Chapter V (2)

“In about a fortnight, however, the identical dream occurred again--with the simple difference that the deceased gentleman bore an expression of deeper grief, and appeared to urge him, in still stronger terms, to obtain the Will. The Rector was much impressed by this; but on careful reflection upon the following day, appeared indisposed, on such testimony, to interfere with arrangements which were then being made for the settlement of the deceased person’s affairs, on the supposition that he had left no Will. And consequently he did nothing.

“A third time, however, about eight days afterwards, he had the same dream, with certain additional details of import and moment. The deceased person, as the Rector imagined, appearing once again, urged him most vehemently and solemnly to do as he wished, and to go and obtain the Will. A conversation took place as it were in the dream, and the clergyman set forth many cogent arguments why he should not be called upon to undertake a work, which might not only be misunderstood, but might render him liable to misrepresentations, if not to trouble and annoyance.

“However, at last he consented, and, in his dream, accompanied the deceased person to a certain lawyer’s office at a certain number, on a certain floor in Staple Inn, on the south side of Holborn, where the drawer in a writing-table was opened, and he saw the packet containing the Will sealed in three places, with the deceased person’s armorial bearings. The whole room was before him vividly. It was panelled in oak, picked out with white and pale green, and over the mantel-piece hung an engraving of Lord Eldon.

“The Rector awoke, and resolved without delay to do as he was enjoined. Before proceeding, he mentioned the circumstance of the thrice-repeated dream to a clerical friend, who volunteered to accompany him to London on his important errand.

“They went together. Neither had ever been to Staple Inn before; nor did they know its exact whereabouts. On inquiry, however, it was soon found. And so was the room and office, with the furniture and print of Lord Eldon, which had been seen beforehand by the Rector in the dream, to his intense awe and wonderment. Even the peculiar handles of the writing-table, which were of brass and old-fashioned, were those which had been clearly apparent. The identical drawer was opened, and the Will, secured in an envelope of stout paper and sealed with three impressions, was found, just as it had been seen in the dream. The lawyer, who at once gave every facility for inquiry, was a junior partner in the firm which had drawn it up, and had only recently come to London, from a cathedral city, where the firm in question had a branch office, on the death of the chief partner. The Will was found to be good and valid, and was in due course proved. Under it the relations, who had so suffered by the loss of their law-suit as to have been almost reduced to penury, obtained their due. The whole of these facts are vouched for by a friend of the Editor of this book.”[126]

The following example of presentiment of death is also well authenticated. It occurred on board one of the ships of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth in the year 1850. From the MS. account, furnished by one thoroughly able to give an exact record, the following is taken:--

“The officers being one day at the Mess-table, a young Lieutenant R----suddenly laid down his knife and fork, pushed away his plate, and turned extremely pale. He then rose from the table, covering his face with his hands, and retired from the room. The President of the mess, supposing him to be ill, sent one of the young men to inquire what was the matter. At first Mr. R---- was unwilling to speak; but, on being pressed, he confessed that he had been seized by a sudden and irresistible impression that a brother he had in India was dead. ‘He died,’ said he, ‘on the 12th of August at six o’clock, I am perfectly sure of it.’ No argument could overthrow this conviction, which, in due course of post, was verified to the letter. The young man had died at Cawnpore at the precise period mentioned.”

Under the heading of “Singular Prognostication,” “The Times” of April the 17th, 1865, copies from the “Cornish Telegraph” the narrative of a then recent dream of a young clergyman of the county of Cornwall, which was almost immediately followed by the accidental death of the dreamer:--

“On Wednesday last, the Rev. Stephen Barclay Drury, an unmarried clergyman of twenty-six, who has for about twelve months acted as the curate of Phillack and Gwithian, had a conversation with the brother of the Rector of those parishes,[127] Mr. Charles Hockin, and related a dream, which he described as a very singular one, and as having made a deep impression on him.

“His words were: ‘I dreamt I was to be buried, and I followed my coffin into the church, and thence to the tomb. I took no part in the service, and when we came to the tomb, I looked into it, and saw it was very nice. I then asked the undertaker who was to be buried, and he answered, “You.” I then said, “I am not to be buried, I am not dead.” The undertaker then said, “I must be paid for the coffin,” upon which I awoke.’

“On Sunday morning and afternoon Mr. Drury officiated at Gwithian, and after the second service remained with the children to practise singing.

“Returning to his lodgings in Gwithian at half-past four, he waited a little, took with him Thomas à Kempis’ ‘De Imitatione Christi,’ and set out for a walk, accompanied by a Newfoundland dog. He asked for a bit of cord, as he might give the dog a dip, and started in his usually cheerful and happy mood. In an hour and a half the dog returned with the cord around his neck.

“Mr. Drury was never again seen alive. His absence throughout the night occasioned no surprise, as he sometimes went to, and slept at Copperhouse, two miles off.

“On Monday morning a Gwinear miner, in quest of seaweed at low water, near the rocky shore of Godrevy, saw Mr. Drury’s body in a pool seventy or eighty yards from the sea.

