The Book of Dreams and Ghosts - Andrew Lang (best ebook reader ubuntu .TXT) 📗

treasures in case she died in child-bed.  But this inventory, hidden among a mass of law-papers in the Record Office, was not discovered till 1854, nine years after the vision of 1845, and three after its publication by Dr. Gregory in 1851.  Not till 1863 was the inventory of 1566, discovered in 1854, published for the Bannatyne Club by Dr. Joseph Robertson.

Turning to the inventory we read of a valuable present made by David Rizzio to Mary, a tortoise of rubies, which she kept till her death, for it appears in a list made after her execution at Fotheringay.  The murdered David Rizzio left a brother Joseph.  Him the queen made her secretary, and in her will of 1566 mentions him thus:—

“A Josef, pour porter à celui qui je luy ay dit, une emeraude emaille de blanc.

“A Josef, pour porter à celui qui je luy ai dit, dont il ranvoir quittance.

“Une bague garnye de vingt cinq diamens tant grands que petis.”

Now the diamond cross seen by the young officer in 1845 was set with diamonds great and small, and was, in his opinion, a gift from or through Rizzio.  “The queen wore it out of sight.”  Here in the inventory we have a bague (which may be a cross) of diamonds small and great, connected with a secret only known to Rizzio’s brother and to the queen.  It is “to be carried to one whose name the queen has spoken in her new secretary’s ear” (Joseph’s), “but dare not trust herself to write”.  “It would be idle now to seek to pry into the mystery which was thus anxiously guarded,” says Dr. Robertson, editor of the queen’s inventories.  The doctor knew nothing of the vision which, perhaps, so nearly pried into the mystery.  There is nothing like proof here, but there is just a presumption that the diamonds connected with Rizzio, and secretly worn by the queen, seen in the vision of 1845, are possibly the diamonds which, had Mary died in 1566, were to be carried by Joseph Rizzio to a person whose name might not safely be written. {35a}

We now take a dream which apparently reveals a real fact occurring at a distance.  It is translated from Brierre de Boismont’s book, Des Hallucinations {35b} (Paris, 1845).  “There are,” says the learned author, “authentic dreams which have revealed an event occurring at the moment, or later.”  These he explains by accidental coincidence, and then gives the following anecdote, as within his own intimate knowledge:—

THE DEATHBED

Miss C., a lady of excellent sense, religious but not bigoted, lived before her marriage in the house of her uncle D., a celebrated physician, and member of the Institute.  Her mother at this time was seriously ill in the country.  One night the girl dreamed that she saw her mother, pale and dying, and especially grieved at the absence of two of her children: one a curé in Spain, the other—herself—in Paris.  Next she heard her own Christian name called, “Charlotte!” and, in her dream, saw the people about her mother bring in her own little niece and god-child Charlotte from the next room.  The patient intimated by a sign that she did not want this Charlotte, but her daughter in Paris.  She displayed the deepest regret; her countenance changed, she fell back, and died.

Next day the melancholy of Mademoiselle C. attracted the attention of her uncle.  She told him her dream; he pressed her to his heart, and admitted that her mother was dead.

Some months later Mademoiselle C., when her uncle was absent, arranged his papers, which he did not like any one to touch.  Among these was a letter containing the story of her mother’s death, with all the details of her own dream, which D. had kept concealed lest they should impress her too painfully.

Boismont is staggered by this circumstance, and inclined to account for it by “still unknown relations in the moral and physical world”.  “Mental telegraphy,” of course, would explain all, and even chance coincidence is perfectly conceivable.

The most commonly known of dreams prior to, or simultaneous with an historical occurrence represented in the vision, is Mr. Williams’s dream of the murder of Mr. Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons, May 11, 1812.  Mr. Williams, of Scorrier House, near Redruth, in Cornwall, lived till 1841.  He was interested in mines, and a man of substance.  Unluckily the versions of his dream are full of discrepancies.  It was first published, apparently, in The Times during the “silly season” of 1828 (August 28).  According to The Times, whose account is very minute, Mr. Williams dreamed of the murder thrice before 2 a.m. on the night of May 11.  He told Mrs. Williams, and was so disturbed that he rose and dressed at two in the morning.  He went to Falmouth next day (May 12), and told the tale to every one he knew.  On the evening of the 13th he told it to Mr. and Mrs. Tucker (his married daughter) of Tremanton Castle.  Mr. Williams only knew that the chancellor was shot; Mr. Tucker said it must be the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  From the description he recognised Mr. Perceval, with whom he was at enmity.  Mr. Williams had never been inside the House of Commons.  As they talked, Mr. William’s son galloped up from Truro with news of the murder, got from a traveller by coach.  Six weeks later, Mr. Williams went to town, and in the House of Commons walked up to and recognised the scene of the various incidents in the murder.

