Nor can we attach much weight to the old ballads of Roland, which recite in touching simplicity the anguish of Charlemagne, when he heard from afar the sound of his champion's horn imploring him to come to his assistance, although the two armies were at so great a distance from each other that when the Emperor at last reached the ill-fated valley of Ronceval, his heroic friend had been dead for some days. Calderon depicts in like manner, but with the peculiar coloring of the Spanish devotee, how the dying Eusebio calls his absent friend Alberto to his bedside, to hear his last confession, and how the latter, obeying the mysterious summons, hastens there to fulfil his solemn promise. A well-known occurrence of this kind is reported by Cotton Mather as having taken place in New England. On May 2d, 1687, at 5 o'clock A. M., a young man, called Beacon, then living in Boston, suddenly saw his brother, whom he had left in London, standing before him in his usual costume, but with a bleeding wound in his forehead. He told him that he had been foully murdered by a reprobate, who would soon reach New England; at the same time he described minutely the appearance of his murderer, and implored his brother to avenge his death, promising him his assistance. Towards the end of June official information reached the colony that the young man had died on May 2d, at 5 o'clock A. M., from the effects of his wounds. But here, also, several inconsistencies diminish the value of the account. In the first place, the narrator has evidently forgotten the difference in time between London and Boston in America, or he has purposely falsified the report, in order to make it more impressive. Then the murderer never left his country; although he was tried for his crime, escaped the penalty of death by the aid of influential friends. It is, however, possible that he may have had the intention of seeking safety abroad at the time he committed the murder.