It seems strange to find in Dr. Jackson's _Works_ a prophecy which, if
then thought applicable to the French nation, is much more so now. I
have no opportunity of verifying his reference, but will extract all
verbatim, giving the Italics as I find them:--
"And without prejudice to many noble patriots and worthy members
of Christ this day living in that famous kingdom of _France_, I
should interpret that dream of _Bassina (see Aimoinus, aliter
Annonius) de Gestis Francorum, lib. i. c. 7. & 8. in the Corpus
Franciæ Histor., Printed in folio, 1613, Hanoviæ_, Queen unto
_Childerick_ the First, of the present state of _France_: in which
the last part of that threefold vision is more truly verified than
it was even in the lineal succession of _Childerick_ and
_Bassina_, or any of the _Merovingian_ or _Carlovingian_ families.
The vision was of three sorts of beasts: the _first, lions and
leopards_; the _second, bears and wolves_; the _third, of dogs, or
lesser creatures_, biting and devouring one another.
"The interpretation which _Bassina_ made of it was registered
certain hundred years ago. That these troups of vermin or lesser
creatures did signifie a people without fear or reverence of their
princes, so pliable and devoutly obsequious to follow the peers or
potentates of that nation in their factious quarrels, that they
should involve themselves in inextricable tumults to their own
destruction. Had this vision been painted only with this general
notification, that it was to be _emblematically_ understood of
some state in Europe: who is he that can discern a picture by the
known party whom it represents, but could have known as easily
that this was a map of those miseries that lately have befallen
_France_, whose bowels were almost rent and torn with civil and
domestic broyls? _God grant her closed wounds fall not to bleed
afresh again. And that her people be not so eagerly set to bite
and tear one another (like dogs or other testie creatures) until
all become a prey to wolves and bears, or other great ravenous
beasts_, which seek not so much to tear or rent in heat of
revenge, as lie in wait continually to devour and swallow with
insatiate greediness the whole bodies of mighty kingdoms, and to
die her robes, that rides as queen of monsters upon that _many
headed beast_, with streams of bloud that issue from the bodies
squeezed and crushed between their violent teeth; yea, even with
the _royal bloud_ of kings and princes."--_Works_, book i. cap.
xiii. lib. i. pp. 46-7.: Lond. 1673, fol.