So far The Times, in 1828.  But two forms of a version of 1832 exist, one in a note to Mr. Walpole’s Life of Perceval (1874), “an attested statement, drawn up and signed by Mr. Williams in the presence of the Rev. Thomas Fisher and Mr. Charles Prideaux Brune”.  Mr. Brune gave it to Mr. Walpole.  With only verbal differences this variant corresponds to another signed by Mr. Williams and given by him to his grandson, who gave it to Mr. Perceval’s great-niece, by whom it was lent to the Society for Psychical Research.

These accounts differ toto cœlo from that in The Times of 1828.  The dream is not of May 11, but “about” May 2 or 3.  Mr. Williams is not a stranger to the House of Commons; it is “a place well known to me”.  He is not ignorant of the name of the victim, but “understood that it was Mr. Perceval”.  He thinks of going to town to give warning.  We hear nothing of Mr. Tucker.  Mr. Williams does not verify his dream in the House, but from a drawing.  A Mr. C. R. Fox, son of one to whom the dream was told before the event, was then a boy of fourteen, and sixty-one years later was sure that he himself heard of Mr. Williams’s dream before the news of the murder arrived.  After sixty years, however, the memory cannot be relied upon.

One very curious circumstance in connection with the assassination of Mr. Perceval has never been noticed.  A rumour or report of the deed reached Bude Kirk, a village near Annan, on the night of Sunday, May 10, a day before the crime was committed!  This was stated in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, and copied in The Times of May 25.  On May 28, the Perth Courier quotes the Dumfries paper, and adds that “the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam (ob. 1833), has visited Bude Kirk and has obtained the most satisfactory proof of the rumour having existed” on May 10, but the rumour cannot be traced to its source.  Mr. Yorstoun authorises the mention of his name.  The Times of June 2 says that “the report is without foundation”.  If Williams talked everywhere of his dream, on May 3, some garbled shape of it may conceivably have floated to Bude Kirk by May 10, and originated the rumour.  Whoever started it would keep quiet when the real news arrived for fear of being implicated in a conspiracy as accessory before the fact.  No trace of Mr. Williams’s dream occurs in the contemporary London papers.

The best version of the dream to follow is probably that signed by Mr. Williams himself in 1832. {39a}

It may, of course, be argued by people who accept Mr. Williams’s dream as a revelation of the future that it reached his mind from the purpose conceived in Bellingham’s mind, by way of “mental telegraphy”. {39b}

DREAM OF MR.  PERCEVAL’S MURDER

“SUNDHILL, December, 1832.

“[Some account of a dream which occurred to John Williams, Esq., of Scorrier House, in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1812.  Taken from his own mouth, and narrated by him at various times to several of his friends.]

“Being desired to write out the particulars of a remarkable dream which I had in the year 1812, before I do so I think it may be proper for me to say that at that time my attention was fully occupied with affairs of my own—the superintendence of some very extensive mines in Cornwall being entrusted to me.  Thus I had no leisure to pay any attention to political matters, and hardly knew at that time who formed the administration of the country.  It was, therefore, scarcely possible that my own interest in the subject should have had any share in suggesting the circumstances which presented themselves to my imagination.  It was, in truth, a subject which never occurred to my waking thoughts.

“My dream was as follows:—

“About the second or third day of May, 1812, I dreamed that I was in the lobby of the House of Commons (a place well known to me).  A small man, dressed in a blue coat and a white waistcoat, entered, and immediately I saw a person whom I had observed on my first entrance, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from under his coat and present it at the little man above-mentioned.  The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast of the person at whom it was directed.  I saw the blood issue from the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground.  Upon inquiry who the sufferer might be, I was informed that he was the chancellor.  I understood him to be Mr. Perceval, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer.  I further saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room.  Upon waking I told the particulars above related to my wife; she treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only a dream.  I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented itself with precisely the same circumstances.  After waking a second time and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her request that I would compose myself and dismiss the subject from my mind.  Upon my falling asleep the third time, the same dream without any alteration was repeated, and I awoke, as on the former occasions, in great agitation.  So much alarmed and impressed was I with the circumstances above related, that I felt much doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London and communicate upon the subject with the party principally concerned.  Upon this point I consulted with some friends whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the following day.  After having stated to them the particulars of the dream itself and what were my own feelings in relation to it, they dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic.  Upon this I said no more, but anxiously watched the newspapers every evening as the post arrived.

“On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) no