Mr. R - d was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased those lands from the titular, and therefore that the present prosecution was groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation of the public records, and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be discovered to support his defence.

The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind? " - In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. R - d thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress; adding, that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him, because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. "You are right, my son" replied the paternal shade, " I did acquire right to those teinds for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are now in the hands of Mr.---------, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very possible/' pursued the vision, "that Mr.--------- may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern."

Mr. R - d awaked in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to Inveresk, instead of going straight forward to Edinburgh. When he came there, he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man: without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstances to his recollection, but, on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers, and recovered them; so that Mr. R - d carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing.

The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception.

Milton tells us that -

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, Unseen, both when we wake and when he sleep."

It is perfectly consistent with our fullest belief of a merciful providence, that some occasional evidences should be given of a state after death; nor does it at all lessen this probability, that instances of such appearances are very we, because, whenever they have happened, or do happen, it is to be supposed, that reasons subsist for it which are at pretext unknown to us. Witch, craft is perverting nature 5 but this is not the case with apparitions any more than dreams, and many other proofs thai are given of the compound nature of man. It must be confessed, indeed, that this is a subject -enveloped in considerable obscu-rity,3nd that it is the source of much weakness and imposture but ,all this will not warrant a peremptory conclusion against the hypothesis of the existence of spirits, because it is a subject of which we are not as yet competent to judge.

I shall conclude in the words of Monsiour Bayle, she celebrated French scholar and philosopher, who was far from being everstocked with credulity, but could not withhold his assent from the doctrine of monitory dreams. "1 think," says he "we may say of dreams the same almost as of enchant, meats, thai they are far lest mysterious than people believe; and some what more than unbelievers fancy. The histories or ALL TIMES AND PLACES RELATE, BOTH WITH RESPECT TO Dreams AND MAgic so many surprising things, that THOSE WHO OBSTINATELY DENY THEM ALL, RENDER THEMSELVES SUSPECTED, EITHER OF WANT OF SINCERITY, OR JUDGMENT TO DISCOURN THE FORCB OF THE PROOFS.

A violent prejudice or a certain turn of mind blinds their no, denstanding, when they compare the reasons pro and cm.