguish a dream from a reality. On the contrary, he that composes himself to sleep, in case of any uncouth or absurd fancy, easily suspects it to have been a dream."[88] On this principle, Hobbes has ingeniously accounted for the spectre which is said to have appeared to Brutus; and the well-known story told by Clarendon, of the apparition of the duke of Buckingham's father will admit of a similar solution. There was no man at that time in the kingdom so much the topic of conversation as the duke; and, from the corruptness of his character, he was very likely to fall a sacrifice to the corruptness of the times. Sir George Villiers is said to have appeared to the man at midnight—there is therefore the greatest probability that the man was asleep; and the dream affrighting him, made a strong impression, and was likely to be repeated.
History furnishes us with numerous instances of a forecast having been communicated through the medium of dreams, some of which are so extraordinary as almost to shake our belief that the hand of Providence is not sometimes evident through their instrumentality. Cicero, in his first book on Divination, tells us, that Heraclides, a clever man, and who had been a disciple of Plato, writes that the mother of Phalaris saw in a dream the statues of the gods which she had consecrated in the house of her son; and among other things, it appeared to her, that from a cup which Mercury held in his hand, he had spilled some blood from it, and that the blood had scarcely touched the ground, than rising up in large bubbles it filled the whole house. This dream of the mother was afterwards but too truly verified in the cruelty of the son. Cyrus dreamt that seeing the sun at his feet, he made three different unsuccessful attempts to lay his hand upon it, at each of which it evaded him. The Persian Magi who interpreted this dream told him that these three attempts to seize the sun signified that he would reign thirty years. This prediction was verified: he died at the age of seventy, having begun to reign when he was forty years old.
"There is doubtless," says Cicero, "something even among barbarians which marks that they possess the gift of presentiment and divination." The Indian Calanus mounting the flaming faggot on which he was about to be burnt, exclaimed "O what a fine exit from life, when my body, like that of Hercules, shall be consumed by the fire, my spirit will freely enjoy the light." And Alexander having asked if he had anything to say, he replied, "Yes, I shall soon see you," which happened as he foretold, Alexander having died a few days afterwards at Babylon. Xenophon, an ardent disciple of Socrates, relates that in the war which he made in favour of young Cyrus, he had some dreams which were followed by the most miraculous events. Shall we say that Xenophon does not speak truth, or is too extravagant? What! so great a personage, and so divine a spirit as Aristotle, can he be deceived? Or does he wish to deceive others, when he tells us of Eudemus of Cyprus, one of his friends, wishing to go into Macedonia, passed by Pheres, a celebrated town in Thessaly, which at that time was under the dominion of the tyrant Alexander; and that having fallen very sick, he saw in a dream a very handsome young man, who told him that he would cure him, and that the tyrant Alexander would shortly die, but as to himself, he would return home at the end of five years. Aristotle remarks that the two first predictions were, indeed, soon accomplished; that Eudemus recovered, and that the tyrant was killed by his wife's brothers; but that at the expiration of five years, the time at which it was hoped Eudemus, according to the dream, was to return to Sicily, his native country, news were received that he had been killed in a combat near Syracuse; which gave rise to another interpretation of the dream, namely, that, when the spirit or soul of Eudemus left his body, it went thence straight to his own house.—A cup of massy gold having been stolen from the temple of Hercules, this god appeared in a dream to Sophocles three consecutive times, and pointed out the thief to him; who was put to the torture, confessed the delinquency, and gave up the cup. The temple afterwards received the name of Hercules Indicator.
An endless variety of similar instances, both from ancient and modern history, might be adduced of the singularity of dreams, as well as their instrumentality in revealing secrets which, without such agency, had lain for ever in oblivion; these, however, are sufficient for our purpose here; and the occurrence of one of a very recent date, connected with the discovery of the body of the murdered Maria Martin, in the red barn, is still fresh in the recollection of our readers. That there is a ridiculous infatuation attached by some people to dreams, which have no meaning, and which are the offsprings of the day's thoughts, even among persons whose education should inform them better, particularly among the fair sex, cannot be denied; indeed, a conversation seldom passes among them, but some inconsistent dream or other, form a leading feature of their gossip; and doubtless is with them an hysterical symptom.
