In the night of the 11th of May, 1812, Mr. Williams, of Scorrior House, near Redruth, in Cornwall, awoke his wife, and, exceedingly agitated, told her that he had dreamed that he was in the lobby of the House of Common,, and saw a man shoot, with a pistol, a gentleman who had just entered the lobby, who was said to be the Chancellor; to which Mrs. Williams naturally replied, that it was only a dream, and recommended him to be composed and go to sleep as soon as he could.

He did so; but shortly after he again awoke her and said that he had, a second time, had the same dream; whereupon she observed that he had been so much agitated with his former dream, that she supposed it had dwelt on his mind, and begged of him to compose himself and go to sleep, which he did.

A third time the same vision was repeated, on which, not, withstanding her intreaties that he would lie quiet and endeavour to forget it, he arose (then between one and two o'clock) and dressed himself. At breakfast the dreams were the sole subject of conversation, and in the forenoon Mr. Williams went to Falmouth, where he related the particulars of them to all his acquaintances that he met On the following day, Mr. Tucker, of Trematon Castle, accompanied by his wife, a daughter of Mr. Williams, went to Scorrior House on a visit, and arrived about dusk. Immediately after the first salutations on their entering the parlour, where were Mr. Mrs. and Miss Williams, Mr. Williams began 'to relate to Mr. Tucker the circumstance of his dreams, and Mrs. W. observed to her daughter, Mrs. T., laughingly, that her father could not even suffer Mr. Tucker to be seated before he told him of his nocturnal visitation; on the statement of which Mr. Tucker observed, that it would do very well for a dream to have the Chancellor in the lobby of the House of Commons, but that he would not be found there in reality. And Mr. Tucker then asked what sort of a man he appeared to be, when Mr. Williams described him minutely; to which Mr. Tucker replied, "Your description is not at all that of the Chancellor, but is certainly very exactly that of Mr. Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and, although he has been to me the greatest enemy I have ever met with through life (for a supposed cause which had no foundation in truth), (or words to that effect), I should be exceedingly sorry indeed to hear of his being assassinated, or of any injury of the kind happening to him."

Mr. Tucker then inquired of Mr. Williams if he had ever seen Mr. Perceval, and was told that he had never seen him, nor had ever written to him, either on public or private business; in short, that he had never had anything to do with him, nor had he ever been in the House of Commons in his lifetime. At this moment Mr. Williams and Mr. Tucker, still standing, heard a horse gallop to the door of the house, and immediately after, Mr. Michael Williams, of Trevince (son of Mr. Williams of Scorrior), entered the room, and said that he had galloped out from Truro (from which Scorrior is seven miles distant), having seen a gentleman there who had come by that evening's mail from town, who said that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons on the evening of the 11th, when a man, called Bellingham, had shot Mr. Perceval; and that, as it might occasion some great ministerial changes, and might affect Mr. Tucker's political friends, he had come out as fast as he could to make him acquainted with it, having heard at Truro that he had passed through that place in the afternoon, on his way to Scorrior.

After the astonishment which this intelligence created had a little subsided, Mr. Williams described most minutely the appearance and dress of the man that he saw in his dream fire the pistol at the Chancellor. About six weeks after, Mr. Williams, having business in town, went, accompanied by a friend, to the House of Commons, where, as has been already observed, he had never before been. Immediately that he came to the steps at the entrance of the lobby, he said, "This place is as distinctly within my recollection, in my dream, as any room in my house,' and he made the same observation when he entered the lobby. He then pointed out the exact spot where Bellingham actually stood when he fired, and which Mr. Perceval had reached when he was struck by the ball, where he fell. The dress both of Mr. Perceval and Bellingham agreed with the description given by Mr. Williams, even to the most minute particulars.

The foregoing dream is the more marvellous and astonishing on account of the striking conformity of its details to those of a contemporaneous event, which was performed nearly three hundred miles from the person of the dreamer. Moreover, to silence all those doubts which those who fancy they can theorize upon dreams continually offer to the public, when anything of the kind becomes realized, it must be stated, that the person who dreamed the dream is now alive; the witnesses to whom he made known the particulars of it at the time are also living; and the whole comes therefore under the denomination of a special and undoubted type or warning of what afterwards happened. The great respectability of the parties who are ready (as they have assured the author) to make oath on the subject, sets aside every appearance of wishing to impose upon public credulity. It is here recorded as a matter of fact, which may cause the sceptic to pause ere he pronounces all dreams as the offspring of the imagination, or the effects of bodily infirmities.

To these I shall just add the following curious account, published by the "Author of Waverley," in one of his notes to the new "edition of the "Antiquary," and thus conclude this introduction.

"Mr. R - d, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of tiend (tithe), for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes).