Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1885-11-19
REMARKABLE DREAMS.

Among the most remarkable dreams on
record the following will always have their
place:
Breakfasting with some ladies on Wednes-
day, November 25, l779, at his house on Hill
street, London, Thomas Lord Lyttleton,
spoke of very curious dream he had
dreamed in the night. In this dream bird
flew into the room where he was, and while
he looked at it, it changed into woman,
who told him to prepare for another world,
as in three days he would die. He was then
well, and, as he laughingly said, did not
look like man SO near death. On tho Sat
urday also, he felt perfectly well, and be-
ieved he should "bilk the ghost"
Some hours afterward he went with Mr..
Fortesquean Captain Wolsely to Pitt Place,
fully and talkatively to bed, hoped he should
have good rolls for breakfast, and suddenly
expired, while Stuckey, his servant, was as
sisting him to remove his under waistcOat.
This story has been told in various ways.
The above account is that given by Lord
Westcote, Lord Lyttleton's uncle.
John Aubrey tells that poor cloth work
swife, living in Clifford, named Abbott,
dreamed that if she would eat a jack, her
son, who was about to be born, would grow
up and become a great man. Early the next
incoming she went to the river for water
and caught in her pale a fine jack, which
she cooked and ate-all, or nearly all. The
child was born, grew up became ascholar
in the town, and finally became Archbishop
of Canterbury-ofcOurse, through his moth
er eating the fish, or so thought John Au-
brey, f. r. S.
Nouched for by tradition and history the
strange dream of the Swatfham tinker has a
fair claim to rank with the wonderful
dreams to which this article is devoted.
The story of it runs as follows:
About three hundred or more years ago,
the above named ancient town in Norfolk,
remarkable of old for its healthiness and
beauty, had among its inhabitants an indus
triOuS, Woodworking tinker named John
Chapman, additionally said to have been
the beneticent builder Of the north aisle of
Swaffham Church. Certain tits that in the
north aisle there are various devices of a
pedder and his dog and of Il shop-keeper or
Chapman, which seems like a rebus upon
the traditional name, a species of cOnceit
prevalent in ancient times. Certain also it
is, that in 1462 the name Of one Of the
church wardens was Chapman, and that in
each of the original windows of this aisle
was painting of the tinker, his wife and
three children.
One night the tinker dreamed that if he
went to London and stood on London bridge
he would there meet some one who would
make his fortune and put an end to all the
weary wanderings over hill and dale in
search of work. Deeply impressed by this
dream he spoke of it in the morning to his
wife, so seriously and with such an evident
belief in it that she both sc0lded and laugh
ed at what she called his folly. Strangely
enough, as the tinker thought, the dream
which had haunted his mind all day, was
repeated on the next night and the impress
sion, thus deepened and strengthened, not
unnaturally brought third repetition of it
on the night following, after which John
was no longer withheld from going to Lon
don.
Despite the remonstrance of his friends,
the entreates Of his wife, and the ridicule
of his neighbors, the tinker set out to travel
all the way afoot, distance of not less than
ninety miles. At the close of the third day
he reached the end Of his journey, slept at
an inn, and early in the morning stationed
himself on London Bridge, at spot which
he remembered was pointed out to him in a
dream. And there he remained all day,
eyed curously by the passers-by and sus-
piciously by the shopkeepers who lived on
the bridge and the keepers of it's gates,
which closed at a certain regular hour to
guard the city from evil characters, of which
the Bankside and other parts of Southwork
had larger share than was good for it's
reputation. Nothing was, however, said to
him that appeared to be in any way con-
nected with his dream.
The experiment was repeated on the Sec
ond day with no other result than that of
intensifying the curiosity and suspicion
which he had provoked on the first day.