Sometimes in our sleeping dreams, we imagine ourselves involved in inextricable woe, and enjoy at waking, the ecstasy of a deliverance from it. "And such a deliverance," says Dr. Beattie, "will every good man meet with at last, when he is taken away from the evils of life, and awakes in the regions of everlasting light and peace; looking back upon the world and its troubles, with a surprise and satisfaction similar in kind (though far higher in degree) to that which we now feel, when we escape from a terrifying dream, and open our eyes to the sweet serenity of a summer morning." Sometimes, in our dreams, we imagine scenes of pure and unutterable joy; and how much do we regret at waking, that the heavenly vision is no more! But what must the raptures of the good man be, when he enters the regions of immortality, and beholds the radiant fields of permanent delight! The idea of such a happy death, such a sweet transition, from the dreams of earth to the realities of heaven, is thus beautifully described by Dryden, in his poem entitled Eleonora:
"She passed serenely, with a single breath;This moment perfect health, the next was death;One sigh did her eternal bliss assure;So little penance needs when souls are pure.As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue;Or, one dream past, we slide into a new;So close they follow and such wild order keep,We think ourselves awake and are asleep;So softly death succeeded life in her:She did but dream of heaven and she was there."
Dreams are vagaries of the imagination, and in most instances proceed from external sensations. They take place only when our sleep is unsound, in which case the brain and nervous system are capable of performing certain motions. We seldom dream during the first hours of sleep; perhaps because the nervous fluid is then too much exhausted; but dreams mostly occur towards the morning, when this fluid has been, in some measure, restored.
Every thing capable of interrupting the tranquillity of mind and body, may produce dreams; such are the various kinds of grief and sorrow, exertions of the mind, affections and passions, crude and undigested food, a hard and inconvenient posture of the body. Those ideas which have lately occupied our minds or made a lively impression upon us, generally constitute the principal subject of a dream, and more or less employ our imagination, when we are asleep.
Animals are likewise apt to dream, though seldom; and even men living temperately, and enjoying a perfect state of health, are seldom disturbed with this play of the fancy. And, indeed, there are examples of lively and spirited persons who never dream at all. The great physiologist Haller considers dreaming as a symptom of disease, or as a stimulating cause, by which the perfect tranquillity of the sensorium is interrupted. Hence, that sleep is the most refreshing, which is undisturbed by dreams, or, at least, when we have the distinct recollection of them. Most of our dreams are then nothing more than sports of the fancy, and derive their origin chiefly from external impressions; almost every thing we see and hear, when awake, leads our imagination to collateral notions or representations, which, in a manner, spontaneously, and without the least effort, associate with external sensations. The place where a person whom we love formerly resided, a dress similar to that which we have seen her wear, or the objects that employed her attention, no sooner catch our eye, than she immediately occupies our mind. And, though these images associating with external sensations, do not arrive at complete consciousness within the power of imagination, yet even in their latent state they may become very strong and permanent.
Cicero furnishes us with a story of two Arcadians, who, travelling together, arrived at Megara, a city of Greece, between Athens and Corinth, where one of them lodged in a friend's house, and the other at an inn. After supper, the person who lodged at the private house went to bed, and falling asleep, dreamed that his friend at the inn appeared to him and begged his assistance, because the innkeeper was going to kill him. The man immediately got out of bed much frightened at the dream; but recovering himself, and falling asleep again, his friend appeared to him a second time, and desired that, as he would not assist him in time, he would take care at least not to let his death go unpunished; that the innkeeper having murdered him had thrown his body into a cart and covered it with dung; he therefore begged that he would be at the city gate in the morning, before the cart was out; struck with this new dream, he went early to the gate, saw the cart, and asked the driver what was in it; the driver immediately fled, the dead body was taken out of the cart, and the innkeeper apprehended and executed.
It is very frequently observed, that in a dream a series of representations is suddenly interrupted, and another series of a very different kind occupies its place. This happens as soon as an idea associates itself; which, from whatever cause, is more interesting than that immediately preceding. The last then becomes the prevailing one, and determines the association. Yet, by this too, the imagination is frequently reconducted to the former series. The interruption in the course of the preceding occurrences is remarked, and the power of abstracting similarities is in search of the cause of this irregularity. Hence, in such cases, there usually happens some unfortunate event or other, which occasions the interruption of the story. The representing power may again suddenly conduct us to another series of ideas, and thus the imagination may be led by the subreasoning power before defined, from one scene to another. Of this kind, for instance, is the following remarkable dream, as related and explained in the works of professor Maas of Halle: "I dreamed once," says he "that the Pope visited me. He commanded me to open my desk, and carefully examined all the papers it contained. While he was thus employed, a very sparkling diamond fell out of his triple crown into my desk, of which, however, neither of us took any notice. As soon as the Pope had withdrawn, I retired to bed, but was soon obliged to rise, on account of a thick smoke, the cause of which I had yet to learn. Upon examination I discovered, that the diamond had set fire to the papers in my desk, and burnt them to ashes."
