EXCURSION TO THE REALMS BELOW. 71 



He has now a frefh inftance of the truth of the grand 

 maxim wherein the fuhlime founder of the neweft phi- 

 lofophy, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, has comprifed 

 the whole of his fyfrem : 



There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, 

 Than are dreamt of in our philofophy. 



A truth that deferves to be written in golden letters 

 a fathom long on every wall in the world ; as it not 

 only augments the treafure of human knowledge, in 

 the ealieft manner, to infinity ; but alfo, by the juft 

 eileem that every difcoverer of new natural energies, 

 of new fenfes and new manipulations naturally bears for 

 the difcoveries, fenfes, and manipulations of his bre- 

 thren, which is infinitely more productive of mutual 

 toleration and general philanthropy than all the fayings 

 of the feven wife men of Greece put together. 



I intreat forgivenefs, if this prologue ihould have 

 excited the impatience of any reader, who had ra- 

 ther, in the homerian manner, have been plunged as 

 foon as poffible into the ftream of the narration ; and, 

 as a token of his pardon, let him but indulge me in 

 a few words more, and I {Kali immediately proceed to 

 of bufmefs. 



The way and manner in which my foul proceeds 

 upon her little excuriions ; or, to fpeak more properly, 

 the condition in which me finds herfelf, has fo great a 

 fimilitude with what we call dreaming, that at firfl: I 

 even thought myfelf impofed upon, and was very much 

 inclined to take what happened to me in this lingular 

 flate for nothing but a dream. However, I foon ob- 

 ferved, that in this cafe it always depended on my 



f 4 choice, 



