In Portugal the observance of the custom is universal, and its omission would be regarded as a grave breach of good manners; and as regards ourselves, Bishop Hall, in his Characters (1608), affirms of the superstitious man that, when he "neeseth," he "thinks them not his friends that uncover not; " uncovering the head being at that period the form of salutation.

What we have advanced above on this topic is set forth more copiously in the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1771; the remarks being founded upon Velley's History of France

"The Year 750 is commonly reckoned the æra of the custom of saying God bless you! to one who happens to sneeze. It is said that in the time of the pontificate of St Gregory the Great the air was filled with such a deleterious influence that they who sneezed immediately expired. On this the devou

pontiff appointed a form of prayer, and a wish to be said to persons sneezing, for averting them from the fatal effects of this malignancy. A fable contrived against all the rules of probability, it being certain that this custom has from time immemorial subsisted in all parts of the known world. According to mythology, the first sign of life Prometheus's artificial man gave was by sternttation. This supposed creator is said to have stolen a portion of the solar rays; and filling with them a phial, which he had made on purpose, sealed it up hermetically. He instantly flies back to his favourite automaton, and, opening the phial, held it close to the statue; the rays, still retaining all the activity, insinuate themselves through the pores, and set the factitious mas a-sneezing. Prometheus, transported with the success of his machine, offers ! a fervent prayer, with wishes for the preservation of so singular a being. H automaton observed him, and, remembering his ejaculations, was very careful et the like occasions to offer these wishes in behalf of his descendants, who per petuated it from father to son in all their colonies.

"The Rabbis, speaking of this custom, do likewise give it a very antient date They say that, not long after the Creation, God made a general decree that every man living should sneeze but once, and that, at the very instant of his sneezing, his soul should depart, without any previous indisposition. Jacob by no means liked so precipitate a way of leaving the world, as being desirous of settling his family affairs, and those of his conscience; he prostrated hims before the Lord, wrestled a second time with him, and earnestly intreated the favour of being excepted from the decree. His prayer was heard, and it sneezed without dying. All the princes of the Universe being acquainted w the fact, unanimously ordered that, for the future, sneezing should b accompanied with thanksgivings, for the preservation and wishes for the p longation of life. We perceive, even in these fictions, the vestiges of trading and history, which place the epocha of this civility long before that of Chr tianity. It was accounted very antient even in the time of Aristotle, wit his Problems has endeavoured to account for it, but knew nothing ef origin. According to him, the first men, prepossessed with the highest s concerning the head, as the principal seat of the soul, that intelligent subst governing and animating the whole human system, carried their respect ess to sternutation, as the most manifest and most sensible operation of the be Hence those several forms of compliments used on similar occasions am Greeks and Romans: Long may you live! May you enjoy health! F preserve you!"

Relying on the authority of Hippocrates, Sir Thomas Browne s that "sneezing cures the hiccup, is profitable to parturient woms in lethargies, apoplexies, catalepsies. It is bad and pernicious

diseases of the chest, in the beginning of catarrhs, in new and tender conceptions, for then it endangers abortion." As to the ground upon which the custom of salutation is based, he supposes it is the opinion entertained of sternutation by the ancients, who generally regarded it as either a good sign or a bad; using accordingly "Salve" or Zev owTo as a gratulation in the one case and a deprecation in the other. Sneezing, writes Sir Thomas, "being properly a motion of the brain suddenly expelling through the nostrils what is offensive to it, it cannot but afford some evidence of its vigour; and therefore, saith Aristotle, they that hear it poσKUVOVσ ws Lepov, honour it as something sacred and a sign of sanity in the diviner part; and this he illustrates from the practice of physicians, who in persons near death use sternutatories (medicines to provoke sneezing), when, if the faculty arise and sternutation ensue, they conceive hopes of life and with gratulation receive the sign of safety."

DREAMS.

"Dreams are but the rais'd

Impressions of premeditated Things,
Our serious apprehension left upon
Our minds, or else th' imaginary shapes
Of Objects proper to the Complexion,
Or Disposition of our Bodies."

Cotgrave's English Treasury of Wit and Language, 1655.

Dreams, as the sacred writings inform us, have on certain ccasions been used as the media of Revelation. The consideration f them in this view, however, is foreign to our present purpose. s connected with our present design, they may come under the ead either of Omens or of Divination. Homer has told us that the eam comes from Jupiter; and in all ages and every kingdom the ea that some knowledge of the future is to be derived from them s formed a very striking article in the creed of popular superstition. ; a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for September 1751 wittily serves, "Dreams have for many ages been esteemed as the noblest sources at a dead lift. The dreams of Homer were held in such eem that they were styled golden dreams; and among the Grecians find a whole country using no other way for information but going sleep."