“An inquest, under the county coroner, Mr. John Roscoria, was held on Tuesday at Gwithian, when these circumstances were elicited, and a verdict was returned of ‘Found Drowned.’

“From the facts, however, that Mr. Drury had never shown the least signs of depression, that he started with the expressed intention of giving the dog a dip, and that he was very near-sighted, the general inference is that the unfortunate gentleman slipped on the rocks, was stunned, fell into the water, and so casually and singularly fulfilled his strange dream of a few days previously.”

A somewhat similar prognostication was had in the case of Captain Speer, which may properly be put on record, for, as in the case already narrated, it turned out to be a true warning of impending death:

Captain Speer, an officer of the 3rd Surrey Militia, and a magistrate for the county of Surrey,[128] lately met his death under remarkable circumstances. The “Quebec Mercury” says:--“Captain W. D. Speer passed the last winter among us. During part of it, he had some fine sport on the north shore of the S. Lawrence, in company with Captain Knox and Lieutenant Duthie, of the 10th Royal Artillery. This spring he made a tour through the States and West Indies, with Major Leslie, R.A., returning only for a few days, to set out again on what has, alas! proved to be his last expedition.[129] Strange to say, he stated to several gentlemen, just before setting out, that he had had a dream in which he distinctly saw a coffin with the name of ‘W. D. Speer, died June 17th, 1867,’ on it; and in writing to a lady three weeks previously,[130] he said in a joke that one reason for addressing her was his own approaching end. The date of his death is not known,[131] but it must have been on the day he named, or very near it. It appears that he was going to his cabin on board the Mississippi steamer, which was at anchor, and somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Indian disturbances; when in the middle of the night he was shot dead by a sentry, who omitted to challenge him.”

On this remarkable incident a Letter was written, from which the following extract may fittingly be put on record here:

“It seems the account of the dream was true, as Major Terry told Mr. Kempson, that he had heard the letter read in which he [Captain Speer] related the circumstance. Singular, was it not? I trust it may have taken some little effect on his mind, but I fear he was not one to attach any importance to such a warning. However, I do hope he did, for it is so awful to think of anyone in pure health and spirits being ushered into Eternity without one moment’s preparation.” From a Letter, dated August 10th, 1867, signed “Anne M. Kempson, Richmond Hill, Surrey, S.W.”

Another example of a warning given in a dream (but neglected) may now be put on record:

A few years ago a serious accident occurred in the village of Bulmer, in Yorkshire, to a pic-nic party going to Castle Howard. The party made the journey in an omnibus, and it seems that the wife of one of the men hesitated to join the others, and tried to persuade her husband not to go, because she asserted that she had dreamt a week before that they were in an omnibus, and were upset on going through a village and greatly injured, the fright awakening her. The man and his wife however did go; but on reaching Bulmer, the woman became greatly excited. Not only, she remarked, was the omnibus that which she had seen in her dream, but the village was the one in which the accident she dreamt of appeared to happen. The words were scarcely uttered when the omnibus was upset and a scene of great confusion resulted. Those on the outside were thrown to the ground with great violence; one man was rendered insensible by the omnibus falling upon him, and several sustained rather serious injuries. The woman to whom the accident was revealed beforehand, was herself badly hurt; but her husband’s was the worst case, he sustaining a dislocation of an ankle. Medical aid was quickly procured, the sufferers were relieved, and afterwards conveyed to their homes. Every incident of the accident seems to have been pictured in the premonitory dream.

A remarkable presentiment by means of a dream is related in the second section of the first volume of the “Museum of Wonders,” and is to the following effect. Though not new, it is so exceptionally curious as to be quite worthy of reproduction here:--

“A short time before the Princess Natgotsky, of Warsaw, travelled to Paris, she had the following dream:--She dreamed that she found herself in an unknown apartment, when a man who was likewise unknown to her, came to her with a cup, and presented it to her to drink out of. She replied that she was not thirsty, and thanked him for his offer. The unknown individual repeated his request, and added that she ought not to refuse it any longer, for it would be the last she would ever drink in her life. At this she was greatly terrified and awoke.

“In October, 1720, the Princess arrived at Paris, in good health and spirits; and occupied a furnished hotel, where soon after her arrival she was seized with a violent fever. She immediately sent for the King’s celebrated physician, the father of Helvetius. The physician came, and the Princess showed striking marks of astonishment. She was asked the reason of it, and gave for answer that the physician perfectly resembled the man whom she had seen at Warsaw in a dream; but added she, ‘I shall not die this time, for this is not the same apartment which I saw on that occasion in my dream.’

“The Princess was soon after completely restored, and appeared to have altogether forgotten her dream, when a new incident reminded her of it in a most forcible manner. She was dissatisfied with her lodgings at the hotel, and therefore requested that a dwelling might be prepared for her in a convent at Paris, which was accordingly done. The Princess removed to the convent, but scarcely had she entered the apartment destined for her, than she began to exclaim aloud: ‘It is all over with me; I shall not come out of this room again alive, for it is the same that I saw at Warsaw in my dream!’ She died in reality not long afterward in the same room, in the beginning of the year 1721, of an ulcer in the throat, occasioned by the drawing of a tooth.”

