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 favour
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 civilised 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 Schools. 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 be 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 anything præternatural, 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 Lyttelton 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 Muley Moloch,
who, being informed that his army was likely
to be defeated, sprang from his sick bed in
great excitement, led his men on to victory,
and, on returning to his tent, lay down and
almost instantly expired.

But again it may be asked—what then do
dreams portend? Do they admit of any
rational interpretation? This branch of the
art of divination, which was called formerly
by the name of " Oneiromancy," has been
practised in all ages; and there is, perhaps, not
a village in Great Britain, or on the great
continent of Europe, India, or America, in
which some fortune-telling old woman will
not be found who professes to be an oracle in
propounding their mystical signification. The
magicians of old were supposed to be skilful
interpreters of dreams, which, like the wise-acres
of Christendom, they viewed under very
contradictory aspects.

From one of the most ancient Arabic
manuscripts on the subject, we learn that if you
see an angel, it is a good sign; but if you dream
that you converse with one, it forebodes evil—
to dream you bathe in a clear fountain denotes
joy—but if it be muddy, an enemy will bring
against you some false accusation. To dream
of carrying any weight upon the back denotes
servitude, if you are rich—honour if you are
poor. There is not an object in nature—not
an event that can occur in life—that our
modern fortune-tellers have not converted,
when seen in a dream, into some sign ominous
of good or of evil; and many even well-educated
persons are in the habit of fostering
their credulity by attaching an undue
importance to their dreams. It is a curious
circumstance, however, which militates against
this mystic art, that the same sign in different
countries carries with it a very contrary
signification. The peasant girl in England thinks,