"I was at Pitt Place, Epsom, when Lord Lyttleton died; Lord Fortescue,
Lady Flood, and the two Miss Amphletts, were also present. Lord
Lyttleton had not long been returned from Ireland, and frequently had
been seized with suffocating fits; he was attacked several times by them
in the course of the preceding month, while he was at his house in Hill
Street, Berkeley Square. It happened that he dreamt, three days before
his death, that he saw a fluttering bird; and afterwards, that a woman
appeared to him in white apparel, and said to him, 'Prepare to die, you
will not exist three days.' His Lordship was much alarmed, and called to
a servant from a closet adjoining, who found him much agitated, and in a
profuse perspiration: the circumstance had a considerable effect all the
next day on his Lordship's spirits. On the third day, while his Lordship
was at breakfast with the above personages, he said, 'If I live over
to-night, I shall have jockied the ghost, for this is the third day.'
The whole party presently set off for Pitt Place, where they had not
long arrived before his Lordship was visited by one of his accustomed
fits; after a short interval, he recovered. He dined at five o'clock
that day, and went to bed at eleven, when his servant was about to give
him rhubarb and mint-water; but his Lordship perceiving him stir it with
a tooth-pick, called him a slovenly dog, and bade him go and fetch a
tea-spoon; but on the man's return, he found his master in a fit, and
the pillow being placed high, his chin bore hard upon his neck, when the
servant, instead of relieving his Lordship on the instant from his
perilous situation, ran in his fright and called out for help, but on
his return he found his Lordship dead."
The circumstances attending the apparition, as related by Lord
Lyttleton, according to the statement of a relative of Lady Lyttleton's,
were as follows:
"Two nights before, on his retiring to bed, after his servant was
dismissed and his light extinguished, he had heard a noise resembling
the fluttering of a dove at his chamber window. This attracted his
attention to the spot; when, looking in the direction of the sound, he
saw the figure of an unhappy female whom he had seduced and deserted,
and who, when deserted, had put a violent end to her own existence,
standing in the aperture of the window from which the fluttering sound
had proceeded. The form approached the foot of the bed, the room was
preternaturally light, the objects of the chamber were distinctly
visible; raising her head and pointing to a dial which stood on the
mantel-piece of the chimney, the figure, with a severe solemnity of
voice and manner, announced to the appalled and conscience-stricken man
that, at that very hour, on the third day after the visitation, his life
and his sins would be concluded, and nothing but their punishment
remain, if he availed himself not of the warning to repentance which he
had received. The eye of Lord Lyttleton glanced upon the dial, the hand
was upon the stroke of twelve; again the apartment was involved in total
darkness, the warning spirit disappeared, and bore away at her departure
all the lightness of heart and buoyancy of spirit, ready flow of wit,
and vivacity of manner, which had formerly been the pride and ornament
of the unhappy being to whom she had delivered her tremendous summons."
From a passage in the Memoirs of Sir Nathanial Wraxall, it would seem
that the sole authority for the above story was his Lordship's
_valet-de-chambre_, for he writes:--
"Dining at Pitt Place, about four years after the death of Lord
Lyttleton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the
bedchamber, where the casement-window, at which Lord Lyttleton asserted
the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and at his
stepmother's, the Dowager Lady Lyttleton's, in Portugal Street,
Grosvenor Square, I have frequently seen a painting, which she herself
executed, in 1780, expressly to commemorate the event; it hung in a
conspicuous part of her drawing-room. There the dove appears at the
window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of
the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttleton his dissolution. Every part of the
picture was faithfully designed, _after the description given to her by
the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all
the circumstances_."
In addition it would appear, according to Lord Fortescue, that the only
foundation upon which this story rests, is as follows:--
"I heard Lord Fortescue once say," writes a friend of Sir Walter Scott,
"that he was in the house with him (Lord Lyttleton) at the time of the
supposed visitation, and he mentioned the following circumstances as the
only foundation for the extraordinary superstructure at which the world
has wondered:--A woman of the party had one day lost a favourite bird,
and all the men tried to recover it for her. Soon after, on assembling
at breakfast, Lord Lyttleton complained of having passed a very bad
night, and having been worried in his dreams by a repetition of the
chase of the lady's bird. His death followed, as stated in the
story."[69]
It would seem highly probable, therefore, that this story has been
framed much after the same fashion as that of the "three black crows,"
and the singular differences which we find in the versions we have
given, fully confirm this view.
