There were two sisters, who (as a learned physician has recorded) were sleeping together during the illness of their brother. One of these ladies dreamed that her watch, an old family relic, had stopped, and, on waking her sister to tell of this, she was answered by her thus: “Alas! I have worse to tell you: _our brother’s breath is also stopped_.” On the following night, the same dream was repeated to the young lady. On the morning after this second dream, the lady, on taking out the watch, which had been perfect in its movement, observed that it had indeed stopped, and at the same moment she heard her sister screaming; the brother, who had been till then apparently recovering, had just _breathed his last_. These are sequences, and not _con_sequences: and I might adduce a mass of these mere coincidences, which have been stretched and warped, to make up a prophecy. Such as the following legend of Sergius Galba, told by Fulgosius: “Galba had coquetted with two marble ladies,—the Fortune, at Tusculum, and the Capitoline Venus; and, to adorn the neck of the first, he had purchased a brilliant diamond necklace. But the charms of the Venus of the Capitol prevailed over her rival, and the necklace was at length presented to the goddess of beauty. At night, the form of Fortune appeared to him in his sleep, upbraiding him with his falsehood, and telling him that he should be deprived of all the gifts she had lavished on him, and Galba, as the story goes, soon after died.” But, if dreams are essentially prophetic, why are they not _all_ fulfilled? and if _one_ is not fulfilled, how know we if _all_ will not be equally fallacious? The argument for the prophetic nature is merely _à posteriori_, the shallow “post _hoc_, _ergo_ propter _hoc_,” of the sophist. On the occurrence of any important event, all the auguries and dreams which bear the slightest semblance to a prophecy are immediately adduced, and stretched and warped _to suit_ the superstition; as the whimsical mother will account for the marks on her child by frights and longings. When we know that myriads of enthusiasts and hypochondriacs have, by the failure of their predictions, deserved the stigma of false prophets, we may surely class these phantasies among the popular _errors_ of the time. Yet the fulfilment of a prophecy _may be_ consequence; and that without the imputation of falsehood or imposition, or of any special interference. (I am not recanting my opinions, Astrophel.) 1st. Through the effect of an _imparted impetus_. 2nd. _Foresight_, from the study of events and character. 3rd. Constant _thinking_ on one subject. 4th. _Impressions_ of terror or alarm, from spectres, sybils, &c.