“This dream,” observes Jung Stilling, from whose work the account of it is transcribed, “proceeded from a good angel, who wished to attract the attention of the Princess to her approaching end.”

A dignitary of the Church of England, of rank and reputation, courteously furnishes the Editor with the following remarkable Dream, which occurred to himself,--alas! so completely fulfilled. Another account of the same, almost identical in terms, was sent to him from another quarter. But he prefers putting on record the former:[132]--

“My brother had left London for the country to preach and speak on behalf of a certain Church Society, to which he was officially attached. He was in his usual health, and I was therefore in no special anxiety about him. One night my wife woke me, finding that I was sobbing in my sleep, and asked me what it was. I said, ‘I have been to a strange place in my dream. It was a small village, and I went up to the door of an inn, if so it might be called, though it really was a decent public-house. A stout woman came to the door. I said to her, ‘Is my brother here?’ She said, ‘No, sir, he is gone.’ ‘Is his wife here?’ I went on to enquire. ‘No, sir, but his widow is.’ Then the distressing thought rushed upon me that my brother was dead: and I awoke sobbing.

“A few days after, I was summoned suddenly into the country. My brother returning from Huntingdon had been attacked with _angina pectoris_; and the pain was so intense that they left him at Caxton (a small village in the diocese of Ely), to which place on the following day he summoned his wife: and the next day, while they were seated together, she heard a sigh and he was gone.

“When I reached Caxton, _it was the very same village to which I had gone in my dream. I went to the same house, was met and let in by the same woman; and found my brother dead, and his_ widow _there._”

One of the most striking and well-authenticated cases of a Warning given in a Dream and acted upon, by which a grave temporal danger was actually averted, remains to be put on record now. The case is related with great simplicity by one who has carefully investigated the circumstances of both the dreams; and nothing is required on the Editor’s part, either to enlarge on any detail of it or to point its moral:--

“Knowing as I do intimately,” writes the correspondent in question, “the Widow of an Irish clergyman who was warned by a dream of the railway accident which took place a few years ago at Abergele, in North Wales, I give you gladly the following particulars:--

“About a fortnight before the accident occurred, my friend, the lady in question, had a dream in which her husband, who had been dead for three years, appeared to her, as she thought. This occurred on the night which followed the day on which she had settled and arranged with some friends to make a journey by railway. She dreamed that her husband was still living, and that she and he were walking on the sea-shore of North Wales, close to which the railway to Holyhead passes, when they came to a tunnel,[133] from which, all of a sudden, volumes of the blackest smoke were pouring out, and which became so dense that the sky was quite overcast. Alarmed at this, they hastily went forward together towards its mouth, when it seemed to be all on fire; the crackling and roar of which was quite unusual. In a moment or two the sounds of frantic cries of men and women wildly shrieking seemed to come from out of the mouth of the tunnel; and then, as if to add to the horror of what had already appeared, another train, full of people and at express speed, came up and dashed through smoke and flame into the tunnel itself. Upon this the lady awoke, and so deep an impression had the dream made (for it unhinged her for some days), that she resolved to postpone her journey, which she did. Had she gone at the time appointed and arranged, she and her friends would have travelled by the very train--the passengers of which were burnt by the explosion of petroleum.

“The most curious part of this interesting record has yet to be told. On the same night upon which this lady had this dream-warning, her own daughter, a child of nine years of age, who was staying with some relations nearly sixty miles from home, had likewise a dream, in which she thought she saw two trains meeting each other on one line of railway, in one of which her mother was seated, and in the other one of her mother’s friends (who was to have travelled with her). The trains seemed to be going at a great rate, and when the collision actually took place, the child at once awoke. On the following morning she recounted her dream to her relations: but at the time they took no notice of it, though it formed the subject of a general conversation regarding dreams. It was only when (as was afterwards discovered) her mother had possibly escaped the frightful disaster of a railway accident, and probably a very painful death, that the fact of her child having had the dream on the night of her own warning and mentioned it, was specially remarked and noted down.”

A prognostication, or rather a personal Presentiment of impending death, and that death the result of an accident, will fittingly be recorded here:--

At the village of Bloxwich, in the diocese of Lichfield, a miner resided, well known to the person who communicated the following occurrence to the Editor of this volume:--“One morning in 1872, on his way to the pit’s mouth, the miner had a strong presentiment that he should be killed at his work. He returned home, communicated his impressions to his wife (who expostulated with him for being so fanciful and superstitious), and then insisted on seeing all his children. They were assembled. He took down his Prayer Book and Bible, read a chapter from the latter, and afterwards said some of his accustomed prayers. Then affectionately greeting wife and children, he went to his work, with the same strange but vivid presentiment of approaching death upon him; as his wife so clearly testifies. He had not been at work many minutes when he was suddenly crushed to death by the fall of a rock.”