On account of the peculiar circumstances by which this dream was occasioned, it deserves the following short analysis. "On the preceding evening," says professor Maas, "I was visited by a friend with whom I had a lively conversation, upon Joseph IInd's suppression of monasteries and convents. With this idea, though I did not become conscious of it in my dream, was associated the visit which the Pope publicly paid the Emperor Joseph at Vienna, in consequence of the measures taken against the clergy; and with this again was combined, however faintly, the representation of the visit, which had been paid me by my friend. These two events were, by the subreasoning faculty, compounded into one, according to the established rule—that things which agree in their parts, also correspond as to the whole;—hence the Pope's visit, was changed into a visit made to me. The subreasoning faculty then, in order to account for this extraordinary visit, fixed upon that which was the most important object in my room, namely, the desk, or rather the papers contained in it. That a diamond fell out of the triple crown was a collateral association, which was owing merely to the representation of the desk. Some days before when opening the desk, I had broken the glass of my watch, which I held in my hand, and the fragments fell among the papers. Hence no farther attention was paid to the diamond, being a representation of a collateral series of things. But afterwards the representation of the sparkling stones was again excited, and became the prevailing idea; hence it determined the succeeding association. On account of its similarity, it excited, the representation of fire, with which it was confounded; hence arose fire and smoke.—But, in the event, the writings only were burnt, not the desk itself; to which, being of comparatively less value, the attention was not at all directed." It is farther observable, that there are in the human mind certain obscure representations, and that it is necessary to be convinced of the reality of these images, if we are desirous of perceiving the connexion, which subsists among the operations of the imagination. Of the numerous phenomena, founded on obscure ideas, and which consequently prove their existence, we shall only remark the following. It is a well known fact, that many dreams originate in the impressions made in the body during sleep; and they consist of analogous images or such as are associated with sensations that would arise from these impressions, during a waking state. Hence, for instance, if our legs are placed in a perpendicular posture, we are often terrified by a dream that implies the imminent danger of falling from a steep rock or precipice. The mind must represent to itself these external impressions in a lively manner, otherwise no ideal picture could be thus excited; but, as we do not become at all conscious of them, they are but faintly and obscurely represented.
If we make a resolution to rise earlier in the morning than usual; and if we impress the determination on our mind, immediately before going to rest, we are almost certain to succeed. Now it is self-evident that this success cannot be ascribed to the efforts of the body, but altogether to the mind, which probably, during sleep perceives and computes the duration of time, so that it makes an impression on the body, which enables us to awake at an appointed hour. Yet all this takes place, without our consciousness, and the representations remain obscure. Many productions of art are so complicated, that a variety of simple conceptions are requisite to lay the foundation of them; yet the artist is almost entirely unconscious of these individual notions. Thus a person performs a piece of music, without being obliged to reflect, in a conscious manner, on the signification of the notes, their value, and the order of the fingers he must observe; nay even without clearly distinguishing the strings of the harp, or the keys of the harpsichord. We cannot attribute this to the mechanism of the body, which might gradually accustom itself to the accurate placing of the fingers. This could be applied only where we place a piece of music, frequently practised; but it is totally inapplicable to a new piece, which is played by the professor with equal facility, though he has never seen it before. In the latter case there must arise, necessarily, an ideal representation, or an act of judgment, previous to every motion of the finger.
These arguments, we trust, are sufficient, to evince the occurrence of these obscure notions and representations, from which all our dreams originate. Before, however, we close this subject, we shall relate the following extraordinary dream of the celebrated Galileo, who at a very advanced age had lost his sight. In one of his walks over a beautiful plain, conducted by his pupil Troicelli, the venerable sage related the following dream to him. "Once," said he, "my eyes permitted me to enjoy the charms of these fields. But now, since their light is extinguished, these pleasures are lost to me for ever. Heaven justly inflicts the punishment which was predicted to me many years ago. When in prison, and impatiently languishing for liberty, I began to be discontented with the ways of Providence; Copernicus appeared to me in a dream; his celestial spirit conducted me over luminous stars, and, in a threatening voice, reprehended me for having murmured against him, at whosefiatall these worlds had proceeded from nothing. 'A time shall come (said he) when thine eyes shall refuse to assist thee in contemplating these wonders.'"
