“She said it seemed to her, as if in a dream, that she was really dead; yet she was perfectly conscious of all that happened around her in this dreadful state. She distinctly heard her friends speaking, and lamenting her death at the side of her coffin. She felt them pull on the dead-clothes and lay her in it. This feeling produced a mental anxiety which was indescribable. She tried to cry, but her soul was without power and could not act on her body. She had the contradictory feeling as if she were in her body, and yet not in it, at one and the same time. It was equally impossible for her to stretch out her arms, or to open her eyes, or to cry although she continued to do so. The internal anguish of her mind was, however, at its utmost height when the funeral hymns began to be sung, and when the lid of the coffin was about to be nailed on. The thought that she was to be buried alive was the first one which gave activity to her soul, and caused it to operate on her corporeal frame.” Related by Dr. Herz in the “Psychological Magazine,” and transcribed by Sir Alexander Crichton in the introduction to his essay on “Mental Derangement.” [2 vols., Lond., 1798.] * * * * * “One of the most frightful cases extant is that of Dr. Walker, of Dublin, who had so strong a presentiment on this subject, that he had actually written a treatise against the Irish custom of hasty burial. He, himself, subsequently died, as was believed, of a fever. His decease took place in the night, and on the following day he was interred. At this time, Mrs. Bellamy, the once-celebrated actress, was in Ireland; and as she had promised him, in the course of conversation, that she would take care he should not be laid in the earth till unequivocal signs of dissolution had appeared, she no sooner heard of what had happened than she took measures to have the grave reopened; but it was, unfortunately, too late. Dr. Walker had evidently revived, and had turned upon his side; but life was quite extinct.” Mr. Horace Welby, in a chapter on “Premature Interment,” says that “the Rev. Owen Manning, the historian of Surrey, during his residence at Cambridge University, caught small-pox, and was reduced by the disorder to a state of insensibility and apparent death. The body was laid out and preparations were made for the funeral, when Mr. Manning’s father, going into the chamber to take a last look at his son, raised the imagined corpse from its recumbent position, saying, ‘I will give my poor boy another chance,’ upon which signs of vitality were apparent. He was therefore removed by his friend and fellow-student, Dr. Heberden, and ultimately restored to health.”--_The Mysteries of Life and Death, pp. 115-116._ * * * * *