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to bring in more. Men leave their riches either to their kindred or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great estate left to an heir is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment: likewise glorious gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt; and but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrify and corrupt inwardly: therefore, measure not thine advancements by quantity, but frame them by measure: and defer not charities till death: for certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own.

OF PROPHECIES.

I MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles, nor of natural predictions; but only of prophecies that have been of certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythonissa to Saul, "Tomorrow thou and thy sons shall be with me. Virgil hath these verses from Homer:

"At domus Æneæ cunctis dominabitur oris,

Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis." n. iii. 97.

A prophecy as it seems of the Roman empire Seneca, the tragedian, hath these verses:

Venient annis

Sæcula seris, quibus oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens

Pateat tellus, Tiphysque novos
Detegat orbes; nec sit terris
Ultima Thule:"

a prophecy of the discovery of America. The daughter of Polyerates 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 phantom, that appeared to M. Brutus in his teat, said to him, "Philippis iterum me videbis." Tiberius said to Galba, "tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium." 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 neck; and indeed the succession that 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 spun
England's done:"

whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of the word hempe, (which were Heury, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth,) England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is verified in the change of the name; for 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 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,

"Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus,"

was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet, being the greatest

in strength, though not in number, of all that As for Cleon's ever swam upon the sea. 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, that troubled him exceedingly. There are 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. My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside. 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 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 be all sea: and, adding thereto the tradition in Plato's Timæus, 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 passed.

OF AMBITION.

AMBITION is like choler, which is a humour that maketh men active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped: but if it be stopped, and cannot have its way, it becometh a dust, and thereby malign and ven omous: 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, which, because it cannot be without inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all; for, if they rise not with their service, they will take order to make their service fall with them.

But

since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit we speak in what cases they are of necessity. Good commanders in the