Connected with the foregoing story is another of the apparition of Lord
Lyttleton, on the night of his death, to Miles Peter Andrews, one of his
most intimate friends. This apparition occurred at Dartford Mills, where
Mr. Andrews was then staying, and doubtless, in its origin and mode of
development, the story is in every respect similar to that of Lord
Lyttleton's.
The March number of "_Household Words_,"[70] for 1853, contains a
ghost-story which exhibits another form of the belief, differing from
those which we have already dwelt upon, and it is interesting from its
comparatively recent occurrence, and from its having to a certain extent
received the confirmation of a law-court.
In the colony of New South Wales, at a place called Penrith, distant
from Sydney about thirty-seven miles, lived a farmer named Fisher. He
was unmarried, about forty-five years old, and his lands and stock were
worth not less than £4000. Suddenly Fisher disappeared, and a neighbour,
named Smith, gave out that he had gone to England for two or three
years, and produced a written document authorizing him to act as his
agent during his absence. As Fisher was an eccentric man, this sudden
departure did not create much surprise, and it was declared to be
"exactly like him."
About six months after Fisher's disappearance, an old man called Ben
Weir, who had a small farm near Penrith, and who always drove his own
cart to market, was returning from Sydney one night, when he beheld,
seated on a rail which bounded the road--Fisher. _The night was very
dark, and the distance of the fence from the middle of the road was at
least twelve yards._ Weir, nevertheless, saw Fisher's figure seated on
the rail. He pulled his old mare up, and called out, "Fisher, is that
you?" No answer was returned, but there, still on the rail, sat the form
of the man with whom he had been on the most intimate terms. Weir, who
was not drunk, though he had had several glasses of strong liquor,
jumped off his cart, and approached the rail. To his surprise, the form
vanished.
Weir noticed that the ghost was marked by "a cruel gash" on the
forehead, and that there was the appearance of fresh blood about it;
and before leaving the spot, he marked it by breaking several branches
of a sapling close by.
On returning home he told his story to his wife, who, however, told him
that he was drunk, and ridiculed him.
On the following Thursday night, when old Ben was returning from
market,--again in his cart,--he saw seated upon the same rail, the
identical apparition. He had purposely abstained from drinking that day,
and was in the full possession of all his senses.
Weir again told his wife of the apparition, to be again ridiculed by
her, and he remarked, "Smith is a bad un! Do you think Fisher would ever
have left this country without coming to bid you and me good-bye?"
The next morning Ben waited on a Mr. Grafton, a justice of the peace,
who lived near to him, and told his tale. The magistrate was at first
disposed to treat the account lightly, but after consideration, he
summoned one of the aboriginal natives, and at sunrise met Weir at the
place where the apparition had occurred, and which was sufficiently
marked by the dead and broken branches of the sapling.
The rail was found to be stained in several places, and the native,
without any previous intimation of the object of the search, was
directed to examine them, and he shortly pronounced them to be "_white
man's blood_," and searching about, he pointed out a spot whereon a body
had been laid. "Not a single shower of rain had fallen for several
months previously,--not sufficient to lay even the dust upon the roads.
Notwithstanding this, however, the native succeeded in tracking the
footsteps of one man to the unfrequented side of a pond at some
distance. He gave it as his opinion that another man had been dragged
thither. The savage walked round and round the pond, eagerly examining
its borders, and the sedges and weeds springing up around it. At first
he seemed baffled,--no clue had been washed ashore to show that anything
unusual had been sunk in the pond; but having finished this examination,
he laid himself down on his face, and looked keenly along the surface of
the smooth and stagnant water. Presently he jumped up, uttered a cry
peculiar to the natives when gratified by finding some long-sought
object, clapped his hands, and pointing to the middle of the pond, to
where the decomposition of some sunken substance had produced a slimy
coating streaked with prismatic colours, he exclaimed, '_White man's
fat!_' The pond was immediately searched; and, below the spot indicated,
the remains of a body were discovered. A large stone and a rotted silk
handkerchief were found near the body; these had been used to sink it."
