familiar, others are little known. Brought together
into one body, on the principle of our national Union, _E pluribus
unum_, they must give new confidence in the destinies of the Republic.

Of course I shall embrace only what has been said seriously by those
whose words are important; not an oracular response, which may receive a
double interpretation, like the deceptive replies to Croesus and to
Pyrrhus; and not a saying, such as is described by Sir Thomas Browne
when he remarks, in his "Christian Morals," that "many positions seem
quodlibetically constituted, and, like a Delphian blade, will cut both
ways."[7] Men who have lived much and felt strongly see further than
others. Their vision penetrates the future. Second sight is little more
than clearness of sight. Milton tells us,

"That old experience does attain
To something like prophetic strain."

Sometimes this strain is attained even in youth.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE.--1682.

Dr. Johnson called attention to a tract of Sir Thomas Browne entitled,
"A Prophecy concerning the Future State of Several Nations," where the
famous author "plainly discovers his expectation to be the same with
that entertained later with more confidence by Dr. Berkeley, _that
America will be the seat of the fifth empire_."[8] The tract is vague,
but prophetic.

Sir Thomas Browne was born 19th October, 1605, and died 19th October,
1682. His tract was published, two years after his death, in a
collection of Miscellanies, edited by Dr. Tenison. As a much-admired
author, some of whose writings belong to our English classics, his
prophetic prolusions are not unworthy of notice. They are founded on
verses entitled "The Prophecy," purporting to have been sent to him by a
friend. Among these are the following:--

"When New England shall trouble New Spain,
When Jamaica shall be lady of the isles and the main;
When Spain shall be in America hid,
And Mexico shall prove a Madrid;
_When Africa shall no more sell out their blacks
To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts_;

* * * * *

_When America shall cease to send out its treasure,
But employ it at home in American pleasure;
When the New World shall the Old invade,
Nor count them their lords but their fellows in trade_;

* * * * *

Then think strange things have come to light,
Whereof but few have had a fores