“This dream is easily accounted for,” say the learned gentlemen above alluded to, “from the dread all women have of the water, and the danger that attends boating on the firth of Forth!” Now, I deny that all women have a dread of the water, and there is not the slightest reason for concluding that Mrs. Griffiths had. At all events, she affirms that she felt no uneasiness at all about the party, and one might take leave to think that her testimony upon that subject is of more value than that of persons who never had any acquaintance with her, and who were not so much as born at the time the circumstance occurred, which was in the year 1731. Besides, if Mrs. Griffiths’s dread arose simply from “the dread all women have of the water,” and that its subsequent verification was a mere coincidence, since women constantly risk their persons for voyages and boating excursions, such dreams should be extremely frequent—the fact of there being any accident impending or not, having, according to this theory, no relation whatever to the phenomenon. And as for the danger that attends boating on the firth of Forth, we must naturally suppose that, had it been considered so imminent, Major Griffiths would have at least endeavored to dissuade a youth that was placed under his protection from risking his life so imprudently. It would be equally reasonable to explain away Dr. W——’s dream, by saying that all gentlemen who have to ride across commons are in great dread of encountering a bull—commons in general being infested by that animal! Miss D——, a friend of mine, was some time since invited to join a pic-nic excursion into the country. Two nights before the day fixed for the expedition, she dreamed that the carriage she was to go in was overturned down a precipice. Impressed with her dream, she declined the excursion, confessing her reason, and advising the rest of the party to relinquish their project. They laughed at her, and persisted in their scheme. When, subsequently, she went to inquire how they had spent the day, she found the ladies confined to their beds from injuries received, the carriage having been overturned down a precipice. Still, this was only a coincidence!