Munro, the Scotch soldier of fortune, who bore himself so gallantly in the wars of Gustavus Adolphus, tells a story of a vision that was seen by a soldier of his company on the morning of the storm of Stralsund in 1628. One Murdo Macleod, born in Assen, a soldier of tall stature and valiant courage, being sleeping on his watch, awoke at break of day, and “jogged” two of his comrades lying by him, much to their indignation at his “stirring them.” He replied: “Before long, you shall be otherwise stirred.” A soldier called Allan Tough, a Lochaber man, recommending his soul to GOD, asked him what he had seen: “That you shall never behold your country again.” The other replied, the loss was but small, if the rest of the company were well. He answered: “No, for there was great hurt and dearth of many very near.” The other again asked, what others he had seen who would perish. He then told by name sundry of his comrades who would be killed. The other asked, what would become of himself. Eventually, he described by their clothes all the officers who would be hurt. “A pretty quick boy near by,” asked him, what would become of the Major (that is, Munro himself?) “He would be shot, but not deadly,” was the answer,--and so it proved. A good deal is said of this _Taisch_, or “Second Sight,” in Dr. Johnson’s “Journey to the Hebrides,” and some striking anecdotes are told. It was just the thing to interest his moody temperament, with its terrible dread of death and its longing to lift the curtain that hides from us the Unseen. He seems, however, to have been unable to convince himself of the actual existence of such a power; all the evidence he could collect failed to advance his curiosity to conviction, so that he could not believe, while remaining willing to believe. To use the noble words of Goethe, nobly rendered by Coleridge: “As the sun, Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in To-day already walks To-morrow.” _This_ it is not difficult to accept. It seems fitting that presages should herald the death of kings and the revolutions of nations; but the mind cannot convince itself that the spirits of the dead will cross the shadowy borders to foretell the trivial accidents that chequer ordinary lives. Yet, as Johnson says: “A man on a journey far from home falls from a horse; another who is perhaps at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him. Another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names, if he knows them not he can describe the dresses.”