explore new regions, and Thule shall be no ESSAY XXXV. longer the utmost verge of earth.' A pro- Of Prophecies. phecy 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. 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 phantasm that appeared to M. Brutus in his tent, said to him, 'thou shalt see me again at Philippi.' Tiberius said to Galba, 'thou also, Galba, shalt taste of empire.' 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 expounds it of Vespasian. Domitian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was growing out of the nape of his

ESSAY XXXV. neck; and indeed the succession that Of Prophecies. followed him, for many years, made golden times. Henry the Sixth of England said of Henry the Seventh, 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 spunne,
England's done':

whereby it was generally conceived, that after
the princes had reigned which had the prin-
cipal letters of that word hempe, which were
Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth,

England should come to utter confusion; ESSAY XXXV. which, thanks be to God, is verified only in Of Prophecies. the change of the name; for that 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 Baugh and the May, The black fleet of Norway.

When that 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, 'the eighty-eighth will be a wondrous year,' was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great 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,

ESSAY XXXV. that troubled him exceedingly.

There are

My judgment is, that despised, and ought to talk by the fireside :

Of Prophecies. 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. they ought all to be serve but for winter 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 despised, for 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 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 ESSAY XXXV. be all sea and adding thereto the tradition of Prophecies. in Plato's Timaeus, 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.

Ambition is like choler, which is an ESSAY XXXVI. humour that maketh men active, earnest, full of Ambition. of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped: but if it be stopped and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and thereby malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased when things go backward; which is the worst property in a servant of a prince or state. Therefore it is good for princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so as they be still progressive and not retrograde;