ic Register_,' nor fancies of hysterical
females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins
should be excluded: and, in lieu of all such common-places, I should
propose an anecdotic treatise in the manner scientifical. Macnish's
'_Philosophy of Sleep_,' Scott's '_Demonology_,' treatises on
Apparitions, and many a rare black-letter alchemical pamphlet, might
lend us here their aid; the British Museum is full of well-attested
ghost-stories, and there are very few old ladies unable to add to the
supply: then, this ghost department might be climaxed by the author's
own experience; forasmuch as he is ready to avouch that a person's fetch
was heard by many, and seen by some, in an old country-house, a hundred
miles away from the place of death, at the instant of its happening.

As to omens, aforesaid witness deposes that the sceptre, ball, and cross
were struck by lightning out of King John's hand, in the Schools
quadrangle at Oxford, immediately on the accession of William the
Reformer; and all the world is cognusant that York Minster, the Royal
Exchange, and the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire near about
the commencement of open hostility, among ruling powers, to our church,
commerce, and constitution; and I myself can tell a tale of no less than
eight remarkable warnings happening one day to a poor friend, who died
on the next, which none could be expected to believe unless I delivered
it on oath as having been an eye-witness to the facts. Dreams
also--strange, vague, mysterious word; there is a gloomy look in it, a
dreary intonation that makes the very flesh creep: the records of public
justice will show many a murder revealed by them, as instance the Red
Barn; more than one poor client, in the clutch of a "respectable"
attorney, has been helped to his rights by their influence; from
Agamemnon and Pilate, down to Napoleon, the oppressors of mankind have
in those had kindly warning. Dreams--how many millions false and
foolish, for the one proving to be true!--but that one, how clear,
determinate, and lasting, as ministered by far other agency than
imagination taking its sport while reason slumbers! Who has not tales to
tell of dreams? A warning not to go on board such and such a ship--which
founders; a strange unlikely scene fixed upon the mind, concerning
friends and circumstances miles away, exactly in the manner and at the
time of its occurrence; the fore-shown coming of an unexpected guest;