These facts are duly authenticated by persons who obtained the account from the man’s widow on the day of his burial, and have supplied them directly to the Editor.

The following cases, equally remarkable, are taken from the “Standard” newspaper:--

“Sir,--I beg to acquaint you of a very singular event which occurred here yesterday. On Saturday night a villager named Andrew Scott dreamed of being along the coast on S. Cyrus’ Sands, and finding a man among the rocks under Whitson Houses. On Sabbath morning after breakfast he cleaned himself, and told his wife he would go and see if there was anything in his dream, taking another man with him to whom he made known his errand; and on arriving at the spot where he expected to find the man, sure enough there was the drowned man, washing amongst the rocks, just as seen in his dream. He was taken ashore, reported to the S. Cyrus’ authorities, and to-day he is to be interred. He is supposed to be one of the men belonging to the ‘Providence,’ wrecked on Dec. 19. I have the honour to be, sir, your most obedient servant,

“Daniel Hamilton.

“Johnshaven, Kincardineshire, Jan. 20.”

“At an inquest held on Monday afternoon at James Bridge, near Wolverhampton, on the body of a collier named Samuel Tinley, who had been killed in a pit there by a fall of rock strata, it transpired that during the previous night he awoke, saying he had a ton of rock on his head, though he had no headache. He was convinced it boded ill, and was reluctant to go to work. Upon being urged to go by his wife, he went to his child and saying, ‘Let me have my last kiss,’ went to the pit and was killed. It was further shown that a cousin of his, who is a close friend, was returning home from working a night-shift, when he said he saw the deceased standing before him in the road. Instead of going home to bed he went to the deceased’s house, to which place the news of the death had just been brought, but altogether unknown to the cousin.[134] At the inquest a yet more remarkable case, that had come before the same coroner in the same locality, was mentioned.”

So much as to examples and records of extraordinary Dreams, Warnings by Visions, and Presentiments. The subject of Omens may now be briefly touched upon. An “omen” has been defined to be “a token or sign of good or ill;” “a boding or foreboding;” “a prognostic.” Some of the following are of such a character as that they are very suitably considered both in connection with events already described and with those yet to be narrated.

It has been forcibly and appropriately remarked, though not perhaps in any marked or specific Christian spirit, that Omens constitute the poetry of history. They cause the series of events which they are supposed to declare to flow into epical unity, and the political catastrophe seems to be produced, not by prudence or by folly, but by the superintending destiny.

The case of the Tichborne Prophecy, in connection with the well-known ancient Dole of that family, is so curious (having been in part recently fulfilled), that it may not only be set forth in detail, but may reasonably find a place at this particular part of this book. For the following version the Editor is indebted to a near connection of the family:--

“The Tichbornes date their possession of the present patrimony, the manor of Tichborne, so far back as two hundred years before the Conquest. When the Lady Mabella,[135] worn out with age and infirmity, was lying on her deathbed, she besought her loving husband, Sir Roger Tichborne, as her last request, that he would grant her the means of leaving behind her a charitable bequest, in a Dole of Bread to be distributed to all who should apply for it annually on the Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sir Roger, her husband, readily acceded to her request by promising the produce of as much land as she could go over in the vicinity of the Park while a certain brand or billet was burning, supposing that, from her long infirmity (for she had been bedridden some years), she would be able to go round a small portion only of his property. The venerable dame, however, ordered her attendants to convey her to the corner of the Park, where, being deposited on the ground, she seemed to regain a renovation of strength; and to the surprise of her anxious and admiring lord, who began to wonder where this pilgrimage might end, she crawled round several rich and goodly acres.

“The field which was the scene of Lady Mabella’s extraordinary feat retains the name of ‘The Crawls’ to this day. It is situated near the entrance to the Park, and contains an area of twenty-three acres.

“Her task being completed, she was re-conveyed to her chamber; and, summoning her family to her bedside, predicted its prosperity while the annual Dole existed, and left her solemn Curse, uttered in God’s most Holy Name, on any of her descendants who should be so mean or covetous as to discontinue or divert it, _prophesying that when such should happen the old house should fall, and the family name would become extinct from the failure of heirs male; and that this would be foretold by a generation of seven sons being followed immediately after by a generation of seven daughters and no son_.

“The custom thus founded in the reign of Henry II. continued to be observed for centuries; and our Lady’s Day, the 25th of March, became the annual festive-day of the family. It was not until the middle of the last century that the custom was abused; when, under the pretence of attending the Tichborne Dole, vagabonds, gipsies, and idlers of every description, assembled from all quarters, pilfering throughout the neighbourhood; and, at last, the gentry and magistrates complaining, it was discontinued in 1796. Singularly enough, the baronet of that day, Sir Henry Tichborne,[136] had seven sons, and, when he was succeeded by the eldest, there appeared a generation of seven daughters, while the apparent fulfilment of the prophecy was completed by the change of the name of the late baronet to Doughty, under the will of his kinswoman. (This allusion is to Sir Edward Doughty, ninth baronet, who inherited the ‘Doughty’ estate, then Mr. Edward Tichborne.)”

