SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.

“sons of night,And maids that love the moon;”

“sons of night,

And maids that love the moon;”

always excepting Astrophel and Castaly. It moves my wonder that they who have looked upon the beauty of a sunrise from the mountain, or the main, can be caught sleeping, when such a flood of glory, beyond all the glare of peace-rejoicings and birth-lights, bursts upon the world.

Ev.The wisest have thought with you, Ida, although there was one idle poet, even Thomson, who confessed he had “noe motive for rising early.” It was the custom of Jewel and Burnet to rise at four; and Buffon, we are told, rewarded his valet with a crown, if he succeeded in getting him up before six.

It is to slight the creation, not to enjoy the beauties of daylight; and it is thenaturaltime for sleep, when the dews of night are on the earth. The proof of this:—There were two French colonels who were marching their troops, one by day, the other by night; and the loss in men and horses was very far greater among the night marchers.

Cast.I believe it was Panza, who “never desired a second sleep, because the first lasted from night till morning,”—that immortal Sancho Panza, whose quaint rhapsody we must all echo so gratefully,—“Blessed is he that firstinventedsleep.” The eulogies of this blissful state, and the wailings of a sleepless spirit, have ever been a favourite theme of the poet, and our own ancient dramatists,—as Beaumont and Fletcher, in the play of “Valentinian,” and Shakspere, from the lips of Henry IV. in his beautiful invocation, and Young, and many others.

Ev.Sleeplessness is one of the severest penalties of our nature. In the darkness and silence of night the wakeful mind preys on itself; the pulse is rapid, it is a throb of anguish,—to the wearied thought there is no conclusion, and the parched tongue prays in vain for the morning light. In the curse of Kehama, I think the sleepless lid is one of the most cruel inflictions; and in the severe disorder which we termhemicrania, this curse is to a degree realized.

The sleeplessness of Caligula is related by Suetonius. In Bartholinus, we read of one who slept not for three months, and he became a melancholy hypochondriac. And Boërhave, from intense study, was constantly awake during six weeks.

Ida.We are happy in our quiet minds, are we not, dear Castaly? Yet, if we are ever summoned to the couch of one wearied by night watching, Evelyn will tell us how we may soothe the pillow of a sleepless mind, to which the secret of inducing slumber would be a priceless treasure.

Ev.Study the causes ofinsomnia, or sleeplessness, Ida; as those which excite nervous irritability,—coffee, green tea,smalldoses of opium, the protracted use of antimony, &c.; and believe not in the virtues of vulgar remedies, often as dangerous as they are ridiculous. There is a batch of these which Burton has gleaned from various authors; as a sample,—nutmegs, mandrakes, wormwood; and from Cardan and Miraldus,—the anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, and the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog, swine’s galls, hares’ ears, &c.

I might offer to you many plain precepts for the alleviation of thelightcauses of sleeplessness; and while I dole them out to you in very dullness, you will fancy my gold-headed cane to my chin, and other essential symbols of an Esculapius of the olden time. Adopt, then, a free ventilation in summer, and airing in winter, of the chamber. This should never be a mere closet, always above the ground floor, neither very light nor dark, the window not being close to the bed, and, above all, not in the vicinity of stoves, ovens, and large kitchen fires. Do not allow the windows to be open throughout the night, to admit the cold dew or air; and, in winter, the basket-fire should be placed there for an hour before you enter your chamber. A slight acceleration of the circulation may be produced by gentle exercise before rest; and two or three wafer biscuits or spring water, to prevent the wakeful effects of both chilliness and hunger. A light woollen sock may be worn, which is unconsciously displaced when sleep comes on, and the night-cap should be little more than a net, except during the very cold months. The position of the body should be that which is the easiest, except the supine, which induces congestion and often “night mare;” and if there be much sensitiveness of the surface, the hydrostatic bed should be employed, but that not too long, as it will become heated by protracted pressure. Children should not be enveloped in clothes, nor crowded in bed; nor should infants be shaken, or tossed, or patted, as foolish nurses too often do.

