Cæsar dreaming that he was committing incest with his mother, was crowned Emperor of Rome; and Hippias the Athenian Tyrant, dreaming the same, died shortly after, and was interred in his mother earth. Mauritius the Emperor, who was slain by Phocas, dreamed a short time previous to this event, that an image of Christ that was fixed over the brazen gate of his palace, called him and reproached him with his sins, and at length demanded of him whether he would receive the punishment due to them in this world or the next; and Mauritius answering in this, the image commanded that he should be given, with his wife and children, into the hands of Phocas. Whereupon Mauritius, awakening in great fear, asked Phillipus, his son-in-law, whether he knew any soldier in the army called Phocas, he answered that there was a commissary so called; and Phocas became his successor, having killed his wife and five children. Arlet, during her pregnancy by William the Conqueror, dreamed that a light shone from her womb, that illumined all England. Maca, Virgil’s mother, dreamed that she was delivered of a laurel branch. The ridiculous infatuation of dreams is still so prominent, even among persons whose education should inform them better, and particularly among the fair sex, that a conversation seldom passes among them, that the subject of some foolish inconsistent dream or other, does not form a leading feature of their gossip. “I dreamed last night,” says one, “that one of my teeth dropped out.”—“That’s a sign,” replies another, “that you will lose a friend or some of your relations.”—“I’m afraid I shall,” returns the dreamer, “for my cousin (brother, or some other person connected with the family or its interests,) is very ill,” &c. _Opinions on the cause of dreams._