By the teeth, and buttons upon the waistcoat, the body was identified as
that of Fisher. Smith was arrested, and, upon this evidence, tried
before the late Sir Francis Forbes, found guilty, sentenced to death,
and hung; but previous to the execution, "he confessed that he, and he
alone, committed the murder, and that it was upon the very rail where
Weir swore that he had seen Fisher's ghost sitting, and that he had
knocked out Fisher's brains with a tomahawk."
We quote this story as an interesting example of one of the best and
most consistent of the tales of this kind, although it is probable that
a more thorough investigation of the circumstances connected with it,
would show an origin of a nature similar to that of the "Last Hours of
Lord Lyttleton."
Several statements in the story require confirmation, and throw doubt
upon the whole.
The assertion that Weir, on a "very dark" night, saw seated upon a rail,
at a distance of _twelve yards_, a resemblance of Fisher which he took
to be real, and was not aware of the actual nature of the appearance
until he advanced towards it, is a statement too improbable to be
worthy of credence unless supported by other and less objectionable
evidence; and notwithstanding the extraordinary degree to which the
visual and other senses of the aboriginal natives are, as we are aware,
often developed, yet that they will enable them to state that an old
blood-stain is produced by the blood of a white man, or that an
iridescent scum floating at a distance on water is produced by the fat
of the white man, are statements which cannot be admitted without strong
confirmatory evidence.
It not unfrequently happens that dreams appear to foreshadow events, the
occurrence of which could not be anticipated by the reasoning faculties.
Many of the instances recorded of this kind are after-conclusions
founded upon imperfectly remembered dreams, and are consequently
worthless. Such, for example, is the story stated by Mrs. Crowe of a
gentleman "who has several times been conscious on awaking that he had
been conversing with some one, whom he has been subsequently startled to
hear had died at that period."[71]
Other dreams have received a verification from the natural results of
the dreamer's superstitious folly.
Mrs. Crowe has quoted the following example from a continental
newspaper:--
"A letter from Hamburg contains the following curious story relative to
the verification of a dream. It appears that a locksmith's apprentice,
one morning lately, informed his master (Claude Soller), that on the
previous night he dreamt that he had been assassinated on the road to
Bergsdorff, a little town at about two hours' distance from Hamburg. The
master laughed at the young man's credulity, and to prove that he
himself had little faith in dreams, insisted upon sending him to
Bergsdorff, with 140 rix dollars (£22 8_s._), which he owed to his
brother-in-law who resided in the town. The apprentice, after in vain
imploring his master to change his intention, was compelled to set out
at about eleven o'clock. On arriving at the village of Billwaerder,
about halfway between Hamburg and Bergsdorff, he recollected his dream
with terror but perceiving the baillie of the village at a little
distance talking to some of his workmen, he accosted him, and acquainted
him with his singular dream, at the same time requesting, that as he had
money about his person, one of his workmen might be allowed to accompany
him for protection across a small wood which lay in his way. The baillie
smiled, and in obedience to his orders, one of the men set out with his
young apprentice. The next day the corpse of the latter was conveyed by
some peasants to the baillie, along with a reaping-hook, which had been
found by his side, and with which the throat of the murdered youth had
been cut. The baillie immediately recognized the instrument as one which
he had on the previous day given to the workman who had served as the
apprentice's guide, for the purpose of pruning some willows. The workman
was apprehended, and on being confronted with the body of his victim,
made a full confession of his crime, adding that the recital of the
dream had alone prompted him to commit the horrible act. The assassin,
who is thirty-five years of age, was a native of Billwaerder, and
previously to the perpetration of the murder, had always borne an
irreproachable character."
It is well known that sensations from without will not only frequently
excite dreaming, but will also often determine the character of the
dreams. The following story is evidently an example of a dream of this
nature.