There are many simple modes of inducing slumber: I allude not to poppy and henbane, nor to the pillow of hops, which, in the case of the third George, was the charm that sealed up the lids of the king; but to other modes, such as a tedious recital, (something like my own dull prosing,) the gentle motion of a swing, a cot or cradle, the ripple of a stream, and the dashing of a waterfall, the waving of a fan, the caw of rooks, the hum of bees, the murmur of an Æolian harp —

Cast.So gracefully wound up in that quaintmorceau, the “Fairy Queen,” when Archimago sends the spirit to fetch a dream from Morpheus —

“Cynthia still doth steepeIn silver dew his ever-drooping head,Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.And more to lull him in his slumber soft,A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,And ever dringling rain upon the loft,Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the souneOf swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”

“Cynthia still doth steepeIn silver dew his ever-drooping head,Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.

“Cynthia still doth steepe

In silver dew his ever-drooping head,

Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.

And more to lull him in his slumber soft,A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,And ever dringling rain upon the loft,Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the souneOf swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”

And more to lull him in his slumber soft,

A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,

And ever dringling rain upon the loft,

Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the soune

Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”

SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.

“We are such stuffAs dreams are made of, and our little lifeIs rounded by a sleep.”Tempest.

“We are such stuff

As dreams are made of, and our little life

Is rounded by a sleep.”

Tempest.

Ev.In the transitiontoandfromthe repose of sleep, the mind is sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, and the senses and sensation are overshadowed in their regress to insensibility: even instinct is well nigh a blank. This is the state ofslumber. Then, I believe, and only then, are we ever wandering in the ideal labyrinth of DREAMS.

There is a curious calculation of Cabanis, that certain organs or senses of the body fall asleep at regular progressive periods; some, therefore, may beactivewhile others arepassive, and in this interesting state, I may hint to you, consists the essence of a dream. It seems that indreamlesssleep, the senses fall asleep altogether, as in the case of Plutarch’s friends, Thrasymenes and Cleon, and others whonever dreamed.

Astr.So there is some truth in the fanciful conceit of Cardanus, that “Sleep is the rest of the spirits,—waking their vehement motion, and dreaming their tremulous motion.”

Cast.And philosophy plumes herself on her wonderous intuition for thisdiscovery. Let her blush, and kneel before the shrine of poesy. The poets, even of a ruder age than ours, have thought and written before you, Evelyn, and have unfolded thesearcana. How doth Chaucer usher in his “Dreme?” —

“Halfe in dede sclepe, not fully revyved;”

and again:

“For on this wyse upon a nightAs ye have herd withouten light,Not all wakyng ne full on slepe,About such hour as lovirs wepe;”

“For on this wyse upon a night

As ye have herd withouten light,

Not all wakyng ne full on slepe,

About such hour as lovirs wepe;”

and in “La Belle Dame sans Mercy,” there is the same thought:

“Halfe in a dreme, not fully well awaked;”

and in Sir Walter’s “Antiquary:” “Eh, sirs, sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before they win to the long sleep and the sound.” So will your philosophy dwindle somewhat in its consequence, Sir Clerke.

Ev.We are not jealous of theseglimpsesof a poet, Castaly; they impart a value to their rhymes: we enrolsuchpoets in the rank of philosophers.

Ida.Solve me this question, Evelyn: is there any relative difference between the subjects of dreamsbeforeandaftersleep?

Ev.It has been thought that there is more reference to reality in thefirst, and more confusion and wandering of imagination in thesecond; but as nature is oftenexcitedrather than exhausted at night, there may be equal brightness with the morning dream, occurring after the recreation and refreshment of sleep.

Cast.We may concede, then, some wisdom to the Sybarites, who destroyed their morning heralds, the cocks, that they might enjoy their matin dreams undisturbed. And I remember one of Pope’s allusions to the virtues of thisυπαρ, or morning dream:

“What time the morn mysterious visions brings,While purer slumbers spread their golden wings.”

“What time the morn mysterious visions brings,

While purer slumbers spread their golden wings.”

