The wife of Earl Harcourt... was then Lady Nuneham, and on a visit at his father's. She mentioned to her husband when they met at the breakfast-table, that she was very unhappy from having had a horrid dream, and earnestly wished to narrate it. He laughed at her, and declined it; when the conversation was interrupted by the father [Simon Harcourt], and the son and daughter-in-law did not see each other till dinner-time.

They waited some time, and Lord [Simon] Harcourt, who was always very punctual, did not appear. His son expressed some surprise, and asked one of the servants if he knew where he was? Upon which Lady Nuneham exclaimed, "Look in the well!" and fainted away.

Lord Harcourt was found in the well, with his dog lying at his feet, as she had seen in her dream; and it was supposed that in endeavouring to save the life of his dog, he had lost his own.

SOURCES: Notes appended to Dr. Binns' Anatomy of Sleep (1842?). The account is attributed to Lord Stanhope. Quoted in Frank Seafield's The Literature and Curiosities of Dreams (1865). Full names and dates from online peerage lists, which confirm his bizarre manner of death as well.

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