Passing from the discovery, it may not be uninteresting to collect some of the prophetic voices about the future of America, the "All-Hail Hereafter" of our continent. They will have a lesson also. Seeing what has been already fulfilled, we may better judge what to expect. I shall set them forth in the order of time, prefacing each prediction with an account of the author sufficient to explain its origin and character. If some are already 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 foresight."[9]