Astr.We have often discoursed on the psychology of Locke, Evelyn, and we are now involved in one of its most interesting points—innate idea. Is the dreamerconsciousof his dream? It has been asserted, especially by two profound metaphysicians, Beattie and Reid, that theypersuadedthemselves in their dreams that theyweredreaming, and would then attempt to throw themselves off a precipice; this awoke them, and proved the impression a fiction. Were there not present in this, volition and consciousness; and is it not an evidence of an innate idea without sensation?

Ev.No. A train of thought and passive memory may take place without volition, even in a waking mind; a train ofreasoningcannot. So feeling andpassivethought may in the mere dream, but not aconscious actingon it. The phenomena, and the expressions used to describe these impressions, are precisely illustrative of another condition of sleep, to which we have not yet pointed. This notion of Beattie was but an echo of Aristotle. The Stagyrite himself was subject to dreams of danger, and, after a while, he used to whisper to himself: “Don’t be frightened,—this is only a dream:” the glaring proof that it wasnot; and yet psychologists still talk of themanagementof a dream.

The fairest explanation is, that there has been a predetermination on some point, andunconsciousideas on the same point are elicited, or may be the first to present themselves to the mind in the morning,at the momentwe awaken, and thus it is the first which the judgment acts on in its reverie; that is, the line between dreaming and being awake. If there be many organs asleep, there is still somecloudingof this judgment; but if that be asleep also, there is an absolute dream.

If weknowthat we are dreaming, the faculty of judgmentcannotbe inert, and the dream would beknownto be afallacy. We might, by thinking, render our dream what we pleased, and be sure we should never wish for devils or dangers. The essence of the dream is that it isuncontrolled: other states are not dreaming. Above all, if judgment influenced the dream of Beattie, who was not a madman, would he havewishedto have toppled down headlong from a rock? Listen to Johnson on this point. “He related that he had once, in a dream, a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. Now.” said he, “one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judgment failed me, I should have seen that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character.”

Nay, in the words of Beattie himself, in his “Essay on Truth,” —

“Sleep has a wonderful power over all our faculties. Sometimes we seem to have lost our moral faculty; as when we dream of doing that without scruple or remorse, which, when awake, we could not bear to think of. Sometimes memory is extinguished; as when we dream of conversing with our departed friends, without remembering any thing of their death, though it was, perhaps, one of the most striking incidents we had ever experienced, and is seldom or never out of our thoughts when we are awake.”

Even the most sensitive and amiable girls will dream of committing murder, or the most awful crimes, without any sense of compunction. We feel no surprise at the working of our own miracles; and we know not how to avoid danger. I have myself dreamed of occurrences long past, as if they were of to-day; have fretted in my sleep, on ideal events, and on waking was for a moment wretched. But I have reflected,awake, on these very events, and have not only felt resigned, but deemed them benefits.

There was in the university of Gottingen the physician Walderstein. He was a constant dreamer, and this is his account of one of these illusions. “I dreamt that I was condemned to the stake, and during my execution I was perfectly composed, and indeedreasonedcalmly on the mode in which it was conducted;—whispering to myself, ‘Now I am burning, and presently I shall be converted into a cinder.’ ” It seems that he was dissatisfied with his dream, on account of this apathetic calmness; and he concludes: “I was fearful I should become all thought, and no feeling.”Iwould say, he was all illusion and no judgment.

It is but lately that I dreamed I was reciting a metaphysical poem, which my vanity whispered me possessed a deal of merit. During the recitation I thought there was a turning up of noses, and of tongues into cheeks—a very expressive sign of incredulity and satire. At length a general murmur ran through the assembly that it was a complete “boggle.” Nothing daunted, I assured them that it was a very abstruse passage, and the fault was in the shallow comprehension of my audience. Need I add, that I should blush at such an evasion in my waking judgment?

How different also is our dream from a waking thought, in which we can control the fancy!