Cornelius Agrippa, in his Vanity of Sciences, speaking of "intertation of dreams," says: "To this delusion not a few great ilosophers have given not a little credit, especially Democritus, stotle, and his follower Themistius, Sinesius also the Platonic, so building upon examples of Dreams, which some accident hath de to be true, that thence they endeavour to persuade Men that re are no Dreams but what are real. But as to the causes of ams, both external and internal, they do not all agree in one judgFor the Platonics reckon them among the specific and cone notions of the Soul. Avicen makes the cause of Dreams to be ltimate intelligence moving the Moon in the middle of that light

it.

with which the fancies of Men are illuminate while they sleep. Aristotle refers the cause thereof to common sense, but placed in the fancy. Averroes places the cause in the imagination; Democritus ascribes it to little images or representatives separated from the things themselves; and Albertus, to the superior influences which continually flow from the Skie through many specific mediums. The Physicians impute the cause thereof to vapours and humours: others to the affections and cares predominant in persons when awake. Others joyn the powers of the soul, celestial influences and images together, all making but one cause. Artemidorus and Daldianus have written of the Interpretation of Dreams: and certain Books go about under Abraham's name, whom Philo, in his Book of the Gyants and of Civil Life, asserts to have been the first practiser thereof. Other Treatises there are falsified under the names of David and Solomon, wherein are to be read nothing but meer Dreams concerning Dreams. But Marcus Cicero, in his Book of Divination, hath given sufficient reasons against the vanity and folly of those that give credit to Dreams, which I purposely here omit."

"We find Peter of Blois," writes Henry in his History of Great Britain, "who was one of the most learned men of the age in which he flourished, writing an account of his Dreams to his friend the Bishop of Bath, and telling him how anxious he had been about the Interpretation of them; and that he had employed for that purpose divination by the Psalter. The English, it seems probable, had still more superstitious curiosity, and paid greater attention to Dreams and Omens than the Normans; for when William Rufus was dissuaded from going abroad on the morning of that day on which he was killed, because the Abbot of Gloucester had dreamed something which portended danger, he is said to have made this reply: 'Do you imagine that I am an Englishman, to be frighted by a Dream, or the Sneezing of an old Woman?'"

In the Sapho and Phao of Lilly (1584) are some pleasant observations on dreams: "And can there be no trueth in Dreams? Yea, Dreams have their trueth.-Dreames are but dotings, which come either by things we see in the day, or meates that we eate, and so the common sense preferring it to be the imaginative. 'I dreamed,' says Ismena, mine Eye Tooth was loose, and that I thrust it out with my Tongue.' 'It fortelleth,' replies Mileta, 'the losse of a Friend: and l ever thought thee so ful of prattle, that thou wouldest thrust out the best Friend with the tatling."

Cicero has some pleasantry on the subject. He states that, a certain man having dreamed of an egg being hidden under his bed, the soothsayer who was applied to for the interpretation of the dream assured him that treasure was concealed there. Accordingly he caused the place to be dug up, when he found silver, and in the midst of it a considerable amount of gold. By way of testifying his acknowledgments to the interpreter, he took him some pieces of the silver; but the soothsayer, anxious to obtain some of the gold also, inquired, “ And will you not give me some of the yolk too?"

Every dream, according to Wolfius, arises from some sensation, and is continued by the succession of phantasms in the mind. When

we dream, he says, we imagine something, or the mind produces phantasms; but no phantasm can arise in the mind without a previous sensation; and equally no dream can arise without a previous sensation. "If our author meant a previous sensation of the subject of the dream," interposes Douce, "it certainly is not so."

It is the remark of Lord Bacon that the interpretation of natural dreams has been much laboured, but mixed with numerous extravagancies; and at present, he adds, it stands not upon its best foundation. The whole imaginary fabric, we may observe, has now fallen to the ground. None but the most ignorant and vulgar minds entertain any faith therein; and the interpretation of dreams apparently has been remitted to the physician.

Hippocrates has numerous curious observations on the subject of dreams; and Ennius has the very sensible remark, that what men study and ponder during the day they dream of at night. Probably there are few whose experience will not enable them to assent to the truth of that remark. Frightful dreams, perhaps, are always indications of some violent oppression of Nature.

Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft instructs us as to the "art and order" to be used in digging for money revealed in dreams. "There must be made," he says, " upon a hazel wand three crosses, and certain words must be said over it, and hereunto must be added certain characters and barbarous names. And, whilst the treasure is a-digging, there must be read the psalms De profundis, &c., and then a certain prayer; and, if the time of digging be neglected, the Devil will carry all the treasure away."

In Gregory's Posthuma is to be found the record of a singular superstitious usage, by which parents used to determine the future careers of their offspring. They asked the children in their sleep whether they had "anie minde to book or no." If the answer was Yes, they accounted it an excellent presage; but if there was no answer, or nothing to the purpose, they assigned them to service at the plough. Some curious rhymes on the subject of dreams, derived from the Harleian MS., are contained in the Gentleman's Magazine for January 1799

"Upon my ryght syde y may leye, blessid Lady to the y prey
Ffor the teres that ye lete upon your swete Sonnys feete
Sende me grace for to slepe, and good dremys for to mete
Slepying wakyng till morrowe day bee.

Our Lorde is the freute, our Ladye is the tree :

Blessid be the blossom that sprange, Lady, of the.

In nōie patris & filii & sp's sancti.

Amen." [sic.]

He that dreams he has lost a tooth, we are instructed in Lowde's Amyraldus, shall lose a friend (or, rather, has already lost one); and he that dreams of a rib being taken out of his side shall ere long witness the death of his wife. In the same spirit Shylock says

"There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
For I did dream of money-bags to-night."

If the troubled fancy of the superstitious man, writes Bishop Hall

in his Characters of Virtues and Vices, should "second his thoughts with the dreame of a fair garden, or greene rushes, or the salutation of a dead friend, he takes leave of the world, and sayes he cannot live." There is not a dream, proceeds the same writer, that is not regarded as a prediction and has not its interpretation; and, if the event should not happen to confirm the exposition, the dream is expounded in conformity with the event.

The dreams of "a faire and happy milkmaid," says Overbury, are "so chaste that she dare tell them only a Fridaies dream is all her superstition that she conceales for feare of anger."

Melton's Astrologaster gives several examples of the significations of dreams. Thus, to dream of eggs or fire foretells that one shall heare of anger;" and to dream of the devil is good-luck, as it likewise is to dream of gold; but of silver it is ill. Drowsiness, also, he indicates as a sign of ill-luck; and the observation that "it is a very ill signe to be melancholy" will commend itself to the appreciation of mankind at large. So also in the Countryman's Counsellor (1633) it is recorded that to dream of eagles flying over our heads, or of marriages, dancing, and feasting, foretells the death of kinsfolk; of silver given to oneself, sorrow; contrariwise of gold; and of bloody teeth, the death of the dreamer. Again, to dream of the loss of an axletooth or an eye implies the death of a friend; of weeping in sleep, joy; of seeing one's face in the water, or of seeing the dead, long life of handling lead or seeing a hare, death; and of chickens and birds, adversity.

From Lupton's long list of Notable Things we take the following items: If a woman dreams she is kindling a fire, it denotes that she will be delivered of a male child; and if, while she is not yet big, she dreams of her delivery," it is a sign that she shall at length be happily brought to bed." In the case of a maid dreaming the same dream, "it signifies banquet, joy, and succeeding nuptials." To dream you see a stack of corn burned foreshadows famine and mortality, while for a young man to dream of seeing a barn well stored signifies marriage of a rich wife. To dream that he has a glass full of water given him signifies marriage simply; but, if he dreams of drawing water out of a well, it denotes his speedy marriage. So, also, for the unmarried to dream of being struck by lightning betokens marriage ; “but it breaks marriages made and makes friends enemies." To dream of having or seeing the forehead of a lion betokens the getting of a male child; of roast pork, speedy profit; of drinking sweet wine, success at Law. To dream of moderate rain and drops of water is good for ploughmen; and, if a sick person dreams of a river or fourtain of clear water, it denotes recovery.

Lupton gives Mizaldus as his authority for the next series, in which to dream of going over a broken bridge betokens fear; of having your head cut off for a heinous offence, the death of friends; of cleaning the hands, trouble; of seeing hands filthy and foul, loss and danger: of feeding lambs, grief and pain; of "taking" flies, wrong and injury, of following bees, gain or profit; of being married, the death of kins folk; of worshipping God, gladness; of looking in a glass, issue, or a child," and of having oil poured upon you, joy.

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