Lord Falkland's dream, the night before the battle of Newbury, in which he was slain, in the year 1643, has often been referred to by persons who believe in dreams. James Montgomery, the poet, has in touching lines assisted to keep the dream from being forgotten.
In more modern times, good men, whom we might suppose to be free from the trammels of superstition, have to some extent directed their course in life according to the interpretation of their dreams. The Rev. John Brown, author of the Dictionary of the Holy Bible, writing of dreams, says: "It is like they often begin from some outward sensation of the body, in which spirits, good and bad, have no inconsiderable influence."
In visions and dreams the persecution of the early Christians was made known to many believers. Other important events were also predicted, and preceded by strange phenomena. But for dreams, not a few celebrated men who played important parts in national affairs would have been entrapped, and turned aside from their purposes.
A gentleman holding a good position in society was awakened by his wife one night, who told him she had had a most unpleasant dream. She thought that a friend, who was in the East India Company's service, had been killed in a duel. She described the place where the duel was fought, and where the dead body lay. Her husband endeavoured to quiet her fears, and characterised the dream as an absurdity, produced by a disturbed imagination. A few months after, the melancholy news reached this country that the Indian friend had fought a duel, been killed on the spot, and his body carried to a shed such as the lady had seen in her dream.
Fastini, a celebrated musician, dreamed one night that he had made a compact with the devil, who promised to be at his service on all occasions. He imagined that he presented the devil with his violin, in order to discover what kind of a musician he was. To Fastini's great astonishment, Satan, as he thought, played a solo of singular beauty, which he executed with such superior taste and precision, that it surpassed all the music he had ever heard or conceived. Fastini awoke greatly excited, and, taking his violin, composed a piece that excelled all his other works. He called it the "Devil's Sonata."
Before the marriage of the young Queen of Scotland with the Dauphin of France, many had strange dreams and visions. Prodigious signs were also observed in her native country. A comet shone for three months; rivers dried up in winter, and in summer swelled so high that cattle were carried away, and villages suddenly destroyed. Whales of enormous size were cast ashore in the Firth of Forth; hailstones as large as pigeons' eggs fell in various parts, destroying the crops; and, still more strange and alarming, a fiery dragon was seen flying low over the earth, vomiting forth fire, which endangered houses and farmyards.
The dire fatality that attended the Royal Stuarts did not surprise those who attended to warnings through dreams, signs, and omens. Few royal families were more unhappy than the Stuarts. James I., after having been eighteen years a prisoner in England, was, together with his queen, assassinated by his subjects; James II. was, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, killed while fighting against England; James III. was imprisoned by his subjects, and afterwards killed in battle by rebels; James IV. perished in a battle which was lost; Mary Stuart was driven from her throne, became a fugitive in Scotland, and, after languishing for years in prison, was condemned by English judges and beheaded; James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, her son, died at his palace at Theobalds, not without strong suspicion of being poisoned; Charles I. was betrayed by his own subjects, and, in terms of a sentence by English judges, lost his life on the scaffold; James VII. of Scotland and II. of England was driven from his kingdoms, and, to fill the cup of bitterness to the brim, the birth of his son, as legitimate heir, was disputed. The misfortunes of Prince Charles are too well known to require us to do anything more than refer to them. In his attempt to regain the throne of his ancestors, he was driven to such a strait that he was compelled, after many of his supporters had been put to death, to escape for his life under the guidance of a woman—Flora Macdonald, renowned in history.
A few days before the death of Henry IV. of France, his queen had two strange dreams. She thought all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls—a dream that much disturbed her, as pearls were understood to signify tears. On the following night she had another dream which caused her greater uneasiness—that the king was stabbed in one of his sides. The king, as well as the queen, had presentiments that a sad calamity was about to happen them. On the day before his Majesty was killed he was very uneasy, and said something sat heavy on his heart. Before entering the coach in which he was assassinated, he took a tender farewell of the queen, kissing her thrice, and pressing her close to his breast. For a time he hesitated whether he would go out or not; but all at once he resumed his wonted courage, forbade the guards to follow him out of the Louvre, and drove away in an open carriage. The fates were against his Majesty: the fiat had gone forth, and that day the hand of a regicide plunged a knife into the sovereign's body, exactly as the queen had seen in her midnight vision.