and says she is afraid he is dead, and that there was something odd in her dream about a watch and a candle. In the morning a messenger is sent to inquire for the gentleman, and they find people ascending to his chamber-window by a ladder, the door of the room being locked. They discover him dead on the floor, with his watch in his hand, and the candle between his feet. The same lady dreamed that she saw a friend in great agony, and that she heard him say they were tearing his flesh from his bones. He was some time afterward seized with inflammation, lay as she had seen him, and made use of those exact words.
A friend of mine dreamed lately that somebody said her nephew must not be bled, as it would be dangerous. The young man was quite well, and there had been no design of bleeding him; but on the following morning he had a tooth drawn, and an effusion of blood ensued, which lasted some days, and caused a good deal of uneasiness.
A farmer, in Worcestershire, dreamed that his little boy, of twelve years old, had fallen from the wagon and was killed. The dream recurred three times in one night; but, unwilling to yield to superstitious fears, he allowed the child to accompany the wagoner to Kidderminster fair. The driver was very fond of the boy, and he felt assured would take care of him; but, having occasion to go a little out of the road to leave a parcel, the man bade the child walk on with the wagon, and he would meet him at a certain spot. On arriving there, the horses were coming quietly forward, but the boy was not with them; and on retracing the road, he was found dead, having apparently fallen from the shafts, and been crushed by the wheels.
A gentleman, who resided near one of the Scottish lakes, dreamed that he saw a number of persons surrounding a body, which had just been drawn out of the water. On approaching the spot, he perceives that it is himself, and the assistants are his own friends and retainers. Alarmed at the lifelike reality of the vision, he resolved to elude the threatened destiny by never venturing on the lake again. On one occasion, however, it became quite indispensable that he should do so; and, as the day was quite calm, he yielded to the necessity, on condition that he should be put ashore at once on the opposite side, while the rest of the party proceeded to their destinations, where he would meet them. This was accordingly done: the boat skimmed gayly over the smooth waters, and arrived safely at the rendezvous, the gentlemen laughing at the superstition of their companion, while he stood smiling on the bank to receive them. But, alas! the fates were inexorable: the little promontory that supported him had been undermined by the water; it gave way beneath his feet, and life was extinct before he could be rescued. This circumstance was related to me by a friend of the family.
Mr. S—— was the son of an Irish bishop, who set somewhat more value on the things of this world than became his function. He had always told his son that there was but one thing he could not forgive, and that was, a bad marriage—meaning, by a bad marriage, a poor one. As cautions of this sort do not, by any means, prevent young people falling in love, Mr. S—— fixed his affections on Lady O——, a fair young widow, without any fortune; and, aware that it would be useless to apply for his father’s consent, he married her without asking it. They were consequently exceedingly poor; and, indeed, nearly all they had to live on was a small sinecure of forty pounds per annum, which Dean Swift procured for him. While in this situation, Mr. S—— dreamed one night that he was in the cathedral in which he had formerly been accustomed to attend service; that he saw a stranger, habited as a bishop, occupying his father’s throne; and that, on applying to the verger for an explanation, the man said that the bishop was dead, and that he had expired just as he was adding a codicil to his will in his son’s favor. The impression made by the dream was so strong, that Mr. S—— felt that he should have no repose till he had obtained news from home; and as the most speedy way of doing so was to go there himself, he started on horseback, much against the advice of his wife, who attached no importance whatever to the circumstance. He had scarcely accomplished half his journey, when he met a courier, bearing the intelligence of his father’s death; and when he reached home, he found that there was a codicil attached to the will, of the greatest importance to his own future prospects; but the old gentleman had expired, with the pen in his hand, just as he was about to sign it!
In this unhappy position, reduced to hopeless indigence, the friends of the young man proposed that he should present himself at the vice-regal palace, on the next levee day, in hopes that some interest might be excited in his favor; to which, with reluctance, he consented. As he was ascending the stairs, he was met by a gentleman whose dress indicated that he belonged to the church.
“Good Heavens!” said he, to the friend who accompanied him, “who is that?”
“That is Mr. ——, of so and so.”
“Then he will be bishop of L——!” returned Mr. S——; “for that is the man I saw occupying my father’s throne.”
“Impossible!” replied the other; “he has no interest whatever, and has no more chance of being a bishop than I have.”
“You will see,” replied Mr. S——; “I am certain he will.”
They had made their obeisance above, and were returning, when there was a great cry without, and everybody rushed to the doors and windows to inquire what had happened. The horses attached to the carriage of a young nobleman had become restiff, and were endangering the life of their master, when Mr. ——rushed forward, and, at the peril of his own, seized their heads, and afforded Lord C—— time to descend, before they broke through all restraint, and dashed away. Through the interest of this nobleman and his friends, to whom Mr. ——had been previously quite unknown, he obtained the see of L——. These circumstances were related to me by a member of the family.
It would be tedious to relate all the instances of this sort of dreaming which have come to my knowledge, but were they even much more rare than they are, and were there none of a graver and more mysterious kind, it might certainly occasion some surprise that they should have excited so little attention. When stories of this sort are narrated, they are listened to with wonder for the moment, and then forgotten, and few people reflect on the deep significance of the facts, or the important consequences to us involved in the question, of how, with our limited faculties, which can not foretell the events of the next moment, we should suddenly become prophets and seers.
The following dream, as it regards the fate of a very interesting person, and is, I believe, very little known, I will relate, though the story is of somewhat an old date:—Major André, the circumstances of whose lamented death are too well known to make it necessary for me to detail them here, was a friend of Miss Seward’s, and, previously to his embarkation for America, he made a journey into Derbyshire, to pay her a visit, and it was arranged that they should ride over to see the wonders of the Peak, and introduce André to Newton, her minstrel, as she called him, and to Mr. Cunningham, the curate, who was also a poet.
While these two gentlemen were awaiting the arrival of their guests, of whose intentions they had been apprised, Mr. Cunningham mentioned to Newton, that on the preceding night, he had had a very extraordinary dream, which he could not get out of his head. He had fancied himself in a forest; the place was strange to him; and, while looking about, he perceived a horseman approaching at great speed, who had scarcely reached the spot where the dreamer stood, when three men rushed out of the thicket, and, seizing his bridle, hurried him away, after closely searching his person. The countenance of the stranger being very interesting, the sympathy felt by the sleeper for his apparent misfortune awoke him; but he presently fell asleep again, and dreamed that he was standing near a great city, among thousands of people, and that he saw the same person he had seen seized in the wood brought out and suspended to a gallows. When André and Miss Seward arrived, he was horror-struck to perceive that his new acquaintance was the antitype of the man in the dream.
Mr. C——, a friend of mine, told me the other day, that he had dreamed he had gone to see a lady of his acquaintance, and that she had presented him with a purse. In the morning he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, adding that he wondered what should have made him dream of a person he had not been in any way led to think of; and, above all, that she should give him a purse. On that same day, a letter arrived from that lady to Mrs. C——, containing a purse, of which she begged her acceptance. Here was the imperfect