is repeated to the sorrowing heavens for the endless rebellion against
God. It is not without probability that in the world of dreams every
one of us ratifies for himself the original transgression. In dreams,
perhaps under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up
to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as
all is finished, each several child of our mysterious race completes
for himself the treason of the aboriginal fall.

The incident, so memorable in itself by its features of horror, and so
scenical by its grouping for the eye, which furnished the text for this
reverie upon _Sudden Death_ occurred to myself in the dead of
night, as a solitary spectator, when seated on the box of the
Manchester and Glasgow mail, in the second or third summer after
Waterloo. I find it necessary to relate the circumstances, because they
are such as could not have occurred unless under a singular combination
of accidents. In those days, the oblique and lateral communications
with many rural post-offices were so arranged, either through necessity
or through defect of system, as to make it requisite for the main
north-western mail (_i.e._, the _down_ mail) on reaching Manchester to
halt for a number of hours; how many, I do not remember; six or seven,
I think; but the result was that, in the ordinary course, the mail
recommenced its journey northwards about midnight. Wearied with the
long detention at a gloomy hotel, I walked out about eleven o'clock at
night for the sake of fresh air; meaning to fall in with the mail and
resume my seat at the post-office. The night, however, being yet dark,
as the moon had scarcely risen, and the streets being at that hour
empty, so as to offer no opportunities for asking the road, I lost my
way, and did not reach the post-office until it was considerably past
midnight; but, to my great relief (as it was important for me to be in
Westmoreland by the morning), I saw in the huge saucer eyes of the