io6 On Popular Illufions. 



NOTES. 



(A) Page 26. The RomaTis had a temple dedicated to 

 the Goddefs Fever ; an infcription has been found, ad- 

 dreffed to that divinity— febri div/e, febri sanct^. 

 We have feen in our times, Eloges de la Fievre ^artaine. 



(B) p. 27. Though Arillotle endeavours to account 

 for dreams in general from natural caufes, yet he admits 

 their produftion in fome cafes by fupernatural agency. 

 All dreams, fays he, are not of divine origin, becaufe 

 many of the lower animals dream ; but though there be 

 nothing divine, there may be fomething demoniacal in 

 them, De Divin. per Somn. C. II. 



(C) p. 27. This was done as a joke. The augurs told 

 him that the chickens would not eat, which was confidered 

 as a bad omen : they Ihall drink then, replied Claudius, 

 and ordered them to be thrown overboard. Others of the 

 Romans laughed at this mode of divination. Cato won- 

 dered that one augur could look at another without laugh- 

 ing. Hannibal's keen farcafm affefted both Prufias, (when 

 he was deterred from fighting by the aufpices) and the art 

 itfelf. " Would you rather," faid he, *' truft a calf's 

 liver than a veteran commander ?'* 



(D) p. 28. Auguftus was fnamefully fuperilitious ; he 

 not only obferved the time of year when his dreams were 

 leaft favourable and mod uncertain, but on a certain day 

 of every year, in confequence of a vifion, he begged pub- 



, licly, ftreiching out his hand, fays Suetonius, to thofe 

 who reached him a few ajfcs. Suet, in Aug. § 91. 



The fame author preferves a very ingenious explanation 

 of an omen which terrified the Emperor. A flafli of light- 

 ning 



