XXII. Moreover, in Xenophon, Cyrus the elder,' on his death-bed, discourses thus: "Never imagine, O my dearest sons, that when I have departed from you, I shall exist nowhere, or cease to be for while I was with you you never saw my soul; though you concluded from the actions which I performed that it was in this body. Believe, therefore, that it still exists, though you will see nothing of it. Nor, in truth, would the honors of illustrious men continue after death, if their own spirits did not make us preserve a longer remembrance of them. I could never, indeed, be persuaded that souls, while they were in mortal bodies, lived; and when they had quitted them, perished: nor, in truth, that the soul became senseless when it made its escape from a senseless body; but that it then became wise when freed from every corporeal admixture, it had become pure and genuine. Besides, when the constitution of man is broken up by death, it is clear whither each of its other parts depart; for they all return from the source from whence they sprang whereas, the soul alone, neither shows itself when it is with us, nor when it departs. Further, you see there is nothing so like death as sleep. Yet the souls of persons asleep especially manifest their divine nature; for when they are disengaged and free, they foresee many future events. From which we conclude in what state they will be distinct and personal individuality. Those philosophers who maintained the latter opinion, at least the generality of them, seem to have supposed that the soul is sent down into this sublunary orb as into a place of punishment for transgressions committed in a former state. And this theory claims the greater attention, not only as it appears to have been adopted both by the Pythagoric and Platonic schools, which undoubtedly produced the most respectable philosophers that ever enlightened the Pagan world, but as bearing strong marks of being primarily derived from the Mosaical account of the fall of man."-(Melmoth, in loco).

Cyrus Major. The character of this Cyrus is drawn by Xenophon in his Cyropædia. He was king of Persia, son of Cambyses and Mandane, daughter of Astyages, king of Media. He dethroned Astyages, and transferred the Persian empire to the Medes. The Cyropædia is not to be looked upon as an authentic history, but as showing what a good and virtuous prince ought to be.

2 "There is surely a nearer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreams than in our waking senses, without this I were unhappy, for my awakened judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend, but my friendly dreams in night requite me and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto

when they shall have altogether released themselves from the fetters of the body. Wherefore, if this is the case, regard me reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely, it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams to those of the next, as the phantasms of the night to the conceits of the day. There is an equal delusion in both, and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other; we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleep, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason, and our awakening conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. I am in no way facetious, not disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company, yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I could never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awakened souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed. Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract on sleep, hath not, methinks, thoroughly defined it; nor yet Galen, though he seem to have corrected it; for those noctambuloes and night-walkers, though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses, we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus, and that those abstracted and ccstatic souls do walk about in their own corps, as spirits with the bodies they assume wherein they seem to hear, see, and feel, though indeed, the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves, for then the soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality."-Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, part ii. chap. 11.

Dreams," says Addison, "are an instance of that agility and perfection which is natural to the faculties of the mind when they are disengaged from the body. The soul is clogged and retarded in her operations when she acts in conjunction with a companion, that is so heavy and unwieldy in its motion. But in dreams it is wonderful to observe with what a sprightliness and alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of speech make unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are but little acquainted with. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention, yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible of when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every one some time or other dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters, in which case the invention prompts so readily that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the compo sitions of another. I must not omit that argument for the excellency of the soul which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power of divining in dreams. That several such divinitions have been made, none can question who believes the holy writings, or who has but the

as a god, but if the soul is destined to perish along with the body, yet you, reverencing the gods, who oversee and control all this beautiful system, will affectionately and sacredly preserve my memory." Such were the dying words of Cyrus.

XXIII. Let me, if you please, revert to my own views. No one will ever persuade me that either your father, Paulus, or two gandfathers, Paulus and Africanus, or the father of Africanus, or his uncle, or the many distinguished men whom it is unnecessary to recount, aimed at such great exploits as might reach to the recollection of posterity, had they not perceived in their mind that posterity belonged to them. Do you suppose, to boast a little of myself, after the manner of old men, that I should have undergone such great toils, by day and night, at home and in service, had I thought to limit my glory by the same bounds as my life? Would it not have been far better to pass an easy and quiet life without any toil or struggle? But I know not how my soul, stretching upward, has ever looked forward to posterity, as if, when it had departed from life, then at last it would begin to live.'

least degree of a common historical faith; there being innumerable instances of this nature in several authors, both ancient and modern, sacred and profane. Whether such dark presages, such visions of the night, proceed from any latent power in the soul, during this her state of abstraction, or from any communication with the Supreme Being, or from any operation of subordinate spirits has been a great dispute among the learned. The matter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has been looked upon as such by the greatest writers who have been never suspected either of superstition or enthusiasm. I do not suppose that the soul in these instances is entirely loose and unfettered from the body: it is sufficient if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor entangled and perplexed in her operations with such motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the machine in its waking hours. The corporeal union is slackened enough to give the mind more play. The soul seems gathered within herself, and recovers that spring which is broken and weakened when she operates more in concert with the body." -Spectator, No. 487.

