of a nota-bene. "They that have their life given them " appear

CHAPTER LVII.

Of Dreams.

THE materialists and psychologists are at issue upon the subject of dreams. The latter hold them to be one among the many proofs of the existence of a soul: the former endeavor to account for them upon principles altogether corporeal. We must own, that the effect of their respective arguments, as is usual with us on these occasions, is not so much to satisfy us with either, as to dissatisfy us with both. The psychologist, with all his struggles, never appears to be able to get rid of his body; and the materialist leaves something extremely deficient in the vivacity of his proofs, by his ignorance of that primum mobile, which is the soul of everything. In the mean time, while they go on with their laudable inquiries (for which we have a very sincere respect), it is our business to go on recommending a taste for results, as well as causes, and turning everything to account in this beautiful star of ours, the earth. There is no reason why the acutest investigator of mysteries should not enjoy his existence, and have his earthly dreams made as pleasant as possible; and for our parts, we see nothing at present, either in body or soul, but a medium for a world of perceptions, the very unpleasantest of whose dreams are but warnings to us how we depart from the health and natural piety of the pleasant ones.

Wnat seems incontrovertible in the case of dreams is, that they are most apt to take place when the body is most affected. They seem to turn most upon us when the suspension of the will has been reduced to its most helpless state by indulgence.

The door

of the fancy is left without its keeper, and forth issue, pell-mell, the whole rout of ideas or images, which had been stored within the brain, and kept to their respective duties. They are like a school let loose, or the winds in Virgil, or Lord Anson's drunken

sailors at Panama, who dressed themselves up in all sorts of ridiculous apparel.

We were about to say, that being writers, we are of necessity dreamers; for thinking disposes the bodily faculties to be more than usually affected by the causes that generally produce dreaming. But extremes appear to meet on this, as on other occasions, at least as far as the meditative power is concerned; for there is an excellent reasoner now living, who telling another that he was not fond of the wilder parts of the Arabian Nights, was answered with great felicity, "Then you never dream." It turned out that he really dreamt little. Here the link is impaired that connects a tendency to indigestion with thinking on the one hand, and dreaming on the other. If we are to believe Herodotus, the Atlantes, an African people, never dreamt; which Montaigne is willing to attribute to their never having eaten anything that died of itself. It is to be presumed that he looked upon their temperance as a matter of course. The same philosopher, who

was a deep thinker, and of a delicate constitution, informs us that he himself dreamt but sparingly; but then when he did, his dreams were fantastic, though cheerful. This is the very triumph of the animal spirits, to unite the strangeness of sick dreams with the cheerfulness of healthy ones. To these exceptions against the usual theories we may add, that dreams are by no means modified of necessity by what the mind has been occupied with in the course of the day, or even of months; for, during our two years' confinement in prison, we did not dream more than twice of our chief subjects of reflection, the prison itself not excepted.* The two dreams were both connected with the latter, and both the same. We fancied that we had slipped out of the jail, and gone to the theatre, where we were horrified by seeing the faces of the whole audience unexpectedly turned upon us.

It is certain enough, however, that dreams in general proceed from indigestion; and it appears nearly as much so, that they

* See a remarkable coincidence in the Essay on Dreams, in Mr. Hazlitt' Plain Speaker.

are more or less strange according to the waking fancy of the dreamer.

All dreams, as in old Galen I have read,
Are from repletion and complexion bred,
From rising fumes of indigested food,
And noxious humors that infect the blood.

-When choler overflows, then dreams are brei.

Of flames, and all the family of red.

-Choler adust congeals the blood with fear,

Then black bulls toss us, and black devils tear.

In sanguine airy dreams aloft we bound,

With rheums oppress'd, we sink, in rivers drown'd.

DRYDEN'S Cock and the Fox, from CHAUCER.

Again, in another passage, which is worth quoting instead of the original, and affords a good terse specimen of the author's versification :

Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes,
When Monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers and a court of kings: *
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad:
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor e'er can be.
Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed;
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day,
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.
In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece,
Chimeras all; and more absurd or less.

It is probable that a trivial degree of indigestion will give rise to very fantastic dreams in a fanciful mind; while, on the other hand, a good orthodox repletion is necessary towards a fanciful

*

Perhaps a misprint for

A court of cobblers and a mob of kings.

creation in a dull one.

It shall make an epicure, of any vivacity, act as many parts in his sleep, as a tragedian, "for that night only." The inspirations of veal, in particular, are accounted extremely Delphic; Italian pickles partake of the same spirit as Dante; and a butter-boat should contain as many ghosts as Charon's.

There is a passage in Lucian, which would have made a good subject for those who painted the temptations of the saints. It is a description of the City of Dreams, very lively and crowded. We quote after Natalis Comes, not having the True History by us. The city, we are told, stands in an immense plain, surrounded by a thick forest of tall poppy-trees, and enormous mandragoras. The plain is also full of all sorts of somniculous plants, and the trees are haunted with multitudes of owls and bats, but no other bird. The city is washed by the River Lethe, called by others the Night-bringer, whose course is inaudible, and like the flowing of oil. (Spenser's follower, Browne, has been here:

Where consort none other fowl,
Save the bat and sullen owl;
Where flows Lethe without coil,
Softly, like a stream of oil.

Inner Temple Mask.)

There are two gates to the city: one of horn, in which almost everything that can happen in sleep is represented, as in a transparency; the other of ivory, in which the dreams are but dimly shadowed. The principal temple is that of Night; and there are others, dedicated to Truth and Falsehood, who have oracles. The population consists of Dreams, who are of an infinite variety of shape. Some are small and slender: others distorted, humped, and monstrous; others proper and tall, with blooming goodtempered faces. Others, again, have terrible countenances, are winged, and seem eternally threatening the city with some calamity; while others walk about in the pomp and garniture of kings. If any mortal comes into the place, there is a multitude of domestic Dreams, who meet him with offers of service; and they are followed by some of the others, that bring him good or bad news,