The report that the discovery of the famous Venus of Milo was due to a dream, is not improbable, but is as yet without sufficient authentication. The French Consul, Brest, who was a resident of Milo, dreamed, it is stated, two nights in succession, that he had caused diggings to be made at a certain place in the island and that his efforts had been rewarded by the discovery of a beautiful statue. He paid no attention to the dream; but it was repeated a third time, and now so distinctly that he not only saw clearly all the surroundings, but, also, the traces of a recent fire on the spot that had been pointed out to him before. When he went on the following day to the place, he instantly recognized the traces of fire, began his researches, and discovered not only the Venus, now the glory of the Louvre, but, also, several other most valuable statues. The well-known dream concerning Major André is open to the same objections, although it is quoted in good faith by Mrs. Crowe (i., p. 59). We are told that the Rev. Mr. Cunningham, the poet, saw in a dream a man who was captured by armed soldiers and hanged on a tree. To his utter consternation, he recognized on the following day, in Major André, who was then for the first time presented to him, the person he had seen in his dream. The latter was then just on the point of embarking for America, where he met with his sad fate. A large number of dreams which are looked upon as prophetic, are nothing more than the result of impressions made on the mind during sleep by some bodily sensation. A swelling or an inflammation, for instance, is frequently announced beforehand by pain in the affected part of the body; the mind receives through the nerves an impression of this pain and clothes it, during sleep and in a dream, into some familiar garb, the biting of a serpent, the sting of an insect, or, even, the stab of a dagger. An occasional coincidence serves to lend prestige to such simple and perfectly natural dreams. Thus Stilling ("Jenseits," p. 284) records the well-known story of a young man in Padua, who dreamed one night that he was bitten by one of the marble lions which stand before the church of St. Justina. Passing by the place, on the following day, with some companions, he recalled the dream, and putting his hand into the mouth of one of the lions, he said, defiantly: "Look at the fierce lion that bit me last night." But at the same moment he uttered a piercing cry and drew back his hand in great terror: a scorpion, hid in the lion's mouth, had stung him, and the poor youth died of the venom. The German poet Conrad Gessner dreamed, in a similar manner, that a snake bit him in his left breast; the matter was completely forgotten, when five days later a slight rising appeared on the spot, which speedily developed itself into a fatal ulcer, and caused his death in a short time.