Here is the record of a weird and obvious Omen:--

“The Duke of Somerset, the great sacrilegious nobleman of Henry VIII.’s reign, who worked such mischief and perpetrated such robberies on God’s poor, is said to have been more than once warned of his coming death upon the scaffold, by the appearance of a Bloody Hand stretched out from the panelled wall of the corridor of his mansion; and it is also reported that the Hand was visible to his duchess as well as to himself.”

And here is the narrative of a remarkable Dream, as well as of a singular coincidence:--

“Sir Thomas White, Alderman of London, was a very rich man, charitable and public-spirited. He dreamed that he had founded a college at a place where three elms grew out of one root. He went to Oxford probably with that intention; and discovering some such tree near Gloucester Hall, he began to repair the building of that community, with a design to endow it. But walking afterwards by the convent where the Bernardines formerly lived, he plainly saw an elm tree with three large bodies rising out of the same root; he forthwith purchased the ground, and endowed his college there, as it is at this day; except the additions which Archbishop Laud made near the outside of the building, in the garden belonging to the President. The tree is still to be seen. He made this discovery about the year 1557.”

The numerous tokens of the death of Henry IV. of France, who reigned from 1589 until 1610, are finely tragical. Mary of Medicis, in her well-known dream, saw the brilliant gems of her crown change into pearls--the recognized symbols of tears and mourning. An owl is said to have hooted until sunrise at the window of the chamber to which the King and Queen retired at S. Denis on the night preceding her coronation. During the ceremony, it was observed with dread, that the dark portals leading to the royal sepulchre beneath the choir, were gaping and expanded. The flame of the sacred taper held by Her Majesty was suddenly extinguished, and it is said that her crown twice nearly fell to the ground.

An anecdote, which was current during the reign of King Charles I., and has the support both of Archbishop Laud and Lord Clarendon, is said to have thrown a sad gloom over the spirits of the royal friends, already saddened by the fearful pestilence which inaugurated his reign. At the coronation it was found that there was not in the whole of London, nor indeed in the whole of England, sufficient purple velvet with which to make the customary royal robes and the corresponding furniture of the chair of state and throne. What was to be done? Rigid custom, coming down no doubt for long generations, possibly from the time of S. Edward, required that old traditions should be scrupulously observed and carefully followed. What was needed could not in all probability be had nearer than Genoa. To obtain it would have caused a delay of several months: and it was agreed that the solemn anointing and coronation could not be properly postponed. So it was resolved to robe His Majesty in _white_ velvet, from which he was known afterwards as “the White King.” But this was the colour in which victims were arrayed. So many persons maintained that the Council which had sanctioned such an innovation had unwittingly, perhaps, but efficiently established an agency of evil; and many more after the King’s martyrdom recalled the ominous change.

Another Warning, or supposed Warning, of approaching evil vouchsafed to the King was equally striking and peculiar. It happened a short time before the disastrous Battle of Newbury, and is thus recorded:--

The King being at Oxford, went one day to see the Public Library, where he was shown amongst other books, a Virgil, nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his Majesty make a trial of his fortune by the _Sortes Virgilianæ_, which everybody knows was not an unusual kind of augury some ages past. Whereupon the King opening the book, the period which happened to come up was part of Dido’s imprecation against Æneas, which Mr. Dryden translated thus:--

“Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose;
Oppress’d with numbers in th’ unequal field,
His men discouraged and himself expelled,
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects and his son’s embrace;
First let him see his friends in battle slain,
And then untimely fate lament in vain;
And when at length the cruel war shall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace;
Nor let him then enjoy supreme command,
But fall untimely by some hostile hand,
And lie unburied on the barren sand.”
“Æneid,” Book iv. 88.

It is said that King Charles seemed concerned at this accident, and that Lord Falkland observing it, would likewise try his fortune in the same manner, hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thereby divert the King’s thoughts from any impression the other might have upon him. But the place that Falkland stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had been to the King’s; being the following expressions of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, as they are translated by the same hand:--

“O Pallas! thou hast fail’d thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn’d thee but in vain; for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would pursue,
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert in dangers--raw in war!
O cursed essay in arms--disastrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come.”
“Æneid,” Book xi. 230.

Again, as regards the King’s bust, the following record was current and commonly discussed:--

“Vandyke, having painted the King’s head, in three different attitudes, a profile, a three-quarters, and a full face, the picture was sent to Rome for Bernini, the celebrated sculptor, to make a bust from it. This artist, being exceedingly dilatory over his work, and having had complaints made to him on the subject, said that there was something so unusually sad and melancholy in the royal features, that if any stress might be laid on physiognomy, he was sure that the person whom the picture represented was destined for a violent end. When the bust arrived in England, the King being anxious to see it, it was taken immediately to Chelsea and placed on a table in the garden, whither the King, attended by many, went to inspect it. While so doing a hawk, with a wounded and bleeding partridge in its talons, flew over the King’s head, and some of the blood fell upon the marble neck of the bust, where it remained without being wiped off. The omen is said to have been marked by many.”