On the 30th July, 1853, the dead body of a young woman was discovered in
a field at Littleport, in the Isle of Ely. There could be little doubt
that the woman had been murdered; and at the adjourned inquest held
before Mr. W. Marshall, one of the coroners for the isle, on the 29th
August, the following extraordinary evidence was given:--
"James Jessop, an elderly respectable-looking labourer, with a face of
the most perfect stolidity, and who possessed a most curiously shaped
skull, broad and flat at the top, and projecting greatly on each side
over the ears, deposed: 'I live about a furlong and a half from where
the body was found. I have seen the body of the deceased. I had never
seen her before her death. On the night of Friday, the 29th of July, I
dreamt three successive times that I heard the cry of murder issuing
from near the bottom of a close called Little Ditchment Close (the place
where the body was found). The first time I dreamt I heard the cry, it
woke me. I fell asleep again, and dreamt the same again. I then woke
again, and told my wife. I could not rest; but I dreamt it again after
that. I got up between four or five o'clock, but I did not go down to
the Close, the wheat and barley in which have since been cut. I dreamt
once, about twenty years ago, that I saw a woman hanging in a barn, and
on passing the next morning the barn which appeared to me in my dream, I
entered, and did find a woman there hanging, and cut her down just in
time to save her life. I never told my wife I heard any cries of murder,
but I have mentioned it to several persons since. I saw the body on the
Saturday it was found. I did not mention my dream to any one till a day
or two after that. I saw the field distinctly in my dream, and the trees
thereon, but I saw no person in it. On the night of the murder the wind
lay from that spot to my house."
"Rhoda Jessop, wife of the last witness, stated that her husband related
his dreams to her, on the evening of the day the body was found."[72]
It is highly probable, that in this instance, the screams of the
unfortunate woman, borne upon the wind, were the exciting cause of the
dreams, and the direction from which the sound came would be sufficient
to call up the associated idea of the fields in which the murder
occurred. The powerful impression made upon the mind of the man,
according to his own account, will sufficiently account for the
repetition of the dreams; and the statement that the particulars of the
dream were not related until after the finding of the body, must induce
a little caution to the reception of the above version as an actual
detail of the facts of the case. This remark applies also to the dream
interpolated in the evidence.
Among the most vivid and connected dreams, are those excited by a
dominant or absorbing train of thought, which has engaged the mind
during waking hours, or by powerful or protracted emotion.
M. Boismont relates a dream, which he conceives is to be classed among
the inexplicable phenomena of this nature, but which, with all deference
to that distinguished psychologist, is rather to be placed in the
category we have just named.
Miss R., gifted with an excellent judgment, and religious without
bigotry, lived, before her marriage, at the house of an uncle, a
celebrated physician, and a member of the Institute. She was at that
time separated from her mother, who had been attacked, in the country,
by a severe illness. One night, this young lady dreamed that she saw her
mother before her, pale, disfigured, about to render the last breath,
and showing particularly lively grief at not being surrounded by her
children, of whom one, curé of one of the parishes in Paris, had
emigrated to Spain, and the other was in Paris. Presently she heard her
call upon her many times by her Christian name; whereupon the persons
who surrounded her mother, supposing that she called her grand-daughter,
who bore the same name, went to seek her in the neighbouring room, but a
sign from the invalid apprised them that it was not the grand-daughter,
but the daughter who resided in Paris, that she wished to see. Her
appearance expressed the grief she felt at her absence; suddenly her
features changed, became covered with the paleness of death, and she
fell without life on the bed.
The lady had died during that night; and it was subsequently
ascertained, that the circumstances delineated in the dream, simulated
those which had occurred by the death-bed.
What are the circumstances of this case?--A mother dangerously ill--her
children away from home. What more likely to occur to a child cognisant
of these facts, than the train of thought which engendered and caused
this dream? The events attending a death-bed scene under such
circumstances were all but inevitable, and we cannot, justifiably,
consider this case in any other light than that of a "simple
coincidence."
Many physiologists and metaphysicians are of opinion, and there is much
ground for the belief, that every sensation which has been actually
experienced, may become the subject of perception at some future time,
although, in the interval, all trace of its existence may have been
lost, and it is beyond the power of the will to recall.
