ink of them but as
the deceptions of imagination when reason drops the reins? I know no
difference betwixt them and the hallucinations of madness--the unguided
horses run away with the carriage in both cases, only in the one the
coachman is drunk, and in the other he slumbers. What says our
Marcus Tullius--Si insanorum visis fides non est habenda, cur credatur
somnientium visis, quae multo etiam perturbatiora sunt, non intelligo."

"Yes, sir; but Cicero also tells us, that as he who passes the whole day
in darting the javelin must sometimes hit the mark, so, amid the cloud
of nightly dreams, some may occur consonant to future events."

"Ay--that is to say, you have hit the mark in your own sage opinion?
Lord! Lord! how this world is given to folly! Well, I will allow for
once the Oneirocritical science--I will give faith to the exposition of
dreams, and say a Daniel hath arisen to interpret them, if you can
prove to me that that dream of yours has pointed to a prudent line of
conduct."

"Tell me, then," answered Lovel, "why when I was hesitating whether to
abandon an enterprise, which I have perhaps rashly undertaken, I
should last night dream I saw your ancestor pointing to a motto which
encouraged me to perseverance?--why should I have thought of those words
which I cannot remember to have heard before, which are in a language
unknown to me, and which yet conveyed, when translated, a lesson which I
could so plainly apply to my own circumstances?"

The Antiquary burst into a fit of laughing. "Excuse me, my young
friend--but it is thus we silly mortals deceive ourselves, and look out
of doors for motives which originate in our own wilful will. I think I
can help out the cause of your vision. You were so abstracted in your
contemplations yesterday after dinner, as to pay little attention to the
discourse between Sir Arthur and me, until we fell upon the controversy
concerning the Piks, which terminated so abruptly;--but I remember
producing to Sir Arthur a book printed by my ancestor, and making
him observe the motto; your mind was bent elsewhere, but your ear had
mechanically received and retained the sounds, and your busy fancy,
stirred by Grizel's legend I presume, had introduced this scrap of
German into your dream. As for the waking wisdom which seized on so
frivolous a circumstance as an apology for persevering in some course
which it could find no better reason to justify, it is exactly one of
those juggling t