On the day of the King’s burial, when the coffin was borne to S. George’s Chapel, Windsor, by tried and trusted subjects and servants, it was carried through a severe snow-storm, and the purple pall was covered with the whitest snow, thus adding a fresh reason for the title by which His Majesty had been known.

There were also some remarkable Warnings in the life of the great Archbishop Laud, some of which were noted down in his “Diary.” For example, he was elected Head of S. John’s College, Oxford, on the Feast of the Beheading of S. John the Baptist; and of course, when he as Head of that college perished by a similar death, this more than remarkable coincidence was noticed and remembered. Another likewise is certainly curious. Not long before his martyrdom, on entering his study one day, he is said to have found his own portrait, by Vandyke, at full length on the floor, the cord which fastened it to the wall having snapped. The sight of this warning, as it was regarded, is said not only to have deeply impressed that great man, whose obvious belief in the Supernatural was considerable; but also to have brought back to his memory the fact of a great disaster which occurred to one of his barges, on the very day of his translation to the See of Canterbury, which boat sank with his coaches and horses into the Thames.

There was an Omen attached to the ancient Ferrers family, of Chartley Park in Staffordshire. The large possessions of this family were forfeited by the attainder of Earl Ferrers, after his defeat at Burton Bridge, where he led the rebellious barons against Henry III. The Chartley estate having been settled in dower was alone reserved and handed down. In the Park is said to be preserved an indigenous Staffordshire cow, small in stature, of sand-white colour, with black ears, muzzle, and tips at the hoofs. In the year of the Battle of Burton Bridge a black calf was born; the downfall of the house of Ferrers happening at the same period gave rise to the tradition, which to this day is said to be commonly current through observation of past events, viz., that the birth of a parti-coloured calf from the wild herd in Chartley Park is a sure omen of death within the same year to a member of Lord Ferrers’ family. By a noticeable coincidence a calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened of late years in this noble family.[137] The decease of the late Earl and Countess, of his son Lord Tamworth, and of his daughter, Mrs. William Joliffe, as well as the deaths of the son and heir of the present nobleman, and his daughter, Lady Frances Shirley, has each been preceded by the birth of an ominous calf. In the spring of the year 1835 an animal perfectly black was calved by one of this weird tribe; and it was soon followed by the death of the amiable Countess.

The Omen connected with the ancient gentle family of Oxenham, co. Devon,[138] may now be suitably referred to. The following, describing it, is copied from a rare and ancient pamphlet:[139]--“In the parish called Sale Monachorum, in the county of Devon, there lives one James Oxenham, a gentleman of good worth and quality, who had many children, one whereof was called John Oxenham, a young man in the vigour, beauty, and flower of his age, about 22, who was of stature comely and tall, being in height of body sixe foote and a half, a very proper person.... This young gentleman fell sicke, who being visited by many of the neighbours during the time of his sickness, departed this transitory life on the 5th day of September 1635, to whom, two days before he yielded up his soul to God, there appeared the likeness of a Bird with a white breast hovering over him.” The pamphlet in question states that the White Bird also appeared previously to the deaths of Thomasine, Rebecca and Thomasine the younger,[140] facts formally testified to, on the oaths of divers eyewitnesses before the Lord Bishop of Exeter (Dr. Joseph Hall).

In Howell’s “Familiar Letters,” a communication dated “July 3, 1632,” states that the writer saw, at a stonecutter’s shop in London, a marble monument commemorating several examples of this curious omen; and gives the following as the inscriptions:--

“Here lies John Oxenham, a goodly young man, in whose chamber as he was struggling with the pangs of death, a Bird with a White Breast was seen fluttering about his bed, and so vanished.

“Here lies also Mary Oxenham, the sister of the said John, who died the next day, and the same apparition was seen in the room.

“Here lies hard by, James Oxenham, the son of the said John, who dyed a child in his cradle a little after, and such a Bird was seen fluttering about his head a little before he expir’d, which vanish’d afterwards.”

At the bottom of the stone there is:--

“Here lies Elizabeth Oxenham, the mother of the said John, who died sixteen years since, when such a bird with a white breast was seen about her bed before her death.”[141]

Then come the following remarks:--

“To all these there be divers witnesses both squires and ladies, whose names are engraven upon the stone. This stone is to be sent to a town hard by Exeter where this happen’d. Were you here, I could raise a choice discours with you hereupon. So hoping to see you the next tirm, I rest, etc.”

From an old MS. letter of the eighteenth century, written on the fly-leaf of a copy of Howell’s book already referred to, it seems that the appearance of the omen was regarded as a fact at that period. The Letter dated “December 29th, 1741,” contains the following statement:--

“I have received an answer from the country in relation to the strange Bird which appeared to Mr. Oxenham just before his death, and the account which Dr. Bertie gave to Lord Abingdon of it, is certainly true. It first was seen outside the window, and soon afterwards by Mrs. Oxenham in the room, which she mentioned to Mr. Oxenham, and asked him if he knew what bird it was. ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘it has been on my face and head, and is recorded in history as always appearing to our family before their deaths; but I shall cheat the Bird.’ Nothing more was said about it, nor was the Bird taken notice of from that time: but he died soon afterwards. However odd this affair may seem, it is certainly true; for the account was given of it by Mrs. Oxenham herself: but she never mentions it to anyone unless particularly asked about it; and as it was seen by several persons at the same time, I cannot attribute it to imagination, but must leave it as a phenomenon unaccounted for.”