If in the dream the chain be abruptly broken, the waking mind does not then carry on the train, and if any thing occur in waking, associating with the dream, to join the broken link, the dream is not completed, but the ideasrevert, or are retraced, to their source; and if any idea at the origin of the dream bere-excited, there will be no consistent continuance of it beyond the dream itself, or, if there be, it will bear the stamp of reasoning, losing all connexion with the illusion. On the contrary, if we read as we are falling asleep, we continuein the dreamthe subject of our study, buterroneously; and if we then start and wake, we shall find that at the moment of slumber we hadchanged the integrityof our thinking. Be assured, then, that Virgil is correct in this —

“She seems aloneTo wander in her sleep, through ways unknown,Guidelessanddark.”

“She seems alone

To wander in her sleep, through ways unknown,

Guidelessanddark.”

Cast.And now, Sir Knight, deign to look on the other side of the shield. Answer me with sincerity,—if your words be true, is not this a high privilege of imaginative minds, to lift themselves out of the gloomy atmosphere of this world of woe; to soar with fancy, not to drudge with fact? How do I envy a romantic dreamer, like him of whom Master Edmund Spenser writes, —

“——at length, some wonted slepe doth crowneHis new falne lids, dreames straight, tenne pound to one,Out steps some faëry with quick motion,And tells him wonders of some flourie vale.”

“——at length, some wonted slepe doth crowne

His new falne lids, dreames straight, tenne pound to one,

Out steps some faëry with quick motion,

And tells him wonders of some flourie vale.”

Sleep is indeed the reality of another existence.

Astr.So breathed the thought of Heraclitus, in words like these,—that “all men, whilst they are awake, are in one common world; but that each, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.” The fairies are his boon and chosen compeers, and the sylphs are as much his handmaidens, as those around the toilet of Belinda. We are indeed the happy children, and, like them, our existence is a dream of felicity,—one long and happy thought of thepresent, with no reflection or forethought to mar its blisses.

Then the shades and memory of departed friends and lovers, are they not around us as true and as beautiful as when they lived? The common sentiment of enamoured dreamers is —

“I hear thy voice in dreams upon me softly call;I see thy form as when thou wert a living thing.”

“I hear thy voice in dreams upon me softly call;

I see thy form as when thou wert a living thing.”

In the dream, ambition is lifted to the loftiest pinnacle of her high aspirings; and power and riches are showered in profusion in the path of their votaries from the cornucopia of fancy; and all this with a depth and intensity that gilds for a time the moments of waking life. And I agree with Saint Augustine, that if we sleep and dream in Paradise, our existence will be perfectly felicitous.

But then, alas! the cruel waking from this world of pleasure. I have breathed many a sigh of sympathy with Milton’s dream of his dead wife, and with Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams.”

You remember, Evelyn, how oft you have wondered at my absence from our college cœna. You thought not that I was then deeply studying how I might gain a victory over my thoughts in sleep. As my waking memory would, from some indefinite cause, be re-excited after it had seemed to fade and die, so the subject of my dreams has been resumed after many months, without any chain of relative thoughts in the interval. I believed then that this might be a dream; that I had dreamt the same before; but on the morning of theseconddream, reflection assured me that on the morning of thefirstI had known and thought on it. I was waiting for a golden hour of inspiration, and it was granted me. One night came o’er my slumber a dream of beauty: there was an innocent happiness, a sense of purest pleasure, that might be the beatitude of a peri ere she lost her place in Eden. In the morning, the dream was a part of my being; I nursed it throughout the live-long day, and at night lay me down to slumber, and again with the sleep came the dream. I was thus the monarch of an ideal world: the dream was my life, so long as my thoughts were on it concentrated, and even study was aRembrandtshadow on its brightness.

In a moment of rapture, I cried, —

“We forget how superior, to mortals below,Is the fiction they dream to the truth which they know.”

“We forget how superior, to mortals below,

Is the fiction they dream to the truth which they know.”

I opened the leaf of a volume, in which an accomplished pen had traced an episode so like my own, as to make me wonder at its truth.

