[The reader is to understand this present paper, in
its two sections of The Vision, &c., and The Dream-
Fugue, as connected with a previous paper on The
English Mail-coach. The ultimate object was the
Dream-Fugue, as an attempt to wrestle with the utmost
efforts of music in dealing with a colossal form of im-
passioned horror. The Vision of Sudden Death con-
tains the mail-coach incident, which did really occur,
and did really suggest the variations of the Dream, here
taken up by the Fugue, as well as other variations not
now recorded. Confluent with these impressions, from
the terrific experience on the Manchester and GlEisgow
mail, were other and more general impressions, derived
from long familiarity with the English mail, as devel-
oped in the former paper; impressions, for instance,
of animal beauty and power, of rapid motion, at that
time unprecedented, of connection with the government
and public business of a great nation, but, above all, of
connection with the national victories at an unexampled
crisis, — the mail being the privileged organ for pub-
lishing and dispersing all news of that kind. From this
function of the mail, arises naturally the introductioa of



172 THE VISION OF SITDrEN DEATH.
