Wodrow has a tame commonplace account of the Bride of Lammermoor’s affair.  On the other hand, he tells us concerning a daughter of Lord Stair, the Countess of Dumfries, that she ’was under a very odd kind of distemper, and did frequently fly from one end of the room to the other, and from the one side of the garden to the other. . . . The matter of fact is certain.’  At a garden party this accomplishment would have been invaluable.

We now, for a change, have a religious marvel.  Mrs. Zuil, ’a very judiciouse Christian,’ had a friend of devout character.  This lady, being in bed, and in ‘a ravishing frame,’ ’observed a pleasant light, and one of the pleasantest forms, like a young child, standing on her shoulder’.  Not being certain that she was not delirious, she bade her nurse draw her curtains, and bring her some posset.  Thrice the nurse came in with posset, and thrice drew back in dread.  The appearance then vanished, and for the fourth time the nurse drew the curtains, but, on this occasion, she presented the invalid with the posset.  Being asked why she had always withdrawn before, she said she had seen ’like a boyn (halo?) above her mistress’s head,’ and added, ’it was her wraith, and a signe she would dye’.  ’From this the lady was convinced that she was in no reverie.’  A similar halo shone round pious Mr. Welsh, when in meditation, and also (according to Patrick Walker) round two of the Sweet Singers, followers of Meikle John Gibb, before they burned a Bible!  Gibb, a raving fanatic, went to America, where he was greatly admired by the Red Indians, ’because of his much converse with the devil’.  The pious of Wodrow’s date distrusted these luminous appearances, as they might be angelical, but might also be diabolical temptations to spiritual pride.  Thus the blasphemous followers of Gibb were surrounded by a bright light, no less than pious Mr. Welsh, a very distinguished Presbyterian minister.  Indeed, this was taken advantage of by Mr. Welsh’s enemies, who, says his biographer Kirkton, ’were so bold as to call him no less than a wizard’.  When Mr. Shields and Mr. John Dickson were imprisoned on the Bass Rock, and Mr. Shields was singing psalms in his cell, Mr. Dickson peeping in, saw ‘a figure all in white,’ of whose presence Mr. Shields was unconscious.  He had only felt ’in a heavenly and elevated frame’.

A clairvoyant dream is recorded on the authority of ’Dr. Clerk at London, who writes on the Trinity, and may be depended on in such accounts’.  The doctor’s father was Mayor of Norwich, ’or some other town,’ and a lady came to him, bidding him arrest a tailor for murdering his wife.  The mayor was not unnaturally annoyed by this appeal, but the lady persisted.  She had dreamed twice:  first she saw the beginning of the murder, then the end of it.  As she was talking to the mayor, the tailor came in, demanding a warrant to arrest his wife’s murderers!  He was promptly arrested, tried, and acquitted, but later confessed, and ‘he