CHAPTER THREE

THE BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EDUCATION OF MR. JONATHAN WILD THE
GREAT.


It is observable that Nature seldom produces any one who is
afterwards to act a notable part on the stage of life, but she
gives some warning of her intention; and, as the dramatic poet
generally prepares the entry of every considerable character with
a solemn narrative, or at least a great flourish of drums and
trumpets, so doth this our Alma Mater by some shrewd hints pre-
admonish us of her intention, giving us warning, as it were, and
crying--

--Venienti occurrite morbo.

Thus Astyages, who was the grandfather of Cyrus, dreamt that his
daughter was brought to bed of a vine, whose branches overspread
all Asia; and Hecuba, while big with Paris, dreamt that she was
delivered of a firebrand that set all Troy in flames; so did the
mother of our great man, while she was with child of him, dream
that she was enjoyed in the night by the gods Mercury and Priapus.
This dream puzzled all the learned astrologers of her time,
seeming to imply in it a contradiction; Mercury being the god of
ingenuity, and Priapus the terror of those who practised it. What
made this dream the more wonderful, and perhaps the true cause of
its being remembered, was a very extraordinary circumstance,
sufficiently denoting something preternatural in it; for though
she had never heard even the name of either of these gods, she