It was of a visionary German, who, like myself, commanded the phantasie of sleep’s own world, bringing one night thus in connexion with another. He fashioned, like Pygmalion, his idol, Love, and nightly met and wooed, till he won her to his heart, and then he cried,—“What if this glorious sleep be a real life, and this dull waking the true repose?” At length his ideal of beauty, hisdream, died, stung by a serpent. And then the order of the vision was reversed; the dream lay again before him, dead and withered; he saw his idol only when he was awake, and this was to him a dream. He pined in thought, and died,—sleeping.

Was not the sleep of this man his real life, and a scene of happiness? Couldhewish for reality who had enjoyed such a dream? For if in life there were equal sleep and waking, and the sleep were all a happy dream, this would indeed be a happy life.

May I tell you, Evelyn, that I enjoyed a deep sublimity of feeling, a consciousness of that mental emancipation which devout philosophers have more than glanced at?

Ida.Although you have again rather run wild, Astrophel, I agree with you in thinking that, under this influence, the dream may be an illustration of Plato’s notion, regarding the existence of eternal forms, independent of matter,—an emanation of the divine mind imparted to that of human beings; thatinnate idea, if you will, by which the mind views at large —

“The uncreated images of things.”

And I therefore revere the opinion of Sir Thomas Brown, the ingenious author of the “Religio Medici,” (with whom believed Sir Henry Wotton, Bossuet, and other good men,) “That we are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the legation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps.” And also the sentiment of Addison, that “there seems something in this consideration, that intimates to us a natural grandeur and perfection of the soul.”

Cast.In your temple of transcendental philosophy you will leave a niche for Shakspere, dearest Ida, who, even in one of his lightest characters, forgets not this perfection of our emancipated spirit. Lorenzo whispers to the fair Jewess, in the garden at Belmont —

“Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heav’nIs thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st,But in his motion, like an angel sings,Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.Such harmony is in immortal souls;But, whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”

“Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heav’n

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold!

There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st,

But in his motion, like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.

Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”

PROPHECY OF DREAMS.

“I have heard, the spirits of the deadMay walk again: if such things be, thy motherAppeared to me last night; for ne’er was dreamSo like a waking.”Winter’s Tale.

“I have heard, the spirits of the dead

May walk again: if such things be, thy mother

Appeared to me last night; for ne’er was dream

So like a waking.”

Winter’s Tale.

Astr.Evelyn, you have argued fluently on thenatureof mind contrasted with that of matter; but, if desired todefineit, how will you answer?

Ev.That it is acombination of faculties, and theirsympathy with the senses. But this definition presumes not to decide in what intimate part or texture of the brain is seated the essence itself, as we may imagine, of the mind—the principle ofconsciousness; whether this be the “elementary principle” of Stewart, or the “momentary impression of sense or sensation” of Brown, or the “something differing from sensation” of Reid, or the “power of feeling that we differ from the matter around us” of some one else.

Astr.Yet on this point, (if, indeed, such point be more than imaginary,) the whole phenomena of intellect must turn. But even if you can ever hope to determine this locality, it will be long, very long, ere the student of psychology will rise from his studies, with the triumphant exclamation, “Τελος!” ere he conclude his deepest researches, without the humiliating confession that his philosophy wears fetters.

Yet you consider our visions as one tissue of morbid phenomena; although there are myriads even of profane visions and warning legends, which bear the certain impress of a prophecy. I never listen to those who laugh at our interpretations, without remembering that melancholy story of a youth of Brescia, by Boccaccio, where Andreana, I think, is relating to her betrothed Gabriello, an ominous dream of the stars, and of a shadowy demon, which had made her sad and spiritless, and for which she had exiled her lover for a whole night from her bosom. The youth smiled in scorn of such a presage; but, in relating a dream of his own to illustrate their fallacy, fell dead from her enfolding arms.

For once I will grant you, merely for the sake of argument, that there may be exaggeration in many a legend. I will even yield to your immolation the host of specious dreams in “Wanley’s Wonders;” you may pass your anathema on the volumes of Glanville, and Moreton, and Aubrey, and Mather, and Berthogge, and Beaumont, as a tissue of imposture; call them, if you will —

“A prophet’s or a poet’s dream,The priestcraft of a lying world.”

