"You will own, 'tis no small pleasure with mankind to make their dreams pass for realities; and that the lore of truth is, in earnest, not half so prevalent as this passion for novelty and surprise, joined with a desire of making impression and being admired. However, I am so charitable still as to think, there is more of innocent delusion than voluntary imposture in the world; and that they who have most imposed on mankind, hare been happy in a certain faculty of imposing first upon themselves; by which they have a kind of salvo for their consciences, and are so much the more successful, as they can act their part more naturally, and to the life. - Shaftesbury's Moralists, p. 211.

Mr. J. Beal, in a letter to Mr. Boyle, dated Yeovill, October 12, 1670, informs him, that when he was a scholar at Eton, the town was infected with the plague, so that the scholars fled away. Upon this occasion, as his father was deceased, his mother at a great distance, and his other relations at court, and he had no address to any other person, the house in which he abode being surrounded by the plague, even at the next doors; the nature and fame of the disease begat in him a great horror. "In this distress," continues he, "I had an impressive dream, consisting of very many par-ticulars. I told it to all the family, and within three days we found every circumstance true, though very strange and seeming casual. I foretold who were sent for me, what coloured horses, and very sore accidents which fell on them ift the way. From that time to this I have regarded some dreams in myself, and othere, not without advantage by the premonitions." All this-admits of easy explication, and we have only to reflect, that nothing could be more natural, than that a boy, under great distress of mind, should fancy that he was sent for by those who were most likely to be employed, and even imagine the common accidents which eventually happened. The incidents of childhood excite strong impressions; they are magnified on reflection, and are exaggerated on every repetition of the tale.

The relation which Mr. Morrisou gives on his travels must be noticed. "While I was at Prague," says he, "having one night sat up late drinking at a feast, the morning sunbeams gleaming in my face in my bed, I dreamed that a shadow passing by told me, that my father was dead: at which awaking all in a sweat, and affected with this dream, I arose and wrote the day, hour, and all circumstances in a paper book, which, with many other things, I put into a barrel, and sent to England; and being at Nuremburg, a merchant, well acquainted with me and my relations, told me my father died some months past. When I returned into England, four years after, I would not open the barrel, nor look into the book in which I had written this dream, till 1 called my sisters and other friends to be witnesses; when myself and they were astonished to see my dream answer the very day of my father's death."

The same gentleman saith thus also: "I may lawfully swear, that in my youth at Cambridge I had the like dream of my mother's death; when my brother Henry lying with me, early in the morning I dreamed that my mother passed by with a sad countenance, and told me, that she could not come to my commencement, I being within five months to proceed master of arts, and she having promised at that time to come to Cambridge. When I related this dream to my brother, both of us awaking together in a sweat, he protested to me that he had dreamed the very same;. and when we had not the least knowledge of our mother's sickness; neither in our youthful affections were any whit moved with the strangeness of' this dream; yet the next carrier brought us word of our mother's death*."

Dr. Joseph Hall, when Bishop of Exeter, speaking of the good offices which angels do to God's servants, "of this kind," saith he, " was no less than marvellous cure, which at St. Ma-derinus, in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor cripple; whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours, I took a strict and impartial examination in my last visitation. This man, for sixteen years together, was obliged to walk upon his hands, by reason of the sinews of his legs were so contracted; and upon admonitions in his dream to wash in that, well, was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. I found here was neither art nor collusion. The name of this cripple was John Trebille *."

* Morrison's Itinerary. Part I. C. 2. p. 19. and A. Br Annot. on Relig. Medic, p. 294,295.

Some dreams evidently produced their own accomplishment. When Alice, the mother of Archbishop Abbott, was pregnant, she, as was: reported by the Rev, Mr. Aubrey, and many others, dreamed, that if she could eat a pike-or jack, her son would be a great man. While eagerly employed in getting one, she is said accidentally to have taken up one in some river water that ran near her house at Guilford, and to have seized and devoured it with avidity The report of this great, event being noised about, many persons of definition offered themselves as sponsors; those who were pre-ferred maintained the future archbishop and his brother at school, and afterwards at the university. In this there is nothing impossible of difficult to account for, but the accidental taking up of the pike, which was probably a fiction of the good woman, who wished to ex-cite attention to a maternal dream.

♦ Bishop Hall's Monitor of Godliness L.i.&8.P.168

Fuller's Worthies,p.156.

Sir Roger L'Estrange is reported, upon what authority is not known to the author, to have dreamed, that on a particular spot, in which he was accustomed to sport in his father's park, be received intelligence of hit father s death, who had been long sick. He in consequence resolved to avoid the spot; but being led there by his game, be heard the account which lie apprehended.

Among the most remarkable relations of modern times, is the account given by Lord Clarendon, with the solemnity of a grave historian, relating to the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, as established upon an unusual foundation of credit. It cannot be given better than in the words of the noble historian: "Thers was an officer in the king's wardrobe in Windsor Castle, of a good repu-tation for honesty and discretion, and. then about the age of fifty years or more: this man had in his youth been bred in a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers, the father of the duke, lived ; and had been much cherished and obliged in that season of his age by the said Sir George, whom afterwards he never saw. About six months before the miserable end of the Duke of Buckingham, about mid night, this man, being in his bed at Windsor, where his office was, and in a very good health, there appeared to him, on the side of his bed, a man of a very venerable aspect, who drew the curtains of his bed, and fixing his eyes upon him, asked him, if he knew him. The poor man, half dead with fear and apprehension, being asked the second time, whether he remembered him? and. having in that time called to his memory the presence of Sir George Villiers, and the very cloaths he used to wear, in which, at that time, he seemed to be habited: he answered him, that be thought him to be that person: he replied, he -was in the right, that he was the same; and expected a service from him, which was, that he should go from him to his son the Duke of Buckingham, and tell him, if he did not somewhat to ingratiate himself to the people, or, at least, to abate the extreme malice they had against him, he would be suffered to live but a short time. - After this discourse he disappeared, and the poor man, if he had been at all waking, slept very well till morning, when he believed all this to be a dream, and considered it no otherwise.