We shall now proceed to notice the subject of dreams in another point of view—that is, as being employed as a medium of divination in the cure of diseases, in which the fancies of the brain appear, in reality, to as little advantage as they do with reference to any other considerations in which such pretended omens exist.
[81] Wolfius, Psychol. Empir. Sect. 123.
[82] Mém. de l'acad. de Berlin, tom. ii. p. 316.
[83] Arist. de insomn. cap 3.
[84] Quae in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident quaeque agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea cuique in somno accidunt.De Div.
[85] Essay on Human Understanding, book, chap. i. sect 17.
[86] Obs, on Man, vol. 1, sect. 5.
[87] There is a phenomenon in the mind, which, though it happen to us while we are perfectly awake, yet approaches the nearest to sleep of any I know. It is called theReverie, or, as some term it, thebrown study, a sort of middle state between waking and sleeping; in which, though our eyes are open, our senses seem to be entirely shut up, and we are quite insensible of every thing about us, yet we are all the while engaged in a musing indolence of thought, or a supine and lolling kind of roving from one fairy scene to another, without any self-command; from which, if any noise or accident rouse us, we wake as from a real dream, and are often as much at a loss to tell how our thoughts were employed, as if we had waked from the soundest sleep. This is frequently calleddreaming, sometimesabsence, a thing often observed in lovers and people of a melancholy or indeed speculative turn.—Fordyce's Dialogues concerning education, vol. II. p. 255.
[88] Leviathan, part. 1. c. 1.
Medicine unquestionably ranks among the most ancient of all human sciences. In the infant state of society, when simplicity of manners characterised the pursuits of mankind, medical assistance was little wanted; but when the nature of man degenerated, and vice and luxury corrupted his habits of innocence and temperance, diseases sprung up which those aids alone could check or eradicate. The knowledge of them at first could not fail to be empirical and precarious. The sick were placed in the high ways, that travellers and passers by might assist them with their counsel; and at length the priesthood appropriated this privilege exclusively to themselves.
It was not merely the sacerdotal dignity which rendered them objects of awe and reverence to the illiterate multitude; the priests were regarded as the depositaries of science and learning; and proved themselves as skilful as they were successful, in cementing their influence by those arts which were best calculated to inflame the prejudices of the vulgar in their favour.
It is the work of ages to wean men and nations from popular illusions, and the deep-rooted opinions transmitted from sire to son: it cannot therefore surprise us, that even when the intellectual energy of Greece was signalizing itself by efforts which have commanded the admiration of after ages, it should still remain a popular dogma in medicine "that persons labouring under bodily infirmity, might be thrown into a state of charmed torpor, in which, though destitute of any previous medical knowledge, they would be enabled to ascertain the nature of their malady, as well as of the diseases of others, and devise the means of their cure." Upon this dogma was founded the mystery of incubations, or the art of healing by visionary divination.
It is not our object here to discuss whether a man can be capable of divination: such a power, however, was assigned to him, not only by the vulgar, but by the greater number of the philosophical sects of antiquity; and it does appear to savour a little of temerity, that Epicurus and the cynics should have ventured to reject a belief so universally and strenuously maintained, and resting on an infinity of traditions and accounts of prophets, in whom Greece had abounded from her earliest times, and of whose divine gift of prophecy the firmest conviction was currently entertained. Aeschylus, Plutarch, Apuleius, and other Greek authors, bear ample testimony of this persuasion, and tell us that by uncommon and irregular motions of the body intoxicating vapours, or certain holy ejaculations, men might be thrown into an enchanted trance; in which, being in a state between sleeping and waking, they were unsusceptible of external impressions and obtaining a glimpse of futurity, were gifted with the power of prophecy. Here their allusion, however, only concerns the celebrated divinations of the Pythia.[89] We must therefore, probe somewhat deeper, in order to illustrate that species of divination which was the result of dreams, and a source of divination on the nature of diseases and their remedies.
