was a blended vision of horror before him, in which his new friend seemed to be a principal The fair form of Edith Bellenden also ‘mingled in his dream, weeping and with dishevelled hair, and appearing to call on him for ' comfort and assistance which he had it not in his 'power to render. He awoke from these unrefreshing slumbers with a feverish impulse, and 'a heart which foreboded disaster. There was * already a tinge of dazzling lustre on the verge of the distant hills, and the dawn was abroad in all • the freshness of a summer morning.'-Tales of My Landlord, First Series, vol. ii. ch. 6.

It sometimes happens, as most persons have observed, that a sound reaching the external sense during sleep, is caught up by the fancy, and, by some strange power of adaptation, interwoven with the tissue of a dream. This circumstance has not escaped the novelist and poet.

Again he roused him on the lake
Look'd forth, where now the twilight flake
Of pale cold dawn began to wake.
On Coolin's cliffs the mist lay furl'd,
The morning breeze the lake had curl'd,
The short dark waves, heaved to the land,
With ceaseless plash kiss'd cliff or sand;
It was a slumb’rous sound-he turn'd
To tales at which his youth had burn'd,

Of pilgrim's path by demon cross'd,
Of sprightly elf or yelling ghost,
Of the wild witch's baneful cot,
And mermaid's alabaster grot,

Who bathes her limbs in sunless well
Deep in Strathaird's enchanted cell.
Thither in fancy rapt he flies,

And on his sight the vaults arise;
That hut's dark walls he sees no more,
His foot is on the marble floor,

And o'er his head the dazzling spars

Gleam like a firmament of stars!

-Hark! hears he not the sea-nymph speak
Her anger in that thrilling shriek?—
No! all too late, with Allan's dream
Mingled the captive's warning scream.
As from the ground he strives to start,
A ruffian's dagger finds his heart!
Upwards he casts his dizzy eyes,...
Murmurs his master's name, ... and dies!"
Lord of the Isles, Canto III. St. 28.

'I remember a strange agony, under which I ' conceived myself and Diana in the power of Mac

Gregor's wife, and about to be precipitated from

' a rock into the lake; the signal was to be the dis

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charge of a cannon, fired by Sir Frederick Vernon,

who, in the dress of a cardinal, officiated at the ceremony. Nothing could be more lively than 'the impression which I received of this imaginary . scene. I could paint, even at this moment, the 'mute and courageous submission expressed in

'Diana's features-the wild and distorted faces of 'the executioners, who crowded around us with mopping and mowing;' grimaces ever changing, ' and each more hideous than that which preceded.

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66

I saw the rigid and inflexible fanaticism painted in the face of the father. I saw him lift the fatal ' match--the deadly signal exploded-it was re'peated again and again and again, in rival thun'ders, by the echoes of the surrounding cliffs, and 'I awoke from fancied horror to real apprehension.

'The sounds in my dream were not ideal. They ' reverberated on my waking ears, but it was two or three minutes ere I could collect myself so as 'distinctly to understand that they proceeded from a violent knocking at the gate.'-Rob Roy, vol. iii. ch. 12.

The ominous dream of the Countess of Leicester is thus terminated :

'Just as he spoke, the horns again poured on 'her ear the melancholy, yet wild strain of the 'mort, or death note, and she awoke. The Countess ' awoke to hear a real bugle-note, or rather the com'bined breath of many bugles, sounding not the

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mort, but the jolly reveillée, to remind the inmates ' of the castle of Kenilworth, that the pleasures of

the day were to commence with a magnificent 'stag-hunting in the neighbouring chase.'-Kenilworth, vol. iii. ch. 8.

Lovei's dream, the beginning of which I just now quoted, ends in a similar manner :

'As the vision shut his volume, a strain of delightful music seemed to fill the apartment'Lovel started, and became completely awake. The music, however, was still in his ears, nor 'ceased till he could distinctly follow the measure ' of an old Scottish tune. With its visionary cha ́racter it had lost much of its charms—it was now nothing more than an air on the harpsichord, 'tolerably well performed.'—Antiquary, vol. i. ch. 10.

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Should you feel desirous of pursuing this subject further, I would point out as deserving your attention the dreams of Glossin, in Guy Mannering*; of the hero in Harold the Dauntless †; and of Effie Deans, in the Heart of Mid-Lothian ‡.

The incident of a person supposed to be dead emerging from concealment and being mistaken for a spectre, occurs twice in the poems and twice in the novels: De Wilton § and Mortham || appal their enemies by their supposed resuscitation; Henry Morton alarms his mistress in the same manner ¶; and Athelstane inhospitably disturbs the guests at his own funeral feast **.

*Vol. ii. ch. 12.

Vol. ii. ch. 8.

Rokeby, canto ii. st. 21, 2.

† Canto vi. st. 9 to 11.
§ Marmion, canto iv. st. 21.

¶ Old Mortality, last vol. ch. 9.

**Ivanhoe, vol. iii. ch. 12.

The death of Burley* has some points of strong resemblance to that of Risingham +. Each falls ingloriously, oppressed by the united force of ignoble assailants, in a sudden and almost unforeseen conflict; a catastrophe not arising in either case out of the early and leading events of the story, but apparently contrived on purpose for the removal of personages who are lagging on the stage and impede the closing of the scene. The novelist seems embarrassed with his covenanter as the poet with his buccaneer; they cannot be quietly dismissed; but the authors have made them so strong and invincible, that it becomes difficult to find expedients for their destruction, and each is quelled at last by a complication of means: by his own madness, by the fault of his horse, by the combined attack of his plebeian enemies. Both Risingham and Burley sacrifice their lives in accomplishing schemes of vengeance; both die, as they inflict death, with unshrinking sternness; both carry with them out of existence individuals whose absence is equally necessary with their own to the winding up of the fable; John Balfour assassinating Lord Evandale, and Bertram fatally cutting short the iniquities of Oswald in their moment of con

summation.

* Old Mortality, last chapter.
Rokeby, canto vi. st. 32, &c.