protested to me that he had dreamed the very same; and when we had not the least knowledge of our mother's sickness; neither in our youthful affections were any whit moved with the strangeness of this dream; yet the next' carrier brought us word of our mother's death *.

"of

Dr. Joseph Hall, when Bishop of Exeter, speaking of the good offices which angels do to God's servants," of this kind," saith he, " was no less than marvellous care, which at St. Maderinus, in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor` cripple; whereof, besides the attestation of many hundreds of the neighbours, I took a strict and impartial examination in my last visitation. This man, for sixteen years together, was obliged to walk upon his hands,' by reason of the sinews of his legs were so contracted; and upon admonitions in his dream

* Morrison's Itinerary. Part I. C. 2. p. 19. and A. B. Annot. on Relig. Medic. p. 294, 295.

to wash in that, well, was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able to walk and get his own maintenance. I found here was neither art nor collusion. The name of this

cripple was John Trebille *."

Some dreams evidently produced their own. accomplishment. When Alice, the mother of Archbishop Abbott, was pregnant, she, as was reported by the Rev. Mr. Aubrey, and many others, dreamed, that if she could eat a pike or jack, her son would be a great man. While eagerly employed in getting one, she is said accidentally to have taken up one in some river water that ran near her house at Guilford, and to have seized and devoured it with avidity. The report of this great event being noised about, many persons of distinction offered themselves as sponsors; those who were preferred maintained the future archbishop and

Bishop Hall's Monitor of Godliness, L. i. § 8. p. 169. Fuller's Worthies, p. 156.

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his brother at school, and afterwards at the university. In this there is nothing impossible or difficult to account for, but the accidental taking up of the pike, which was probably a fiction of the good woman, who wished to excite attention to a maternal dream.

Sir Roger L'Estrange is reported, upon what authority is not known to the author, to have dreamed, that on a particular spot, in which he was accustomed to sport in his father's park, he received intelligence of his father's death, who had been long sick. He in consequence resolved to avoid the spot; but being led there by his game, he heard the account which he apprehended.

Among the most remarkable relations of modern times, is the

Clarendon, with the

account given by Lord

solemnity of a grave

historian, relating to the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, as established upon an unusual foundation of credit. It cannot be given better than in the words of the noble

historian: "There was an officer in the king's wardrobe in Windsor Castle, of a good reputation for honesty and discretion, and then about the age of fifty years or more: this man had in his youth been bred in a school in the parish where Sir George Villiers, the father of the duke, lived; and had been much cherished and obliged in that season of his age by the said Sir George, whom afterwards he never saw. About six months before the miserable end of the Duke of Buckingham, about midnight, this man, being in his bed at Windsor, where his office was, and in a very good health, there appeared to him, on the side of his bed, a man of a very venerable aspect, who drew the curtains of his bed, and fixing his eyes upon him, asked him, if he knew him. The poor man, half dead with fear and apprehension, being asked the second time, whether he remembered him? and having in that time called to his memory the presence of Sir George Villiers, and the very cloaths he used to wear, in which, at that time, he seemed to be habited: he answered him, that he thought

him to be that person: he replied, he was in the right, that he was the same; and expected a service from him, which was, that he should go from him to his son the Duke of Buckingham, and tell him, if he did not somewhat to ingratiate himself to the people, or, at least, to abate the extreme malice they had against him, he would be suffered to live but a short time. After this discourse he disappeared, and the poor man, if he had been at all waking, slept very well till morning, when he believed all this to be a dream, and considered it no otherwise.

"The next night, or shortly after, the same person appeared to him again in the same place, and about the same time of the night, with an aspect a little more severe than before; and asked him, whether he had done as he had required him? and perceiving he had not, gave him very severe reprehensions; told him, he expected more compliance from him; and that if he did not perform his commands, he should enjoy no peace of mind, but