o, was done, or
enterprised by him, whereof he preallably had not notice, and beforehand
foreseen it to the full, by sure predictions altogether founded on the
oracles of somnial divination. To this there is no want of pregnant
reasons, no more than of examples. For if repose and rest in sleeping be a
special gift and favour of the gods, as is maintained by the philosophers,
and by the poet attested in these lines,

Then sleep, that heavenly gift, came to refresh
Of human labourers the wearied flesh;

such a gift or benefit can never finish or terminate in wrath and
indignation without portending some unlucky fate and most disastrous
fortune to ensue. Otherwise it were a molestation, and not an ease; a
scourge, and not a gift; at least, (not) proceeding from the gods above,
but from the infernal devils our enemies, according to the common vulgar
saying.

Suppose the lord, father, or master of a family, sitting at a very
sumptuous dinner, furnished with all manner of good cheer, and having at
his entry to the table his appetite sharp set upon his victuals, whereof
there was great plenty, should be seen rise in a start, and on a sudden
fling out of his chair, abandoning his meat, frighted, appalled, and in a
horrid terror, who should not know the cause hereof would wonder, and be
astonished exceedingly. But what? he heard his male servants cry, Fire,
fire, fire, fire! his serving-maids and women yell, Stop thief, stop thief!
and all his children shout as loud as ever they could, Murder, O murder,
murder! Then was it not high time for him to leave his banqueting, for
application of a remedy in haste, and to give speedy order for succouring
of his distressed household? Truly I remember that the Cabalists and
Massorets, interpreters of the sacred Scriptures, in treating how with
verity one might judge of evangelical apparitions (because oftentimes the
angel of Satan is disguised and transfigured into an angel of light), said
that the difference of these two mainly did consist in this: the
favourable and comforting angel useth in his appearing unto man at first to
terrify and hugely affright him, but in the end he bringeth consolation,
leaveth the person who hath seen him joyful, well-pleased, fully content,
and satisfied; on the other side, the angel of perdition, that wicked,
devilish, and malignant spirit, at his appearance unto any person in the
beginning cheereth up the heart of his beholder, but at last for