visions supervene with indescribable rapidity. The same very remarkable phenomenon takes place also sometimes in hanging; but is by no means uniformly produced. "Of all whom I have seen restored from drowning," observes Dr. Lettsom, "I never found one who had the smallest recollection of any thing that passed under water until the time they were restored." Persons must not, therefore, be deceived by imagining that an Elysium is to be found at the bottom of a garden well, or a canal, or a river.

But to return; it is not only the very early incidents of childhood which may thus be recalled by our dreams, but recent events, which in our waking hours had escaped the memory, are sometimes suddenly recalled. In his "Notes to Waverley," Sir Walter Scott relates the following anecdote;-"A gentleman connected with a bank in Glasgow, while employed in the occupation of cashier, was annoyed by a person, out of his turn, demanding the payment of a check for six pounds. Having paid him, but with reluctance, out of his turn, he thought no more of the transaction. At the end of the year, which was eight or nine months after, a difficulty was experienced in making the books balance, in consequence of the deficiency of six pounds. Several days and nights were exhausted in endeavors to discover the source of the error, but without success; and the discomfited and chagrined cashier retired one night to his bed, disappointed and fatigued. He fell asleep and dreamed he was at his Bank, and once again the whole scene of the annoying man and his six pound check arose before him; and, on examination, it was discovered that the sum paid to this person had been neglected to be inserted in the book of interests, and that it exactly accounted for the error in the balance." We read of another gentleman, a solicitor, who, on one occasion, lost a very important

document connected with the conveyance of some property; the most anxious search was made for it in vain; and the night preceding the day on which the parties were to meet for the final settlement the son of this gentleman then went to bed, under much anxiety and disappointment, and dreamt that, at the time when the missing paper was delivered to his father, his table was covered with papers connected with the affairs of a particular client; and there found the paper they had been in search of, which had been tied up in a parcel to which it was in no way related.

There is another class of dreams which would appear to be much more extraordinary than these of a RETROSPECTIVE CHARACTER, viz: those in which the dreamer appears to take cognizance of incidents which are occurring at a distance, which may be designated Dreams of COINCIDENCE. In the "Memoirs of Margaret de Valois" we read, that her mother, Catherine de Medicis, when ill of the plague at Metz, saw her son, the Duc d'Anjou, at the victory of Jarnac thrown from his horse, and the Prince de Condè dead -events which happened exactly at that moment. Dr. Macnish relates, as the most striking example he ever met with of the coexistence between a dream and a passing event, the following melancholy story:-Miss M., a young lady, a native of Ross-shire, was deeply in love with an officer who accompanied Sir John Moore in the Peninsular War. The constant danger to which he was exposed had an evident effect upon her spirits. She became pale and melancholy in perpetually brooding over his fortunes; and, in spite of all that reason could do, felt a certain conviction that, when she last parted from her lover, she had parted with him for ever. In a surprisingly short period her graceful form declined into all the appalling characteristics of a fatal illness, and she seemed rapidly hastening to the

grave, when a dream confirmed the horrors she had long anticipated and gave the finishing stroke to her sorrows. One night, after falling asleep she imagined she saw her lover, pale, bloody, and wounded in the breast, enter her apartment. He drew aside the curtains of the bed, and, with a look of the utmost mildness, informed her that he had been slain in battle, desiring her at the same time to comfort herself, and not take his death too seriously to heart. It is needless to say what influence this vision had upon a mind so replete with woe. It withered it entirely, and the poor girl died a few days afterwards, but not without desiring her parents to note down the day of the month on which it happened, and see if it would not be confirmed as she confidently declared it would. Her anticipation was correct, for accounts were shortly afterwards received that the young man was slain at the battle of Corunna, which was fought on the very day of the night of which his betrothed had beheld the vision. It is certainly very natural to suppose that there must be some mysterious connection between such a dream and the event which appears to have simultaneously taken place-but upon reflecting farther upon the subject, we shall find that the coexistence is purely accidental. If, as Sir Walter Scott observed, any event, such as the death of the person dreamt of, chance to take place, so as to correspond with the nature and time of the apparition, the circumstance is conceived to be supernatural, although the coincidence is one which must frequently occur, since our dreams usually refer to the accomplishment of that which haunts our minds when awake, and often presage the most probable events. Such a concatenation, therefore, must often take place when it is considered "of what stuff dreams are made," and how naturally they turn upon those who occupy our mind when awake. When

a soldier is exposed to death in battle; when a sailor is incurring the dangers of the sea; when a beloved wife or relative is attacked by disease, how readily our sleeping imagination rushes to the very point of alarm which, when waking, it had shuddered to anticipate. Considering the many thousands of dreams which must, night after night, pass through the imagination of individuals, the number of coincidences between the vision and the event are fewer and less remarkable than a fair calculation of chance would warrant us to expect.

In addition to these, we sometimes hear of dreams which appear to reveal the secrets of futurity; and which may be designated Prophetic Dreams-unveiling, as they are supposed to do, the destiny which awaits particular individuals. The prophetic dream of Cromwell, that he should live to be the greatest man in England, has often been referred to as an example of special revelation: but surely there can be nothing very wonderful in the occurrence-for, after all, if we could only penetrate into the thoughts, hopes, and designs which inflamed the ambition of such men as Ireton, Lambert, and the like, we should find both their waking and sleeping visions equally suggestive of self-aggrandisement. The Protector himself was not the only usurper, in these troubled times, who dreamed of being "every inch a king;" but we want the data to compute the probabilities which the laws of chance would give in favor of such a prophecy or dream being fulfilled. The prophetic dream refers generally to some event which, in the course of nature, is likely to happen is it, then wonderful that it should occur? It would be curious to know how often Napoleon dreamed that he was the emperor of the civilized world, or confined as a prisoner of war; how many thrones he imagined himself to have ascended or

abdicated; how often he accomplished the rebuilding of Jerusalem. A few years ago, some very cruel murders were perpetrated in Edinburgh, by men named Burke and Hare, who sold the bodies of their victims to the Anatomical School. We had ourselves an interview with Burke after his condemnation, when he told us that many months before he was apprehended and convicted, he used to dream that the murders he committed had been discovered; then he imagined himself going to he executed, and his chief anxiety was how he should comport himself on the scaffold before the assembled multitude, whose faces he beheld gazing up and fixed upon him. His dream was, in every respect, verified; but who, for an instant, would suppose there could have been any thing preternatural, or prophetic, in such a vision? For the most part, dreams of this description are supposed to portend the illness, or the time of the death, of particular individuals; and these, too, upon the simple doctrine of chance, turn out, perhaps, to be as often wrong as right. It may be true, that Lord Lyttleton died at the exact hour which he said had been predicted to him in a dream; but Voltaire outlived a similar prophecy for many years. It must, however, be conceded, that persons in ill-health may have their death expedited by believing in such fatal predictions. Tell a timorous man that he will die; and the sentence, if pronounced with sufficient solemnity, and the semblance of its foreknowledge, will, under certain circumstances, execute itself. But on the other hand, the self-sustaining power of the will, with a corresponding concentration of nervous energy, will sometimes triumph over the presence of disease, and for awhile ward off even the hand of death. The anecdote is told of Mu ley Moloch, who, being informed that his army was likely to be defeated, sprang from his sick bed in great excite