enture
to relate that Paoli has at times extraordinary impressions of distant
and future events.

The way in which I discovered it was this: Being very desirous of
studying so exalted a character, I so far presumed upon his goodness to
me, as to take the liberty of asking him a thousand questions with
regard to the most minute and private circumstances of his life. Having
asked him one day when some of his nobles were present, whether a mind
so active as his was employed even in sleep, and if he used to dream
much, Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which implied
something of importance, "Si, si sogna. Yes, he dreams." And upon my
asking him to explain his meaning, he told me that the General had often
seen in his dreams, what afterwards came to pass. Paoli confirmed this
by several instances. Said he, "I can give you no clear explanation of
it. I only tell you facts. Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in
general these visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be the
agency of invisible spirits. They certainly must know more than we do;
and there is nothing absurd in supposing that GOD should permit them to
communicate their knowledge to us."

He went into a most curious and pleasing disquisition on a subject,
which the late ingenious Mr. Baxter has treated in a very philosophical
manner, in his "Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul;"[131] a book
which may be read with as much delight, and surely with more advantage
than the works of those who endeavour to destroy our belief. Belief is
favourable to the human mind, were it for nothing else but to furnish it
entertainment. An infidel I should think must frequently suffer from
ennui.

[Footnote 131: Published in October, 1733. "The author is said to be one
Baxter."--"Gentleman's Magazine" for 1750, vol. xx.--ED.]

It was perhaps affectation in Socrates to say, that all he had learned
to know was that he knew nothing. But surely it is a mark of wisdom, to
be sensible of the limited extent of human knowledge, to examine with
reverence the ways of GOD, nor presumptuously reject any opinion which
has been held by the judicious and the learned, because it has been made
a cloak for artifice, or had a variety of fictions raised upon it by
credulity.

Old Feltham says, "Every dream is not to be counted of; nor yet are all
to be cast away with contempt. I would neither be a Stoick,
superstitious in all; nor yet an Epicure, considerate of none."[132] An