This kind of superstition was in no less acceptation than the former among the ancients, whose temples were constantly crowded with the sick, and reverberated with their supplications for divinatory dreams, which were regarded as an immediate gift from the gods. Indeed, the celestial origin of dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and thence also their efficacy as oracles. Nothing could be more natural than such an idea. From the crude and imperfect notions which long prevailed with respect to the soul, it was scarcely possible for them to ascribe the impressions, which their memory retained of the creation of their fancy during their slumbers, to the instrumentality of their own conceits; they could not fail therefore to impute them to the interposition of some foreign agent, and to whom more naturally could they refer them than to a divinity? When awake, they imagined themselves always attended by the gods in person, and ascribed every thought, and resolved every appearance or accident, which deviated from the common course of nature, to the immediate influence of a superintending deity. It was under such impressions that so many nations originally rested their belief in divinatory dreams. The records of antiquity therefore abound in instances (for the greater part of an early date) where the actions of men have been the result of a dream, whose conceit was entirely at variance with the real state of their affairs. It was not long before the diversity of dreams awakened their attention: some were connected and simple, others were obscure, and made up of curious fancies, though not incapable of being resolved by the windings and turnings of allegory.
It was no unnatural transition from the received belief in dreams, to the idea that they might become the medium of seeking instruction from the gods: hence the institution of oracles, whose responses were given in dreams; and the addition of sleeping chambers to many temples, such as those in Epidaurus and at Oropos. Here it was, that after pious ceremonies and prayers, men laid themselves down in expectation of dreams; when the expectation was realized, though the dream proved ever so confused or intricate, the dreamer always succeeded in reconciling it to his circumstances: his own belief and priestly wiles, readily effected the solution. The conceit of dreams, according to the votary's wishes, was so powerfully promoted by the preparatory initiation he had undergone, that it would have been somewhat extraordinary had he been altogether disappointed. He was generally anxious to increase the fame of his divinity by his dream, and possessed a high veneration and deep impression of the miracles which that divinity had wrought. With these predispositions he resorted to the temple, where he had a whole day before him to ponder on his malady, and on every sort of remedy that might have been suggested to him; how natural was it, therefore, for his busy imagination to fix, in his sleep, upon one particular remedy more forcibly than upon another? Add to this, the solemn lonely hour of night was the appointed hour for his sleep, which was preceded by prayer and other inspiring ceremonies, that would naturally elevate his devotion to the highest pitch. He had also previously perambulated the temple, and with a full heart surveyed the offerings of those whose sickness had departed from them.
If all these preparations were unavailing, the officiants of the temple had still means in reserve, by which the credulous should be thrown into that bodily state which was indispensable to the divinatory sleep: of these, succeeding instances will be hereafter produced. In those days, there were however, some men from whom the somniferous faculty was withheld: they were, therefore, admonished to repeat their prayers and oblations, in order to win the divinity's favour: and the ultimate and customary resort was, if success did not crown his perseverance, to pronounce it a token, that such patients were an eyesore to the divinity.
From this divinatory sleep, arose the vulgar expressions in Greece [Greek: enkoimasdai], and [Greek: enkoimaesis][90] The latin terms areincubareandincubatioan exact translation of the Greek words. It appears, therefore, that the Romans and Greeks were equally acquainted with the institution; though we find but very little mention made of it by the Latin writers, yet this is no argument against its prevalence among the Romans, as we are left with as scanty accounts of many other superstitions which were in vogue amongst them. It is highly probable that it was not by any means so popular in Rome as in Greece; and the cause of this may, perhaps, be found in the reflecting disposition and sober character of the haughty Roman, to which the light and volatile temperament of the Grecian, formed so striking a contrast.
That incubation was a ready means of diving into the future, needs no demonstration. Although its practice was chiefly resorted to in cases where medical aid was desired, it was still made use of in every other case, in which the ancient oracles were consulted. Whether it arose in Greece, or migrated thither from the East, is a point with which the ancients have left us unacquainted, though they advert to its prevalence amongst those who were called barbarians. Strabo has several instances of it, and particularly mentions a place in the Caspian sea, where such an oracle existed;[91] he also relates, in his celebrated account of Moses, that this law-giver laid it down, in common with the priests of Esculapius, that to those who led a chaste and virtuous life the deity would vouchsafe prophetical visions in his sanctuary; but to those who were of idle and impure habits, they would be denied.[92]
Pomponius Mela even mentions a savage nation, in the interior of Africa, who laid themselves down to sleep on the grave-stones of their ancestors, and looked upon the dreams they had on those spots as oracles from the dead.[93] We shall see, hereafter, that this superstition was equally indigenous among the Egyptians. Although it be doubtful whether the Greeks owed this species of divination to their own invention or not, its existence may at least be traced as far as the earliest ages of their history; notwithstanding no positive mention of it has been made either by Homer or the authors following him.
