t Mr. Rutherfurd 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. Rutherfurd a certain number
of hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream was only the
recapitulation of information which Mr. Rutherfurd 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. Rutherfurd; whose health and spirits were afterwards
impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
visions of the night.

Note E, p. #.--Nick-sticks.

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,
Between two equal panniers sway'd?
Her tallies useless lie and idle,
If placed exactly in the middle.

Note F, p. #.--Witchcraft.

A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth
of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott's Discovery
of Witchcraft, Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is
entitled, "An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils
and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald
Scott), the