My friend, the Rev. H. N. Oxenham, of this family, writes to me A.D. October, 1874, as follows:

“The tradition about the White Bird has certainly existed for so long a time--I believe for centuries--in our family, that I have every reason to believe there are well-authenticated accounts of its appearance before the death of the head of the family; and that certainly a white Bird was seen at the window a few days before my late uncle’s death (who was the head of the family) last Christmas” [_i.e._ in 1873].

Here a singular account of the possession of a charm, or amulet, and of a Curse connected with it, may be fittingly set forth:--

“The family of Graham of Inchbrachie, county Perth, are said to possess a small blue, uncut stone, set in an antique ring, of which the following story is told. Some two centuries ago, as the Head of the Family was passing by a hill near or at Crieff, he discovered a large crowd, presided over by one of the Campbells of ----, preparing to execute a witch. On approaching the crowd, he found that the unhappy victim (who had for some years lived in a rocky cave, still known by her name), was none other than his old nurse, Katherine Nivens. Charged with witchcraft, she had been condemned and was about to be executed. Graham, addressing the mob, urged them to prevent Campbell from carrying out his purpose. In acknowledgment of his generous help on her behalf, the poor creature threw him a small blue stone like a bead, which she had kept in her mouth, and desired him to keep it for her sake; adding that as long as it was preserved in his family good fortune should ever attend them; while to the Campbells of ---- (whom she solemnly cursed), she predicted that there never should be born an heir male, and cited him to appear before God’s judgment-bar, where justice should be done.[142] The strange feature in the story is that (as a correspondent avers) _both promise and prediction have turned out to be true_. The stone is said to be an uncut sapphire. Other Scotch families possess similar amulets or charms: amongst these the Macdonald-Lockharts of Lee in the county of Lanark.

The sound of the Beating of a Drum is said to betoken death to a noble Scotch family--one which has been a staunch, good old loyalist clan for centuries, and suffered sorely for having been “leal and true” to their Royal House and their own consciences. Some years ago the then head of it was paying a visit in England, when, one day, sitting outside in the garden with the lady of the house, his lordship exclaimed suddenly, “Listen! here comes a band of music.”

“Music!” she replied, “oh, impossible.”

“Oh, don’t you hear it? it is coming this way.”

“No, I hear nothing.”

“Listen!” he retorted; “don’t you hear the Drum?”

She assured him that there was nothing, that it was a fancy, and that no band of music could come near enough to the house to be heard, on account of the unusual extent of the grounds and park.

On this the nobleman turned pale, and becoming much agitated, remarked that he felt sure it must be the sound of the family “Drum,”--an omen that always preceded death, and feared that something had happened to one of his relations.

The next post brought him the sad and melancholy news of his wife’s unlooked-for death, through giving birth prematurely to a child.

The origin of this omen, as far as the Editor can discover, appears to be unknown.

In another family of rank a female figure, dressed in brown clothes, appears as a warning of death. To the members of an old knightly family in the West of England there always comes, before the death of its chief, the sound of a heavy carriage with many horses driven round the paved courtyard of the Elizabethan mansion.

It is equally notorious that in a certain noble English family, the form of a spectral head appears as a sign of death to any member of it, and invariably so, when the chief of it dies,--a fact which the Editor has been assured of in writing (A.D. 1872) from a member of a junior branch of the same.

To another family, living in the East of England (of the rank of gentle people), appears an Omen, equally, if not more disagreeable. The appearance of a spectral Black Dog is also a portent of death. About twenty years ago, A.D. 1853, the then head of the family married, and though he himself (by no means superstitious) could not reject the tradition of the unpleasant omen, having heard so much about it on its previous appearance, he said nothing to his wife. Some years afterwards, in 1861, their eldest child was taken ill. The illness, however, (as the physician asserted,) was slight, and not at all likely to prove dangerous; so little, in truth, was this anticipated that there were several persons staying in the house at the time. Just before dinner was announced one evening, the wife of the head of the family asked to be excused for a moment or two, while she looked into the night nursery to see how the sick child was. She went, but returned almost immediately, saying, “Darling ---- is fast asleep; but there’s a large black dog lying under the bed; go and drive it out.” The father, at once calling to mind the omen, was sorely terrified. He went at once to the sick room. Neither under nor near the bed, nor (as was afterwards discovered) on the premises, was there, or had there been, any dog, but the poor child’s sleep was found to be the sleep of death.

