* Holnshed, vol i. p. 755.

waie or other, yet had I rather that men should see that it were by other men's falsehood, than thinke it were either by our owne fault, or fainte heart; and, therefore, go to thy master (man) and commend me to him, and praie him be merie and have no feare, for I insure him I am as sure of the man that he woteth of (meaning Catesby, who deceived him, and sug-gested his removal) as I am of my own hand *."

If we receive the account of Shakespeare derived from ancient chronicles, the Duke of Clarence before his execution

"Past a miserable night, Full of ugly sights of ghastly dreams," some of which the poet has described with much power of fancy.

Bishop Jewel is said to have dreamed in Queen Mary's time, that two of his teeth dropped out; and as he soon afterwards heards of the burning of Ridley and Hooper, the dream was regarded as prophetic of his loss on that sad occasion.

* Holinshed, vol. i. p. 723.

It is related also in the book of Martyrs, that in Queen Mary's time when peraecutiou raged against the Protestants, Mr. Rough, who who presided over a congnegation which as-sembled secretly in London, and had the superinteudanee of the poor, was in possession of a roll containing the names of the congre-gation. It happened one night that Mr. Cuth bert Simpson dreamed that Mr. Rough was taken, and the roll in -his pocket. Falling asleep again he had the same dream, upon which being affected, he rose up with intention to go to Mr. Rough, but before he got ready Mr, Rough came into room, to whom he told his dream, and desired him to dispose of the catalogue, that it might not be found on him; Rough reproved him for his fancy, but Siuppson adjured him i9n the name of God, as he would answer for the mischief which might befal the innocent, so that at length he son sen ted; and within two or three days he was taken, and the book reacued.

The compiler of a book of dreams selates, that in the time of the civil wars his grandfather, an officer in the amy at Windsor, dreamed that his wife appeared to him saying, "I am no man's wife but 'haste to London and take care of your children;" and that in riding to town he Received the -account of his wife s death.

There are many dreams which must he considered as the agri sompia the illusions of a disorder which .terminates in death as Crescentinus, the pope's legate at Trent, fancied one night in which he was employed late in writing, that ,he saw a vast dog with flaming eyes and long ears reaching almost to the ground ,and falling sick -died raxing against the dog *.

* Wanlley 's Waudon.

That murderers should have dreams when their minds are harassed by guilty fears, is but what might be expected; and if we could be induced to consider dreams as suggested by God for the ordinary purposes of bis moral government, it would be where murders have been discovered by dreams.

In Baker's Chronicle it is related that Ann Waters, seduced by a lover, consented to the Strangling of her husband, then buried him in a dung-hill in the cow-house. One of the neighbours dreamt that Waters was strangled, and buried in a cow-house; whereupon a search was instituted, and the woman apprehended, confessed, and was burned.

In the year 1553 Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, being then ambassador in France, dreamed that his nephew, Thomas Wotton, was inclined to be party in such a project, that if he was not suddenly prevented, would turn to the loss of his life, and ruin of bis family. The night following he dreamed the same again, and knowing that it had no dependence upon his waking thoughts, much less upon the desires upon his heart, he did then more seriously consider it; and resolved to use so prudent a remedy (by way of prevention) as might introduce no great inconvenience to either party. And to this end he wrote to the queen (Queen Mary) and besought her, that she would cause his nephew, Thomas Wotton, to be sent for out of Kent'; and that the lords of her council might interrogate him in some such feigned questions, as might give a colour for his commitment unto a favourable prison, declaring that he would acquaint her majesty with the true reason of his request, when he should next become so happy as to see and speak with her majesty. It was done as the uncle desired, and Mr. Wotton sent to prison. At this time a marriage was concluded betwixt our Queen Mary and Philip King of Spain, which divers persons did not only declare against, but raised forces to oppose; of this number Sir Thomas Wyat, of Boxley Abbey, in Kent) betwixt whose family and that of the Wottons there had been an ancient and entice friendship) was the principal actor; who having persuaded many of the nobility and gentry (especially of Kent) to side .with him; and being defeated and token prisoner was arraigned, condemned, and lost his life; so did the Duke of Suffolk and divers others, especially many of the gentry of Kent, who were then in several places exeeted as Wyat's assistants: and of this number, im all pro-habilty, had Mr. Wotton been if he had not been confined; for though he was not ignorant that another man's treason is made his own by concealing it, yet he durst confess to his -unele when he returned into England, and came to visit him in prison, that he had more than intimation of Wyat's intention, and thought that be should not have actually continued innocent if his uncle had not so happily dreamed him a prison; out of which place whenhe was delivered by the same hand that eaused his confinement, they both considered dreams more seriously, and then both joined in praising God for it. That God who has himself no rules either in preventing of evil, or in shewing mercy, to those whom of his good pleasure he hath chosen to love *.

The family of Wotton was fomous for dreams.

Thomas Wotton, nephew of the celebrated Nicholas Wotton, Dean of Canterbury, and ambassador to France, dreamed in Kent, not long before his death, that the treasury of the University of Oxford had been robbed by some townsmen and poor scholars, five in number. He mentioned it in a postscript to a letter the same day to his son Henry, then at Oxford; and the letter arrived the morning after the robbery, and by means of the communication the persons were detected.

Both Nicolas and Thomas Wottou, who Strada relates, that the night preceding the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, when Elisabeth was kept awake by the agitation of her mind, an attendant lady who slept in her room being awakened by a dream, cried out that she saw Mary Stewart beheaded, and soon after her own mistress struck with the same hatchet: upon which Elisabeth, who had been distracted by the same images, being terrified, dispatched an express to Fotheringay to order the execution to be deferred; unhappily for Mary, the messenger did not arrive till four hours after the execution. The dreams were but the natural effects of the cruel resolution which Elisabeth had adopted †.

* Isaac Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wottotm were men of holy lives, are reported by Walton to have foretold the days of their death *.

Sir Francis Bacon tells us in his Natural History, that being at Paris he told several gentlemen there that he dreamed that his father's house in the country was plaistered all over with black, and mortar, and two or three days after his father died in London.

* See Tsanc Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wotton, p. 20. † De Bello Bclgico, L. ii.

Thomas Winter, one of the sanguinary bigots who was concerned in the Gunpowder Plot, on retiring to Staffordshire with the rest of the conspirators, was, with some of his associates, scorched by the explosion of some gunpowder to such a degree, as to be incapable of assisting in the defence of the party when attacked; and upon this occasion is said to have recalled a dream in which a little before he had imagined, that he had seen steeples and churches standing awry, and within these churches strange and unknown figures; and which he represented to have exhibited to him countenances disfigured, like those of Grant, Rockwood, and other of his colleagues *.

* Caulfield's Portraits, p. 111.

The dream was stick as was likely to occur to a mind engaged in such a project, and it would have appeared equally verifierf if the diabolical scheme against the kmg and parliament had succeeded.