The phenomena upon which this opinion has been principally founded, have
been observed in the delirium of certain febrile diseases, and in
dreaming.
There is a case on record of a woman, who, during the delirium of fever,
repeated long passages in the Hebrew and Chaldaic tongues. When in
health she was perfectly ignorant of these languages; and it was
ascertained, that the sentences she spoke in her delirium, were correct
passages from known writers in them. It was subsequently discovered,
that at one period of her life she had lived with a clergyman who was in
the habit of walking up and down the passage, reading aloud from Hebrew
and Chaldaic works, and it was the sensations thus derived, and retained
unconsciously to herself, which had been revivified by the changes
induced during the progress of the fever.
A case is also recorded by Dr. Abercrombie, in which a servant-girl who
had manifested no "ear" for, or pleasure in music, during sleep was
heard to imitate the sounds of a violin, even the tuning, and to perform
most complicated and difficult pieces of music. This girl had slept for
some time, and much to her annoyance, in a room adjoining that occupied
by an itinerant violinist who was somewhat of an enthusiast in his art,
and was accustomed to spend a portion of the night in practising
difficult pieces of music, often preventing this female from sleeping.
The music she had thus heard, registered in the mind, so to speak, was
repeated, unconsciously, during the disturbed action of the brain
consequent upon imperfect health and dreaming.
The principle which has been deduced from these and similar cases, gives
a ready explanation to numerous stories which it has been customary to
regard as coming within the pale of the supernatural.
Those instances in which, during a dream, the places in which documents
of value, which had been lost or misplaced, have been revealed, are
examples of revivified sensations which had been lost sight of, and of
which the return had been determined by the protracted exercise of the
mind to recover the missing traces.
Sir Walter Scott, in his notes to "The Antiquary," relates the following
highly interesting illustration:--
"Mr. R----d, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of
Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated
arrears of tiend (or tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a
noble family, the titulars (lay improprietors of the tithes). Mr. R----d
was strongly impressed with the belief, that his father had, by a form
of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased those lands from
the titular; and therefore, that the present prosecution was
groundless. But after an industrious search among his father's papers,
an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all
persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence
could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at
hand, when he conceived the loss of the lawsuit to be inevitable, and he
had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the
best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He even went to bed with
this resolution, and with all the circumstances of the case floating
upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose.
"His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought,
and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not
supprised at such apparitions. Mr. R----d thought he informed his father
of the cause of his distress, adding, that the payment of a considerable
sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong
consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to acquire any
evidence in support of his belief. 'You are right, my son,' replied the
paternal shade; 'I did acquire right to these tiends, for payment of
which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction
are in the hands of Mr. ----, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired
from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He
was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason,
but who never, on any other occasion, transacted business on my account.
It is very possible,' pursued the vision, 'that Mr. ---- may have
forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it
to his recollection by this token,--that when I came to pay his account,
there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and
that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.'
"Mr. R----d awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision
imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the
country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he
came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very
old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he
remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The
old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his
recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole
returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers,
and recovered them; so that Mr. R----d carried to Edinburgh the
documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of
losing.
"The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of
information which Mr. R----d had really received from his father while
in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression
that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover,
during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during waking
hours.
"It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with
bad consequences to Mr. R----d, whose health and spirits were afterwards
impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
visions of the night."
An instance which is related by Mrs. Crowe, receives its explanation
also from this source.
"A case occurred not many years since in the North of Scotland, where a
murder having been committed, a man came forward, saying, that he had
dreamt that the pack of the murdered pedlar was hidden in a certain
spot; whereon, a search being made, it was actually found. They at first
concluded he was himself the assassin, but the real criminal was
afterwards discovered; and it being asserted, though I have been told
erroneously, that the two men had passed some time together, since the
murder, in a state of intoxication, it was decided that the crime, and
the place of concealment, had been communicated to the pretended
dreamer," &c.
If the statement that the murderer and the dreamer had spent some time
together in a state of intoxication, after the murder had been
committed, be correct, the supposition that the murder had been
communicated to the dreamer, forgotten when the state of intoxication
had passed away, but subsequently recalled during the progress of a
dream, affords an easy and natural explanation of the whole matter.