1 Dr. Thomas Brown attaches no value to the argument for the immortality of the soul, derived from the aspiration after it which is common to all. "I am aware," he says, "that in judging from the mind it self a considerable stress has often been laid on the existence of feelings which admit of a very easy solution, without the necessity of ascribing them to any instinctive foreknowledge of a state of immortal being. Of this sort particularly seems to me an argument which, both in ancient and modern times, has been brought forward as one of the most powerful arguments for our continued existence, after life has seemed to close upon us forever. I allude to the universal desire of this immortal exist

And, indeed, unless this were the case, that souls were immortal, the souls of the noblest of men would not aspire above all things to an immortality of glory.' Why need I. ence. But surely, if life itself be pleasing, and even though there were no existence beyond the grave-life might be still, by the benevolence of Him who conferred it, have been rendered a source of pleasure; it is not wonderful that we should desire futurity, since futurity is only protracted life. It would, indeed, have been worthy of our astonishment it man, loving his present life, and knowing that it was to terminate in the space of a very few years, should not have regretted the termination of what he loved; that is to say, should not have wished the continuanco of it beyond the period of its melancholy close. The universal desiro then, even if the desire were truly universal, would prove nothing, but the goodness of Him who has made the realities of life—or if not the realities, the hopes of life-so pleasing that the mere loss of what is possessed, or hoped, appears like a positive evil of the most afflicting kind."-Dr. Brown's Moral Philosophy, sec. 97.

1 "I am fully persuaded that one of the best springs of generous and worthy actions is having generous and worthy thoughts of ourselves. Whoever has a mean opinion of the dignity of his nature will act in no higher a rank than he has allotted himself in his own estimation If he considers his being as circumscribed by the uncertain term of a few years, his designs will be contracted into the same narrow space he imagines is to bound his existence. How can he exalt his thoughts to any thing great and noble, who only believes that after a short turn on the stage of this world, he is to sink into oblivion, and to lose his consciousness forever? For this reason I am of opinion that so useful and clevated a contemplation as that of the soul's immortality can not be resumed too often. There is not a more improving exercise to the human mind than to be frequently reviewing its own great privileges and endowments, nor a more effectual means to awaken in us an ambition raised above low objects and little pursuits, than to value ourselves as heirs of eternity."-Hughes. Spectator, No. 210.

Upon the love of posthumous fame, Dr. Johnson has the following observations: "If the love of fame is so far indulged by the mind as to become independent and predominant; it is dangerous and irregular, but it may be usefully employed as an inferior and secondary motive, and will serve sometimes to revive our activity, when we begir to languish and lose sight of that more certain, more valuable, and more durable reward, which ought always to be our first hope and our last. But it must be strongly impressed upon our minds that virtue is not to be pursued as one of the means to fame; but fame to be accepted as the only recompense which mortals can bestow on virtue, to be accepted with complacence, but not sought with eagerness Simply to be remembered is no advantage; it is a privilege which satire as well as panegyric can confer, and is not more enjoyed by Titus or Constantine than by Timocrean of Rhodes, of whom we only know from his epitaph, that he had eaten many a meal, drank many a flagon, and uttered many a reproach. The true satisfaction which is to be drawn from the conscious ness that we shall share the attention of future times must arise from the

adduce that the wisest man ever dies with the greatest equanimity, the most foolish with the least? Does it not seem to you that the soul, which sees more and further, sees that it is passing to a better state, while that body, whose vision is duller, does not see it? I, indeed, am transported with eagerness to see your fathers, whom I have respected and loved: nor in truth is it those only I desire to meet whom I myself have known; but those also of whom I have heard or read, and have myself written. Whither, indeed, as I proceed, no one assuredly should easily force me back, nor, as they did with Pelias, cook me again to youth. For if any god should grant me, that from this period of life I should become a child again and cry in the cradle, I should earnestly refuse it: nor in truth should I like, after having run, as it were, my course, to be called back to the starting-place' from the goal. For what comfort has life? What trouble has it not, rather? But grant that it has; yet it assuredly has either satiety or limitation (of its pleasures). For I am not disposed to lament the loss of life, which many men, and those learned men too, have often done; neither do I regret that I have lived since I have lived in such a way that I conceive I was not born in vain: and from this life I depart as from a temporary lodging, not as from a home. For nature has assigned it to us as an inn to sojourn in, not a place of habitation. Oh, glorious day! when I shall depart to that divine company and assemblage of spirits, and quit this troubled and polluted scene. For I shall go not only to those great men of whom I have spoken before, but also to my hope that with our name our virtues will be propagated, and that those whom we can not benefit in our lives, may receive instruction from our examples and incitement from our renown."-Rambler, No. 49.

1 "Though I think no man could live well once, but he that could live twice, yet, for my own part I would not live over my hours past, or begin again the thread of my days; not upon Cicero's ground, because I have lived them well, but for fear I should live them worse. I find my growing judgment daily instruct me how to be better, but my untamed affections and confirmed vitiosity make me daily do worse. I find in my confirmed age the same sins I discovered in my youth; I committed many then, because I was a child; and because I commit them still, I am. yet an infant; therefore I perceive a man may be twice a child before the days of dotage, and stand in need of Eson's bath before threescore." -Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, ch. 42.

2 Ad carceres a calce: carceres or repagula, from which the horses started. A line called creta or calx was drawn, to mark the end of the

course.