ADVERTISEMENT. These Sermons, preached in "the very witching time of night" to imaginary audiences, we thought in our waking state might possibly interest the public, and be of some social service. We have called these vagaries of our slumbering brain "Sermons," at some risk to their general acceptability. Sermons are not a very attractive, nor are they usually a very humourous species of literature; but as these fancies of the night were generally conceived in a professional mood, and mostly delivered in a professional way, we decided, without any profane feeling or inclination to offensive parody, to call them "Sermons." Dreamy sermons are not uncommon, but sermons in dreams are certainly, to say the least, curious, and may arrest the attention not only of the lovers of novelty, but also of those of a more serious and scientific cast of mind, to whom the phenomena of dreams, like other abnormal phenomena, are matters of interesting speculation. The selection of texts will seem uncanonical and capricious, but the Sermons are not conventional, and caprice is a licence and property of dreams. "The dreams of sleeping men," writes LOCKE, "are, as I take it, all made up of the waking man's ideas, though, for the most part, oddly put together." This may not be universally true of all dreams; we accept, however, the observation as strictly correct in respect of our own dreams. There is a considerable variety in the humour of these Dream Sermons. The satirical vein somewhat predominates in all of them. Perhaps some are a little too personal to be in good taste, but of course we do not think of applying the canons of taste to dreams. The persons, however, alluded to by name have no living correspondences, at least nominally, and therefore the actual world will not be able to complain of scandal. They are very candid, and this would be a merit in a preacher awake, in a dreamer all that can be said is that it was his humour. They leave a singularly vivid recollection on emerging from our slumbers, and hence we are able to give a verbatim report of them. Of course such Nocturnal discourses as these are beneath serious criticism. The Sleeper can scarcely be held responsible either for the choice of his subjects or his mode of treating them. His discretion in publishing them when wide awake is altogether another matter, and of this the public are the proper judges. He may, however, be allowed to say, in defence of his discretion in committing these night fancies to print, that even "the stuff of which dreams are made," may prove to be the firm texture of useful thoughts, as SHAKSPEARE says "Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried." SOMNIATOR, Oneiropolis. |