NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. NOVELS AND TALES. VOL. V. THE ANTIQUARY. THE GAME OF CHESS, 1474.-P. 45, 1. 20. THIS bibliomaniacal anecdote is literally true; and David Wilson, the author need not tell his brethren of the Roxburghe and Bannatyne Clubs, was a real per sonage. UNIQUE BROADSIDE.-P. 49, 1. 11. Of this thrice and four times rare broadside, the author possesses an exemplar. BONNET-LAIRD.-P. 56, 1. 4. A bonnet-laird signifies a petty proprietor, wearing the dress, along with the habits, of a yeoman. THE SOVEREIGN.-P. 77, 1. 9. The reader will understand that this refers to the reign of our late Gracious Sovereign, George the Third. Mr R -D'S DREAM.-P. 148, 1. 22. The legend of Mrs Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of Scotland, so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being mentioned in this place. Mr Rd of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes.) 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 these 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 enquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to be 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 Rd 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 these teinds, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are 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 rea son, but who never on business on my account. 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 any other occasion transacted It is very possible," pursued 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 to Edinburgh. When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man: without saying any thing of the vision, he enquired whether he remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned he made an upon his memory; 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. He cannot therefore refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr R-d a certain number of hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the recapitulation of information which Mr R- -d had really received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have lost during their waking hours. It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr R— -d; whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the night. THE NICK STICKS.-P. 229, 1. last. A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling with their customers. Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick. Accounts in Exchequer, kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary's partiality. In Prior's time the English bakers had the same sort of reckoning. Have you not seen a baker's maid If placed exactly in the middle. MARTIN WALDECK.-P. 279, 1. 3. The outline of this story is taken from the German, though the author is at present unable to say in which of the various collections of the popular legends in that language, the original is to be found. THE HARZ.-P. 279, l. 16. The shadow of the person who sees the phantom, being reflected upon a cloud of mist, like the image of the magic lantern upon a white sheet, is supposed to have formed the apparition. KING'S KEYS.-P. 340, 1. 3, (foot.) The king's keys are, in law phrase, the crow-bars and hammers used to force doors and locks, in execution of the king's warrant. DOUSTERSWIVEL'S INCANTATION.-P. 346, &c. A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft. Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is entitled, "An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substance of Devils and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author, (Reginald Scot,) the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to the former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work." This Second Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact, entirely at variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scot is a compilation of the absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches so generally entertained at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a serious treatise on the various means of conjuring astral spirits. |