violence to the common experience of mankind.
One class of dreams, which may be termed
RETROSPECTIVE, is of frequent occurrence.
These are characterised by the revival of
associations long since forgotten. The faculty
of Memory appears to be præternaturally
exalted; the veil is withdrawn which
obscured the vista of our past life; and the
minutest events of childhood pass in vivid
review before us. There can be no doubt
that something analogous to this occurs in
drowning; when, after the alarm and struggle
for life has subsided, sensations and 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
a deficiency of six pounds. Several days and
nights were exhausted in endeavours 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 co-existence
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 co-existence 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