the vultures, and the falsehood of the
prediction based upon it, have been exposed on a previous page.

V. In regard to Seneca's alleged prediction of the discovery of America,
it was exceedingly vague; and was wholly based on the undoubted
knowledge of its existence by the ancient Egyptians, and by Plato,
Proclus, Marcellus, Ammianus, Marcellinus, Diodorus, Aristotle, and
Plutarch; whose assertions influenced Columbus to undertake the search
for it. Nothing could be more certain than that such a continent would
be rediscovered. But in the only indication which Seneca gives us of its
location he erred; for Thule is still the utmost land northward, no new
continent having been discovered, nor remaining to be discovered, toward
the North Pole.

VI. As to the heathen oracles we have already spoken enough.

VII. "The anticipation of Shakespeare by Plato amounts to this, that he
makes Socrates compel his friends to admit, 'that it belongs to the same
man, how to compose comedy and tragedy, and that he who is by skill a
composer of tragedies is also a composer of comedies.' (Sympos fin.)
* * * But it is mere confusion to speak of this as _anticipation_. Plato
does not say that there would be any greater combination of the two
talents than there had been; he does not even say that the highest
excellence in one involved excellence in the other; he simply says that
the two faculties belonged to the same mind. According to his maxims, if
true, it would be rather marvelous that they were not more frequently
combined than that they were remarkably in one mind."

VIII. "Those best read in Dante are at a loss to find in him any trace
of a prediction of the Reformation. Dante, with his firm faith in all
Roman doctrine, could not have imagined or anticipated such a disruption
as Luther's. Dean Stanley corrects an unimportant misprint or two in the
second edition of his book, on the ground of the above statements. He
does not even attempt to supply a passage from Dante. I have looked for
one in vain."

Yet such a collection of errors, absurdities, falsehoods, and impostures
is gravely presented, in this nineteenth century, by a learned
clergyman, as comparable in regard to exact fulfillment with the oracles
of God.

It is not intended here to discuss the question of the continuance of
prophetic powers in the Church. If, as many believe, the promise in Joel
ii. 28--"It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, that y