“A prophet’s or a poet’s dream,

The priestcraft of a lying world.”

Iwill ensconce myself snugly behind theclassicshields, and ask you if the pages of Pliny, of Cicero, of Socrates, are mere legends of fiction or credulity; nay, if the books of mythology and oriental legends are not many of them founded on real events?

It is clear that there was ever implicit and extensive faith in the East; the definition of ον ειρω,I speak the truth, implies faith in a dream. The office of the oneirocritic was a profession. Amphyction was the first (according to Pliny) of the profane expositors, Hieronymus the most profuse interpreter, and Lysimachus, the grandson of Aristides, expounded dreams, for money, at the corners of the streets of Athens. The doors of Junianus Majus, the tutor of Sanagorius, and Alexander ab Alexandro, were besieged with dreamers in quest of expositions.

The Romans worshipped with divine honours Brizo, the goddess of dreams; and the Galeotæ, so named from Galei, a Hebrew word signifying to reveal, flourished in Sicily. So impressed were the Jews with the importance of the dream, that they convoked a tryad of friends, and went through certain ceremonies, (as writes Josephus in his twelfth book,) which they called the benefaction of a dream.

The orientals, the Greeks, and the Romans, then, were all confident in the truth of these omens. When Nestor urges his army to battle because Agamemnon had dreamed of such a course, it is but a picture of the common mind of Greece. Indeed, on great emergencies, it was the custom to solicit the inspiration of the dream, by first performing religious rites, and then in the temple, (it may be of Esculapius or Serapis,) to lie down on the reeking skins of oxen or goats, sacrificed by the priests.

I may not hope, Evelyn, to convert or alarm you, or I would warn you of the penalty incurred by the slighting of a vision. You may read in Livy, that Jupiter imparted his displeasure at the punishment of a slave, during a solemn procession in the forum to Titus Antinius. But Titus scorned the vision; when, lo! his son was struck dead at his feet, and his own limbs were at once paralyzed. In a mood of penitence, he was borne on a couch to the senate, and after a public confession of his crime, his limbs immediately began to recover their energy, and he walked to his house unassisted, amidst the wonder of the people.

In Cicero’s essay on “Divination,” we read the story of two Arcadian travellers. On their arrival at Megara, these two friends slept in different houses. In the night a dream came to one of them: the phantom of his companion appeared to him, and imparted to him that his landlord wasaboutto murder him. He awoke, and feeling assured that the idea was but a dream, fell quietly again to sleep; but then came over him a second dream, and again the phantomwasin his chamber, and told him that the deed of blood was committed, that he was murdered: and in the morning he learned that the vision was prophetic, and told him truth.

But the records of antiquity teem with tales of fatal prognostics to heroes, kings, and emperors, whose deaths, indeed, seldom took place without a prophecy. From Aristotle we learn that the death of Alexander was foretold in a dream of Eudemius, and that of Cæsar by his wife Calphurnia. The emperor Marius dreamed that he saw Attila’s bow broken, and the Hun king died on the same night. And Sylla (according to Appian) died on the night succeeding that on which he dreamed of such a fate.

Valerius Maximus records the death of Caius Gracchus, immediately after a dream of it by his mother.

Caracalla (as we learn from Dion Cassius) foretold his own assassination in a dream.

Cyrus (writes Xenophon) dreamed of the exact moment in which he died.

And the death of Socrates was foretold to him in a dream, by a white lady, who quoted to him the 363rd line of Homer, in the ninth book.

Of remarkable events there are many strange forebodings; as the dream of Judas Maccabeus when about to engage the Syrian army; of Sylla before his engagement with Marius; of Germanicus on the night before his victory over Arminius (as Tacitus records); and of Masilienus, the general sent by the emperor Honorius to oppose Gildo, and regain the possession of Africa. To him St. Ambrose, the late bishop of Milan, appeared in a dream, and striking the ground at the scene of the vision thrice with his crozier, said, “Here and in this place;” and on the same spot, the following morning, Gildo was conquered by Masilienus. Such are a few of thefatalprophecies of old.

