golden chair from heaven*; and Quintus Catulus, another noble Roman, pretended to have seen Jupiter deliver into his hands, while yet a child, the ensigns of the Roman people.

The auspicious dream of Trajan, who was crowned in his sleep, and of Hadrian, who experienced uninjured the descent of celestial fire; and of Antoninus, who fancied that he had shoulders and arms of ivory §; of Severus, who imagined that he mounted the horse which had thrown Pertinax to the ground||; and many others, that night be mentioned, carry the air of fiction; and are such as Cicero places on a footing with those of Æneas and Hecuba. They remind us of the dream which Euripides attributes to Iphigenia when in

* Cicero De Divin. L. ii. §. 68. Diod. Sicul. L. xvit P. 575.

↑ Dion. Cass. L. xlv.

Dion. Cass. L. vi. §. 1. Xipbil, in August.

Dion. Cass. L. lxxi.

Iphigen, in Tauris.

Tauris, in which she, fancying herself with her virgin followers at Aulis, beheld the roofs of Palaces shattered by an earthquake, and one column standing alone amidst the wreck of her father's house, expressive, as she conceived, of the death of Orestes.

These seem to have been imitated in later times, as in the dream of Arlotte, the mother of William the Conqueror, who fancied that her bowels were spread over all Normandy *; in that of the mother of the Maid of Orleans, who dreamed that she brought forth a thunderbolt; and lastly in that of the mother of Scanderbeg, who is said to have dreamed that she saw a serpent which covered all Epirus, his head being stretched over the Turkish dominions, where he devoured every thing with bloody jaws, his tail spreading over the Christian empire, and particularly affecting the Venetian empire +.

*Baker's Chron. P. 28.

+ Barletii Hist. de Gest. Scand. L. i. C. 82. P. 130.

There are some other dreams of a similar description, which seem to have been contrived, like other auspicious omens, to excite confidence in military expeditions, and to shed a divine grace on conquerors. When Timoleon was about to sail from Corinth on an enterprize against Syracuse, the priestess of Proserpine had a dream, in which the goddess and her mother Ceres appeared in a travelling dress, promising to accompany Timoleon into Sicily; in respect to which dream a sacred galley was built, and called the Galley of the Goddess *.

Germanicus, the night before his victory over Arminius, is represented to have dreamed, that his robe being sprinkled with blood of a sacrifice which he performed, he received another more beautiful from his grandmother†.

Even savage nations appear to have availed themselves of this art. Thus among the

*Plutarch. in Timoleon.

Tacit. Annal. L. ii. §. 14.

Tartars, who in ancient times lived in Imaus, a part of Mount Taurus, was a sort of lawless wandering shepherds, among whom were certain families, called Malgotz, leagued under chosen leaders, though subject to be oppressed by the neighbouring nations: among those a blacksmith of the name of Cangius, pretended to have seen in a dream a person in armour sitting on a white horse, who thus addressed him?" Cangius, it is the will of God that thou shouldest shortly be the king and ruler of the Tartars that are called Malgotz, thou shalt free them from that servitude under which they have long groaned, and the neighbouring nations shall become subject unto them." Cangius the next morning rehearsed his dream before the seven princes and elders of Malgotz. Being disregarded, all of them the next night seemed in their sleep to behold the person of whom he had told them, and to hear him commanding them to obey Cangius. Whereupon the princes assembling took the oath of allegiance, and entitled Cangius their first emperor, or in their language, Chan, from

whence the title was derived to his successors: the emperor freed his people, reduced Georgia and the greater Armenia, and afterwards wasted Polonia and Hungary *.

These accounts are equalled by others in later times. Ertucules, having slept after dinner, was confounded when he awaked with a dream; and having, according to the precepts of his religion, bathed his body to purify himself, repaired to Edebales, a person of great reputation for wisdom and sanctity, and thus addressed him. "I dreamed, venerable Sir, that the brightness of the moon did proceed from your bosom, and thence afterwards did pass into mine; when it was thither come, there sprung up a tree from my navel which overshadowed at once many nations, mountains, and valleys. From the root of this tree there issued waters sufficient to irrigate vines and

* See Gregor, de Repub. L. xix. C. i. §. 19. Herbert's Travels, L. vi. Purchas. Pilg. tom. i. L. ir. §. 2.