G88 
SECOND-SIGHT. 
ceived, and seen as if they were present, A man on a journey far 
from home falls from his horse ; another, who is perhaps at work 
about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a 
landscape of the place where the accident befalls him. Anotlier 
seer, driving home his cattle, or vyandering in idleness, or musing in 
the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal cere- 
mony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, 
of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names; if he knows 
them not, he can describe the dresses. Things distant are seen at 
the instant when they happen. 
Ofthings future, Johnson says that he knows no rule pretended to, for 
determining the time between the sight and the event ; but we are in- 
formed by Mr. Grose, that in general the time of accomplishment bears 
some relation to the time of the day in which the impressions are received. 
Thus visions seen early in the morning, which seldom happens, will be 
much sooner accomplished than those which appeared at noon ; and 
those seen at noon will take place in a much shorter time than those 
happening at night : sometimes the accomplishment of the last does 
not fall out within a year or more. These visions are not confined to 
solemn or important events ; nor is it true, as is commonly reported, 
that to the second-sight nothing is presented but phantoms of evil. 
The future visit of a mountebank or piper; a plentiful draught of 
fish; the arrival of common travellers; or, if possible, still more 
trifling matters than these, — are foreseen by the seers. 
A gentleman told Dr. Johnson, that when he had once gone far 
from his own island, one of his labouring servants predicted his 
return, and described the livery of his attendants, w hich he had never 
worn at home, and which had been, without any previous design, 
occasionally given him. 
By Dr. Beattie of Aberdeen it is thus accounted for. The islands 
of Scotland are a picturesque, but a melancholy country. Long tracts 
of mountainous desart, covered with dark heath, and often obscure 
by misty weather, narrow valleys thinly inhabited, afiid bounded by 
precipices resounding with the sound of torrents ; a soil so rugged, 
and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to admit neither the amuse- 
ments of pasturage nor the labours of agriculture ; the mournful dash- 
ing of waves along the friths and lakes that intersect the country ; 
the protentous noises which every change of the wind, and every 
increased diminution of the w'aters, is apt to raise, in a lonely region, 
fidl of echoes, and rocks, and caverns ; the grotesque and ghastly 
appearance of such a landscape by the light of the moon ; objects 
like these diffuse a gloom over the fancy, which may be compatible 
enough W'ith occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture 
the thoughts of a native in the house of silence and solitude. If these 
people, notwithstanding their reformation in religion and more frequent 
intercourse with strangers, do still retain many of their superstitions, 
we need not doubt that in former times they must have been more 
enslaved to the horrors of imagination, when beset with the bugbears 
of Popery and Paganism. Most of their superstitions are of a melan- 
choly cast. That of second-sight, by which some are still supposed to be 
haunted, is considered by them as a misfortune, on account of the 
