'A gentleman, who resided near one of the Scottish lakes, dreamt 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 life-like 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 destination where he would meet them. This was accordingly done; the boat skimmed gaily 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 from the waves. 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 0., 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. Whilst 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 favour. 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, much against the advice of his wife, who attached no importance whatever to the circumstance. He had scarcely completed 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 favour, to which, with reluctance, he assented. 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 a 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 restive, 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 friend of the family.

'Major Andre, 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 Steward'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 Andre to Newton, her minstrel, as she called him, and to Mr. Cunningham, the curate, who was also a poet.

'Whilst these two gentlemen were awaiting the arrival of their guests, of whose intentions they had been apprised, Mr. Cunningham related to Mr. Newton, that on the preceding night he 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 whilst 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 a 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 dreamt 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 Andre and Miss Steward arrived, he was horror-struck to perceive that his new acquaintance was the antitype of the man in the dream.

' Miss L------, residing at Dalkeith, dreamt that her brother, who was ill, called her to his bedside, and should she or her friends conceive what was meant by the symbol of the cobwebs, till they received the explanation subsequently from a member of the family.'

'The following very curious allegorical dream I five, not in the words of the dreamer, but in those her son, who bears a name destined, I trust, to a long immortality: -

' Wooer's Alley Cottage, Dunfermline-in-the-Wood.

' "Monday morning, 31st May, 1847.

' "Dear Mrs. Crowe,

' "That dream of my mother's was as follows: -She stood in a long, dark, empty gallery; on her one side was my father, and on the other side my elder sister, Amelia, then myself, and the rest of the family, according to their ages. At the foot of the hall stood my youngest sister, Alexes, and above her my sister Catherine, a creature, by the way, in person and mind more like an angel of heaven than an inhabitant of earth. We all stood silent and motionless. At last it entered - the unimagined something, that, casting its grim shadow before, had enveloped all the trivialities of the preceding dream in the stifling atmosphere of terror. It entered stealthily, descending the three steps that led into the chamber of horror; and my mother felt it was Death. He was dwarfish, bent, and shrivelled. He carried on his shoulder a heavy axe, and had come, she thought, to destroy 'all her little ones at one fell swoop.' On the entrance of the shape, my sister, Alexes, leapt out of the rank, interposing' herself between him and my mother. He raised his axe and aimed a blow at Catherine, a blow which, to her horror, my mother could not intercept, though she had snatched up a three-legged stool, the sole furniture of the apartment, for that purpose. She could not, she felt, fling the stool at the figure without destroying Alexes, who kept shooting out and in between her, and the ghastly thing. She tried in vain to scream; she besought my father in agony to avert the impending stroke; but he did not hear, or did not heed her, and stood motionless as in a trance. Down came the axe, and poor Catherine fell in her blood, 'cloven to the white halse bane.' Again the axe was lifted by the inexorable shadow over the head of my brother, who stood next in the line. Alexes had somewhere disappeared behind the ghostly visitant, and with a scream, my mother flung the footstool at his head. He vanished, and she awoke. This dream left on' my mother's mind a fearful apprehension of im-pending misfortune ' which would not pass away.' It was murder she feared, and her suspicions were not allayed by the discovery that a man - some time before discarded by my father for bad conduct, and with whom she had somehow associated the Death of her dream - had been lurking about the place, and sleeping in an out-house on the night it occurred, and for some nights previous and subsequent to it. Her terror increased, sleep forsook her; and every night when the house was still, she arose and stole, sometimes with a candle, sometimes in the dark, from room to room, listening in a sort of waking nightmare, for the breathing of the assassin, who she imagined was lurking in some one of them. This could not last. She reasoned with herself, but her terror became intolerable, and she related her dream to my father, who, of course, called her a fool for her pains, whatever might be his real opinion of the matter. Three months had elapsed, when we children were all of us seized with the scarlet fever. My sister Catherine died almost immediately - sacrificed, as my mother, in her misery, thought, to her (my mother's) over anxiety for Alexes, whose danger seemed more imminent. The dream prophecy was in part fulfilled. I also was at death's door - given up by the doctors, but not by my mother: she was confident of my recovery; but for my brother, who was scarcely considered in danger at all, but on whose head she had seen the visionary axe impending, her fears were great; for she could not recollect whether the blow had, or had not, descended when the spectre vanished. My brother recovered, but relapsed, and barely escaped with life; but Alexes did not. For a year and ten months the poor child lingered, and almost every night I had to sing her asleep. Often, I remember, through bitter tears - for I knew she was dying, and I loved her the more as she wasted away - I held her little hand as she died, I followed her to the grave - the last thing that I have loved on earth. And the dream was fulfilled.

'"True and sincerely yours,

'"J. Noel Paton."

'A few years since, Mr. A. F., an eminent Scotch advocate, while staying in the neighbourhood of Loch Fyne, dreamt one night that he saw a number of people in the street following a man to the scaffold. He discovered the features of the man in the cart distinctly, and, for some reason or other, which he could not account for, felt an extraordinary interest in his fate, insomuch that he joined the throng, and accompanied him to the place that was to terminate his earthly career. This interest was the more unaccountable that the man had an exceedingly unprepossessing countenance; but it was, nevertheless, so vivid as to induce the dreamer to ascend the scaffold, and address him with a view to enable him to escape the impending catastrophe. Suddenly, however, while he was talking to him, the whole scene dissolved away, and the sleeper awoke. Being a good deal struck with the life-like reality of the vision, and the impression made on his mind by the features of this man, he related the circumstances to his friends at breakfast, adding that he should know him anywhere if he saw him. A few jests being made on the subject, the thing was forgotten.

'On the afternoon of the same day, the advocate was informed that two men wanted to speak to him, and on going into the hall he was struck with amazement at perceiving that one of them was the hero of his dream!

' "We are accused of murder," said they, "and we wish to consult you. Three of us went out last night in a boat, an accident has happened, our comrade is drowned, and they want to make us accountable for him." The advocate then put some interrogations to them, and the result produced on his mind by their answers was a conviction of their guilt. Probably the recollection of his dream rendered the effects of this conviction more palpable, for one, addressing the other, said in Gaelic, " We have come to the wrong man; he is against us."

' "There is a higher Power than I against you," returned the gentleman; " and the only advice I can give you is, if you are guilty, fly immediately." Upon this they went away, and the next thing he heard was that they were taken into custody on suspicion of the murder.

'The account of the affair was, that, as they said, the three had gone out together on the preceding evening, and that in the morning the body of one of them had been found on the shore with a cut across the forehead. The father and friends of the victim had waited till the boat came in, and then demanded their companion, of whom, however, they professed themselves unable to give any account. Upon this the old man led them to his cottage for the purpose of showing them the body of his son. One entered, and at the sight of it burst into a passion of tears; the other refused to step over the threshold, saying his business called him immediately home, and went sulkily away. This last was the man seen in the dream.

'After a fortnight's incarceration the former of these was liberated, and he then declared to the advocate his intention of bringing an action of damages for false imprisonment. He was advised not to do it. "Leave well alone," said the lawyer, "and, if you'll take my advice, make off while you can."The man, however, refused to fly. He declared that he really did not know what had occasioned the death of his comrade. The latter had been at one end of the boat and he at the other; when he looked round he was gone; but whether he had fallen overboard, and cut his head as he fell, or whether he had been struck and pushed into the water, he did not know. The advocate became finally satisfied of the man's innocence, but the authorities thinking it absurd to try one and not the other, again laid hands on him, and it fell to Mr. A. F. to be the defender of both. The difficulty was, not to separate their cases in his pleading; for however morally convinced of the different ground on which they stood, his duty, professionally, was to obtain the acquittal of both, in which he finally succeeded as regarded the charge of murder. They were therefore sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and so far as the dream is concerned here ends the story. There remains, however, a curious sequel to it.

'A few years afterwards the same gentleman, being in a boat on Loch Fyne in company with Sir T. D. L., happened to be mentioning these very curious circumstances, when one of the boatmen said that he "knew well about those two men, and that a very strange thing had occurred with regard to one of them." This one, on inquiry, proved to be the subject of the dream; and the strange thing was this - on being liberated he had quitted that part of the country, and in process of time had gone to Greenock, and thence embarked in a vessel for Cork. But the vessel seemed fated never to, reach its destination; one misfortune happened after another, till at length the sailors said, "This won't do; there must be a murderer on board with us." As is usual when such a persuasion exists, they threw lots three times, and each time the lot fell upon that man. He was consequently put on shore, and the vessel went on its way without him. What had become of him afterwards was never known.' - Night Side of Nature.