As an example of that class of dreams which are inexplicable, but which,
unfortunately, are of little weight from the imperfect authority upon
which they are given, and from the fact that they bear intrinsic
evidence of having been received without inquiry into the circumstances
under which they occurred, and the fallacies to which the dreamer and
subsequent details had been exposed, we quote the following from the
works of the Rev. John Wesley.[73]
"Among the congregation at Ambleside were a gentleman and his wife, who
gave me a remarkable relation. She said she had often heard her brother
relate, what an intimate acquaintance had told her, that her husband was
concerned in the rebellion of 1745. He was tried at Carlisle, and found
guilty. The evening before he was to die, sitting and musing in her
chair, she fell fast asleep. She dreamed one came to her and said, 'Go
to such a part of the wall, and among the loose stones you will find a
key, which you must carry to your husband.' She waked; but thinking it a
common dream, paid no attention to it. Presently she fell asleep again,
and dreamed the very same dream. She started up, put on her cloak and
hat, and went to that part of the wall, and among the loose stones found
a key. Having, with some difficulty, procured admission into the gaol,
she gave this to her husband. It opened the door of his cell, as well as
the lock of the prison door.(!) So at midnight he escaped for life."
It is not uncommon to find persons asserting that they have had dreams
which have prefigured events, often trivial, in the common run of life.
Probably, without exception, these are irrelevant conclusions: the
affirmative instances being marked, to the total neglect of the
negative. For example:--A lady with whom we are acquainted was
accustomed to relate a dream which she had had, in which she thought
that she was in the nursery watching one of her children play, when
suddenly it tripped over the fender, and fell against the ribs of the
grate, and before it could be extricated, the face was severely burned.
On the following day the child she had seen in her dream, happened to
have an accident in the nursery very similar to that she had seen occur
in the dream.
On inquiry, however, it proved that dreams of this nature respecting her
children were quite usual to the lady, and that at one time or other she
had witnessed while sleeping almost all those accidents occur to which
infant life is exposed. This was the only instance in which any one had
apparently come true; and _until_ this had occurred she had very
properly and correctly attributed her dreams to the anxiety she
naturally entertained respecting her young family.
Of all the divisions, or rather branches, of supernatural lore, none has
obtained more universal credence, none has been more persistent, than
that of _presentiments_.
A history of _presentiments_ would form a curious, if not very
instructive work, and it alone would almost suffice to indicate the
absurdity of the belief in its main features.
We have instances of _high spirits_ foreboding evil; _low spirits_
foreboding the same; _sudden illness_ shadowing forth calamity, _not_
to the person affected, but to a companion; _sudden dullness of sight_
presaging death--indeed a collection of these instances would show that
every obscure sensation, every variation of emotion or passion,
preceding an evil occurrence, has at one time or other been regarded as
a presentiment of that evil.
Jung-Stilling has so well described the nature of the faculty of
presentiment, and the circumstances under which it is most commonly
developed, that we cannot do better than quote the words of that
celebrated writer on this subject. He writes:--
"As the developed faculty of presentiment is a capability of
experiencing the arrangements which are made in the world of spirits,
and executed in the visible world, second-sight certainly belongs also
under this head. And as those who possess this capability are generally
simple people, it again follows from hence, that a developed faculty of
presentiment is by no means a quality which belongs solely to devout and
pious people, or that it should be regarded as a divine gift; I take it,
on the contrary, for a disease of the soul, which we ought rather to
endeavour to heal than promote.
"He that has a natural disposition for it, and then fixes his
imagination long and intensely, and therefore _magically_, upon a
certain object, may at length be able, with respect to this object, to
foresee things which have reference to it. Grave-diggers, nurses, and
such as are employed to undress and shroud the dead, watchmen, and the
like, are accustomed to be continually reflecting on objects which stand
in connexion with death and interment; what wonder, therefore, if their
faculty of presentiment at length develop itself on these subjects; and
I am inclined to maintain, that it may be promoted by drinking ardent
spirits."[74]