There are others of illustriousbirthsin the olden time, of which I will recount a few.

Plutarch writes of the dream of Agariste, announcing the birth of her son Pericles.

Sabellus, of the dream of Accia, the mother of Augustus.

The splendid impostures, as I confess them, of Mahomet, were ushered in by a dream of Cadiga, that the sun entered her house, and that his beams illumined every building in Mecca.

In later days, the mother of Joan of Arc dreamed that she brought forth a thunderbolt; and Arlotte, the mother of the Conqueror, that her intestines covered the whole land of Normandy.

But I waive a host of ancient dreams, as those of Astyages, the last king of Media; Ertercules, and Antigonus, and Simonides, and others, for I study to be brief, and pass to the professors of more modern belief.

Of Pascal Paoli, Boswell, in his account of Corsica, thus writes:

“Having asked him one day, when some of his nobles were present, whether a mind so active as his was employed even in sleep, and if he used to dream much; Signor Casa Bianca said, with an air and tone which implied something of importance, ‘Si, si sogna,’ Yes, he dreams. And upon my asking him to explain his meaning, he told me that the general had often seen in his dreams what afterwards came to pass. Paoli confirmed this by several instances. Said he, ‘I can give you no clear explanation of it,—I only tell you facts. Sometimes I have been mistaken, but in general these visions have proved true. I cannot say what may be the agency of invisible spirits; they certainly must know more than we do; and there is nothing absurd in supposing that God should permit them to communicate their knowledge to us.’ ”

In Walton’s life of Sir Henry Wotton, we read that his kinsmen, Nicholas and Thomas Wotton (whose family, by the by, were celebrated for their dreamings) had foretold their death most accurately.

In the beginning of the 18th century, a person in the west of England dreamed that his friend was on a journey with two men, whose persons were strongly pictured in his dream, and that he was robbed and murdered by these companions. It chanced that in a short time he was about to journey with two men, thevery prototypesof his friend’s dream. His earnest caution against this expedition so planned was slighted, and, on the spot marked in the dream, was this traveller robbed and murdered, and by the vivid description of the dreamer, the two men were identified and executed.

In other cases, the dream has been the means of retribution; for instance, by the discovery of a murderer. In “Baker’s Chronicle” we read of the conviction of Anne Waters, for the murder of her husband, through the circumstantial dream of a friend.

I believe the fate of Corder was decided by a dream; and I may add, that Archbishop Laud dreamed himself that in his greatest pomp he should sink down to h—ll.

There is a chain of impressive visions, prophetic of the death of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, as if some little spirit were flitting to and fro on a special mission from the realm of shadows.

The sister of the duke, the Countess of Denbigh, dreamed she was with him in his coach, when the people gave a loud shout, and she was told it was a cry of joy at the dangerous illness of the duke. She had scarcely related her dream to one of her ladies, when the bishop of Ely came to tell her, her brother was murdered by the dagger of Felton. Shortly before this, a Scotch nobleman asked a seer from the Highlands what he thought of this Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, then the court favourite: “He will come to naught,” said he, “for I see a dagger in his heart.”

But the most impressive presage were the visions of an officer of the wardrobe to the king, as related by the Earl of Clarendon and others. Parker had been an oldprotegéof Sir George Villiers, the duke’s father. On a certain night, in Windsor Castle, he saw, or dreamed of, an apparition of Sir George Villiers, who entreated him to warn his son not to follow the counsels of such and such persons, and to avert in every way the enmity of the people, as he valued his life. A second and a third night this vision was repeated, and at the last, the phantom drew a dagger from his gown, and said, “This will end my son, and do you, Parker, prepare for death.” On a hunting morning this vision was imparted to Buckingham, at Lambeth Bridge, and, after the chase, the duke was seen to ride, in a pensive mood, to his mother’s in Whitehall. The lady, at his departure, was found in an agony of tears, and when the story of the murder was told, she listened with an apathetic calmness, as if the brooding over the prophecy had half dulled her heart to the reality. Well,the duke was murdered, and Parker soon after died.

