Part 35

I may not hope, Evelyn, to convert or alarm you, or I would warn you of the penalty incurred by the slighting of a vision. You may read in Livy, that Jupiter imparted his displeasure at the punishment of a slave, during a solemn procession in the forum to Titus Antinius. But Titus scorned the vision; when, lo! his son was struck dead at his feet, and his own limbs were at once paralyzed. In a mood of penitence, he was borne on a couch to the senate, and after a public confession of his crime, his limbs immediately began to recover their energy, and he walked to his house unassisted, amidst the wonder of the people.

In Cicero’s essay on “Divination,” we read the story of two Arcadian travellers. On their arrival at Megara, these two friends slept in different houses. In the night a dream came to one of them: the phantom of his companion appeared to him, and imparted to him that his landlord was about to murder him. He awoke, and feeling assured that the idea was but a dream, fell quietly again to sleep; but then came over him a second dream, and again the phantom was in his chamber, and told him that the deed of blood was committed, that he was murdered: and in the morning he learned that the vision was prophetic, and told him truth.

But the records of antiquity teem with tales of fatal prognostics to heroes, kings, and emperors, whose deaths, indeed, seldom took place without a prophecy. From Aristotle we learn that the death of Alexander was foretold in a dream of Eudemius, and that of Cæsar by his wife Calphurnia. The emperor Marius dreamed that he saw Attila’s bow broken, and the Hun king died on the same night. And Sylla (according to Appian) died on the night succeeding that on which he dreamed of such a fate.

Valerius Maximus records the death of Caius Gracchus, immediately after a dream of it by his mother.

Caracalla (as we learn from Dion Cassius) foretold his own assassination in a dream.

Cyrus (writes Xenophon) dreamed of the exact moment in which he died.

And the death of Socrates was foretold to him in a dream, by a white lady, who quoted to him the 363rd line of Homer, in the ninth book.

Of remarkable events there are many strange forebodings; as the dream of Judas Maccabeus when about to engage the Syrian army; of Sylla before his engagement with Marius; of Germanicus on the night before his victory over Arminius (as Tacitus records); and of Masilienus, the general sent by the emperor Honorius to oppose Gildo, and regain the possession of Africa. To him St. Ambrose, the late bishop of Milan, appeared in a dream, and striking the ground at the scene of the vision thrice with his crozier, said, “Here and in this place;” and on the same spot, the following morning, Gildo was conquered by Masilienus. Such are a few of the fatal prophecies of old.

There are others of illustrious births in the olden time, of which I will recount a few.

Plutarch writes of the dream of Agariste, announcing the birth of her son Pericles.

Sabellus, of the dream of Accia, the mother of Augustus.

The splendid impostures, as I confess them, of Mahomet, were ushered in by a dream of Cadiga, that the sun entered her house, and that his beams illumined every building in Mecca.

In later days, the mother of Joan of Arc dreamed that she brought forth a thunderbolt; and Arlotte, the mother of the Conqueror, that her intestines covered the whole land of Normandy.

But I waive a host of ancient dreams, as those of Astyages, the last king of Media; Ertercules, and Antigonus, and Simonides, and others, for I study to be brief, and pass to the professors of more modern belief.

Of Pascal Paoli, Boswell, in his account of Corsica, thus writes:

“Having asked him one day, when some of his nobles were present, whether a mind so active as his was employed even in sleep, and if he used to dream much; Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which implied something of importance, ‘Si, si sogna,’ Yes, he dreams. And upon my asking him to explain his meaning, he told me that the general had often seen in his dreams what afterwards came to pass. Paoli confirmed this by several instances. Said he, ‘I can give you no clear explanation of it,—I only tell you facts. Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in general these visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be the agency of invisible spirits; they certainly must know more than we do; and there is nothing absurd in supposing that God should permit them to communicate their knowledge to us.’”

In Walton’s life of Sir Henry Wotton, we read that his kinsmen, Nicholas and Thomas Wotton (whose family, by the by, were celebrated for their dreamings) had foretold their death most accurately.

In the beginning of the 18th century, a person in the west of England dreamed that his friend was on a journey with two men, whose persons were strongly pictured in his dream, and that he was robbed and murdered by these companions. It chanced that in a short time he was about to journey with two men, the very prototypes of his friend’s dream. His earnest caution against this expedition so planned was slighted, and, on the spot marked in the dream, was this traveller robbed and murdered, and by the vivid description of the dreamer, the two men were identified and executed.

In other cases, the dream has been the means of retribution; for instance, by the discovery of a murderer. In “Baker’s Chronicle” we read of the conviction of Anne Waters, for the murder of her husband, through the circumstantial dream of a friend.

I believe the fate of Corder was decided by a dream; and I may add, that Archbishop Laud dreamed himself that in his greatest pomp he should sink down to h—ll.

There is a chain of impressive visions, prophetic of the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as if some little spirit were flitting to and fro on a special mission from the realm of shadows.

The sister of the duke, the Countess of Denbigh, dreamed she was with him in his coach, when the people gave a loud shout, and she was told it was a cry of joy at the dangerous illness of the duke. She had scarcely related her dream to one of her ladies, when the bishop of Ely came to tell her, her brother was murdered by the dagger of Felton. Shortly before this, a Scotch nobleman asked a seer from the Highlands what he thought of this Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, then the court favourite: “He will come to naught,” said he, “for I see a dagger in his heart.”

But the most impressive presage were the visions of an officer of the wardrobe to the king, as related by the Earl of Clarendon and others. Parker had been an old protegé of Sir George Villiers, the duke’s father. On a certain night, in Windsor Castle, he saw, or dreamed of, an apparition of Sir George Villiers, who entreated him to warn his son not to follow the counsels of such and such persons, and to avert in every way the enmity of the people, as he valued his life. A second and a third night this vision was repeated, and at the last, the phantom drew a dagger from his gown, and said, “This will end my son, and do you, Parker, prepare for death.” On a hunting morning this vision was imparted to Buckingham, at Lambeth Bridge, and, after the chase, the duke was seen to ride, in a pensive mood, to his mother’s in Whitehall. The lady, at his departure, was found in an agony of tears, and when the story of the murder was told, she listened with an apathetic calmness, as if the brooding over the prophecy had half dulled her heart to the reality. Well, the duke was murdered, and Parker soon after died.

On that night when the Treasury of Oxford was broken open, Sir Thomas Wotton, then in Kent, dreamed circumstantially of the event, and, I believe, named and described the burglars.

A clergyman, whose name I forget, was once travelling far from his home, when he dreamed his house was on fire. He returned, and found his house a smoking ruin.

I may here cite a very curious dreaming, which, though not exactly fulfilled, displayed at least a strange coincidence in three minds. The mother of Mr. Joseph Taylor dreamed of the apparition of her son, who came to take leave as he was going a long journey. She started, and said, “Dear son, thou art dead.” On the morrow, a letter came from his father, expressive of anxiety on account of this dream. The son instantly remembered his own dream, at the same hour, of having gone to his mother’s room to bid farewell.

There are many warning visions, which, being happily regarded, were blessed by the preservation of human life.

When our own Harvey was passing through Dover, on his continental travels, he was unexpectedly detained for a night by the order of the governor. On the next day, news came that the packet, in which Harvey was to have sailed, was lost in a storm; and then it came out, that his excellency had, on the night before his arrival, a phantom of the doctor passing before him, which besought him to detain his substance in Dover for a day.