To revert to Omens in general. There is a widely-spread and singular prejudice, (which with many is deeply rooted,) that if thirteen people sit down to dinner one of them, at least, shall die within a year.[143] It seems to have originated from the fact of Judas having been the thirteenth at the Paschal Feast, when our Lord instituted the Holy Sacrament.

Again, Friday has from time immemorial been considered an unlucky day;[144] because the Crucifixion of our Blessed Saviour took place on that day--a day of fear and trembling, of darkness and of earthquakes--a day of awe, when even some of the Pagan oracles were silent, and indications of the decay and weakening of their powers were by their impotence made manifest. Plutarch in his book on the “Cessation of Oracles,” makes mention of the voice which, near Paxos, the pilot of a vessel heard in the spring of the nineteenth year of the Emperor Tiberius, crying out, “Great Pan is dead.” Now we know that in the spring of that year, and possibly on the afternoon of that very day, our Divine Lord overcame death by dying, conquered Satan, and opened the gates of everlasting life to mankind. Can we be surprised that after that victory on the first Good Friday, the power of the Evil One was largely and surely curbed?

Second Sight, indications of the existence of which have already been given, appears to be a power or property of seeing beforehand events which are still in the future, and such sight claimed by several[145] is said to belong to many persons in Scotland. In a “Description of the Western Isles,” a popular writer of the last century somewhat amplified the definition. He maintained as follows: “The Second Sight is a singular faculty of seeing an otherwise invisible object, without any previous means used by the person that sees it for that end; the vision makes such a lively impression upon the seers, that they neither see nor think of anything else, except the vision, as long as it continues; and then they appear pensive or jovial, according to the object which was represented to them.” He further points out generally that when persons gifted with Second Sight “actually behold something unusual, the eyelids of the person are erected, and the eyes continue staring until the object vanish.” In the case of a certain person in the Island of Skye, “when he sees a vision, the inner part of his eyelids turns so far upwards, that after the object disappears, he must draw them down again with his fingers.” The same writer maintains that the property of Second Sight does not necessarily descend in a family, as some persons hold and assert. “I know several parents,” he writes, “who are endowed with it, but their children not, and _vice versa_; neither is it acquired by any previous compact. And, after a strict inquiry, I could never learn from any among them that this faculty was communicable any way whatsoever.”

Several volumes have been written on the subject, and examples almost without number provided.

In John Aubrey’s “Miscellanies”[146] is recorded a remarkable escape from death of Dr. William Harvey, the celebrated discoverer of the circulation of the blood through Second Sight:--“When Dr. Harvey, one of the Physicians’ College in London, being a young man (in 1695), went to travel towards Padua, he went to Dover with several others, and showed his pass as the rest to the Governor there. The Governor told him that he must not go, but he must keep him prisoner. The Doctor desired to know ‘for what reason? how he had transgressed?’ ‘Well, it was his will to have it so.’ The pacquet boat hoisted sail in the evening, which was very clear, and the doctor’s companions in it. There ensued a terrible storm, and the pacquet boat and all the passengers were drowned. The next day the sad news was brought to Dover. The Doctor was unknown to the Governor both by name and face; but the night before the Governor had a perfect vision of Dr. Harvey in a dream, who came to pass over to Calais, and that he had a warning to stop him. This the Governor told the Doctor the next day. The Doctor was a pious, good man, and has several times directed this story to some of my acquaintance.”

The following, from a rare and curious volume of the last century,[147] containing nearly two hundred cases, authenticated mainly by ministers of the Scotch Establishment, is a good example:--

“Alexander Macdonald, of Kingsborough (when living in the possession of Aird, in the remote end of Trotternish), dreamed that he saw a reverend old man come to him, desiring him to get out of bed, and get his servants together, and make haste to save his fields of corn, as his whole cattle, and his tenants’ cattle also, had got out of the fold, and were in the middle of a large field behind the house. He awaked and told his wife, with whom he consulted whether he would rise or not; and she telling him it was but a dream, and not worth noticing, advised him to lie still, which he obeyed; but no sooner fell asleep, than the former old man appeared to him, and seemed angry, by telling Mr. Macdonald (then of Aird), he the old man was very idle, in acquainting him of the loss he would or had by this time sustained by his cattle, and seemed not to heed what he said, and so went off. Mr. Macdonald awaking the second time, told his wife, but she would not allow him, and ridiculed him for noticing the folly of a confused dream; so that, after attempting to get up, he was, at his wife’s persuasion, prevailed upon to lie down again; and falling asleep, it being now near break of day, the old gentleman appeared to him a third time, with a frowning countenance, and told him he might now lie still, for that the cattle were now surfeited of his corn, and were lying in it; and that it was for his welfare that he came to acquaint him so often, as he was his grand-uncle by his father; and so went off. He awaking in about an hour thereafter, arose and went out, and actually found his own and his tenants’ cattle lying in his corn, after being tired of eating thereof; which corn, when comprised, the loss amounted to eight bolls of meal.”

Two quite recent cases of Second Sight are here given, and are each somewhat remarkable. Both have been furnished to the Editor by those who knew the cases, and the accuracy of each has been vouched for by trusty and courteous correspondents.