On that night when the Treasury of Oxford was broken open, Sir Thomas Wotton, then in Kent, dreamed circumstantially of the event, and, I believe, named and described the burglars.

A clergyman, whose name I forget, was once travelling far from his home, when he dreamed his house was on fire. He returned, and found his house a smoking ruin.

I may here cite a very curious dreaming, which, though not exactly fulfilled, displayed at least a strange coincidence in three minds. The mother of Mr. Joseph Taylor dreamed of the apparition of her son, who came to take leave as he was going a long journey. She started, and said, “Dear son, thou art dead.” On the morrow, a letter came from his father, expressive of anxiety on account of this dream. The son instantly remembered his own dream, at the same hour, of having gone to his mother’s room to bid farewell.

There are many warning visions, which, being happily regarded, were blessed by the preservation of human life.

When our own Harvey was passing through Dover, on his continental travels, he was unexpectedly detained for a night by the order of the governor. On the next day, news came that the packet, in which Harvey was to have sailed, was lost in a storm; and then it came out, that his excellency had, on the night before his arrival, a phantom of the doctor passing before him, which besought him to detainhis substancein Dover for a day.

Alderman Clay, of Newark, dreamed twice that his house was on fire. From the second dream, he was induced to quit with his family; and, soon afterwards, it was burned by the engines of Cromwell, which were bombarding the town. For this providential salvation, an annual sermon is preached, and bread given to the poor, in Newark.

The lady of Major Griffiths dreamed thrice of her nephew, Mr. D. The first vision imparted his intention of joining a party of his companions on a fishing excursion; the second, that his boat was sinking; the third, that it was actually sunk. At her entreaty, this gentleman was induced to remain on land; and, in the evening, it was learned, that his ill-fated friends had been all drowned, by the swamping of the boat.

Cast.I pr’ythee, Astrophel, draw not too largely on our faith; reserve yourself for a struggle, for I see in the glance of Evelyn’s eye, that he has taken up your glove.

MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING.

“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.”Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.”

Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Ev.Listen,—it is my turn to speak.

Like confirmed insanity, the essence of the dream is usuallya want of balance between the representative faculty and the judgment; being produced, directly or indirectly, by the excitement of a chain of ideas, rational or probable in parts, but rendered in different degrees extravagant, or illusive, by imperfect association,—as in the dream of the “Opium Eater:”—“The ladies of Charles I.’s age danced and looked as lovely as the court of George IV.; yet I knew, even in my dream, that they had been in the grave for nearly two centuries.”

The relative complexity of these combinations includes the two divisions of dreams,—theplain, θεωρηματικοι; and theallegorical, or images presented in their own form, or by similitude.

If we grant that certain faculties or functions of the mind are the result of nervous influence, we can as readily allow that animperfectionof these manifestations shall be the result of derangement of equilibrium in this influence, as thematerialfunction of muscle shall be disturbed by primary or secondary disease about the brain; of which we have daily examples among the spasmodic and nervous diseases of the body.

Referring to the calculation of Cabanis, on the falling to sleep of the senses, I can readily carry on this analogy to the faculties of mind. We may suppose that the faculty of judgment, as being the most important, is the first to feel fatigue, and to be influenced in the mode which I have alluded to by slumber. It is evident, then, that the other faculties, which are still awake, will be uncontrolled, and animperfect associationwill be the result.

Thus the ideas of a dream may be considered as a species of delirium; for the figures and situations of both are often of the most heterogeneous description, and both are ever illusive, being believed to be realities, and not being subject to the control of our intellect. Yet, if the most absurd dream beanalyzed, its constituent parts may consist either of ideas, in themselves not irrational, or of sensations or incidents which have been individually felt or witnessed.

So the remembered faces and forms of our absent friends, faithful though a part of the likeness may be, are associated with the grossest absurdity.

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