The oracular power of dreams, and the sanctuaries where they are supposed to be dispersed, have been diffusely treated of in the compilations of Van Dale and other learned writers. These species of oracles were in high estimation, even in the most enlightened and flourishing periods of Greece; it is somewhat singular, however, that no people cherished them more devoutly than the Spartans, who depended altogether upon oracles in their weightiest affairs of state. Of all the civilized nations of Greece, Sparta always approved herself the most superstitious; her advancement was rather the effect of her policy, than of any stimulus given to her civilization by science. This consideration will enable us to account for the powerful influence which, even in the latest stages of Lacedemonian story, attached to the responses of Passiphae, a local goddess of Thalame, but little known beyond the confines of Laconia. The extent of their influence is particularly evident in the history of Agis and Cleomenes.[94]
The greater part of these somnambulistic oracles were ascribed to persons who had distinguished themselves as great dreamers when on earth. In old times there was a description of prophets who pretended to prepare themselves for the foreboding of future events through the medium of sacred dreams. They were classed under the appellation of [Greek: Oneiroploi], to which rank the most celebrated Vates of the heroic age belonged. In this way it was that a sacred spot was dedicated to Calchus, whence he gave his responses in dreams after his decease: this spot lay in Daunia, on the coast of the Adriatic. The supplicant's offices began with the offering up of a ram, on whose skin he laid himself down, and in this situation, received the instruction he sought for.[95] Amphilocus, a contemporary soothsayer, who accompanied the Epigoni in the first Theban war, had a similar oracle at Mallos, in Cilicia, which Pausanias asserts, even at the close of the second century, to have been the most credible of his age; it is also mentioned by Dion Cassius, in his history of Commodus.[96]
The most famous, however, of this class of oracles, was that of Amphiaraus, the father of Amphilocus, which was one of the five principal oracles of Greece; he had signalized himself as a sapient soothsayer in the first Theban war; and his oracle was situated at Oropos, on the borders of Boetia and Attica. Of all others this deserves our most particular attention, as it was resorted to more frequently in cases of infirmity and disease, than in any other circumstances. His responses were always delivered in dreams, in whose interpretation, as he was the first to possess that faculty. Pausanias says he received divine honours. Those who repaired to Amphiaraus's oracle to supplicate his aid, laid themselves down in the manner we have just related, after several preparatory lustrations and sacrifices, on the skin of a ram slain in honour of the god, and awaited the dreams, which were to unfold the means of their different cures.
Lustrations and sacrifices were not, however, the only preparatives for inducing the visionary disposition. The priests subjected the patients to various others, which Philostratus affirms[97] to have been very instrumental towards rendering the sleeper's mind clear and unclouded. Part of these preparatives consisted in one day's abstinence from eating, and three, nay, even in some cases, fifteen days' abstinence from wine, the common beverage of the Greeks. This was the practice also with other oracles; nor were the priests in the meantime insensible to their own interests on these occasions; for those who were cured by Amphiaraus's revelations were permitted to bathe in the sacred waters of a fountain, into which they were enjoined to cast pieces of gold and silver, which were destined, most probably, to sweeten the labours of his officiants.
The oracles, whose intervention was principally or altogether sought for the healing of the sick by means of divination founded on dreams, were scattered over Greece, Italy, Egypt, and other countries. As regards those of Egypt, it may be remarked, that although many of the Egyptians believed there were thirty-six demons, or aerial deities, each of whom had the care of a certain portion of the human frame, and when that portion was diseased, would heal it on the patient's earnest prayer, yet a variety of their oracles, such as those of Serapis, Isis, and Phthas, the Hephaestos of the Greeks, appertained to the class, which is the present object of our inquiry.
The oracle Serapis was situated near Canopus; it was visited with the highest veneration by the wealthiest and most illustrious Egyptians, and contained ample records of miraculous cures which that god had performed on sleepers.[98] Isis, it is said, effected similar cures in her lifetime, whence it became her office, in her after state of deification, to reveal in dreams the most efficacious remedies to the sick. Indeed the healing powers of this goddess were such, that, as we are told by Diodorus,[99] the remedies she prescribed never failed of their effect, and that convalescents were daily seen returning from her temple, many of whom had been abandoned as incurable by the physicians.
The third oracle of the sick was consecrated to Phthas, and lay nearMemphis, but it is seldom mentioned by the ancients.[100]