The whole is, that our deeping as our wak-ing thoughts may be changed from their own course by attention excited by the sensations of the body, and those who would enjoy quiet and pleasing dreams, should attend to the preservation of the sobriety and temperance of the body. The ancients were very particular in their diet when they were desirous of obtaining such, and particularly regarded beans, and the head of a polypus, as calculated to produce perturbed slumbers; and upon the same consideration the crude and undigestible peacock mentioned by Juvenal as the cause of sudden and intestate death must have been avoided *, as all who do not wish like the lazy glutton of Persius to should avoid excess in turtle and venison, and may do well to observe the rule of Levinus Lemnius, who recommends to sleep with the mouth shut, which contributes to promote regular digestion, excluding the too rapid ingress of the external air, and cherishing the proper warmth of the stomach; a precaution, it is said, generally serviceable to weak stomachs, as we see that a cough or the hickup is often stopped by it when we are awake.

*Dryden from Chaucer's Cock and Fox.

"Indulge their sloth, and batten with their sleep †."

Dr. Hartley with more scope of allowance than Hobbes, considers dreams as reveries deducible from three causes - natural impressions - redundancy of watery humours - and great heat. Whatever effect these may have in storing or colouring the mind in sleep, they cannot be considered as the primary cause of the operations which are displayed in dreams, and which are here considered as the effects of the exertion of the mental powers: even dreams which are occasioned by the ephialtes, or night mare, and which assume a gloomy or terrific character from the clouds raised up from flatulency, repletion, or stagnation of the blood, or crudity of the stomach, are in fact but reflections of the mind affected in sympathy to the sufferings of the body *.

• Sat. i. L. 143. Plutarch. Vol. i. p. 56.

Edit. Wyttenbach.

† Hic Satur .etc. Sat. v. L. 56. Drydcn's Transl.

The night mare is well described in the following lines of Diyden's translation of Virgil.

"And as when heavy sleep has closed the sight. The sickly fancy labours in the night;

* Young persons are particularly subject to the disorder, they should be awakened when they appear to be affected by it, and on changing their position it will ceaae.

We seem to run; and, destitute of force Our sinking limbs forsake us in the course:

In vain we heave for breath; in vain we cry; The nerves unbraced their usual strength deny; And on the tongue the falt'ring accents die*."

Mara, from whence our night mare is derived, was much feared in the old Gothic or Scandinavian superstition. In the Runic Theology it was regarded as a spectre of the night which seized men in their sleep, and suddenly deprived them of speech and motion † ; it was vulgarly called witch-riding, and in popular estimation considered as the immediate suggestion of fuliginous spirits incumbent on the breast.

As it appears then, that the mind may be thus indirectly harassed by phantoms resulting from repletion; we agree with Cicero, that our dreams will, in general, be most clear and regular when we retire to bed without being loaded by meat and drink, and obtain the pure thoughts which are "From light digestion bred," Haller, and other writers, who conceive that dreams do not inseparably accompany sleep, suppose them to result from some strong stimulating cause, some forcible impression excited by the influence of undigested food, and not to obtain in sound sleep. It appears, however, that we dream as much towards the morning, though the impression of occurrences is then less immediate, and the effects of indigestion less perceptible, than towards the beginning of night.

* Ænd, B. xii. † See Warton's History of Poetry, Dissert i; and Bourne's Popular Antiquities.

Some physicians have asserted that we sleep best after eating plentifully, and alledge that as the ventricle is then full of blood, there is an open passage to the aorta, but daily experience may show the bad effects of going to sleep with a full stomach, however the fumes which ascend from it may operate as narcotic in stupifying the brain. If we indulge even in a nap after dinner, we shall be convinced that though it may be useful to refresh exhausted nature in hot countries, and where the food is light, it is extremely heating and prejudicial, where, as in northern climates, animal food is eaten in great quantities.

Dr. Cheyne, who was a very distinguished physician, and effected a most remarkable change in his own constitution by attention to regimen, advises the valetudinary, the studious, and contemplative, either to abstain entirely from supper, or to restrict themselves to vegetable food, and to take a due time before they retire to bed after their meal*.

While we smile, therefore, at the pleasantry, we cannot approve the advice of Robert Burton, who, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, observes that some recommend to promote sleep by music, or falls of water, or frication;

* Essay on Health, p. 40.

and Andrew Borde by "a good draught of stronge drinke, but I, says he, by a nutmeg and ale, or a good draught of muscadine with toast and nutmeg, or a posset of the same *. The fumes of indigestion certainly contribute to produce by their effect on the mind perturbed and oppressive dreams, we shall, therefore, on all accounts do well to abide by the old rule

"That your sleep may be light, Let your supper be slight"

A traditionary precept handed down to us from classical antiquity †.

In sleep, it has been said, either the mind thinks not at all of what it knows and retains in memory, or else it only attends to the corporeal species of past objects reposited in the common sensory, vivid representations of which excite altogether the same perceptions as are made by the impressions from external objects upon the organs of sense by which they were first received. These representations, which are called dreams, happen whenever a small portion of the brain or common sensory is by the refluent motion of the spirits kept in a state of vigilance, whilst all the rest of the empire of sense and voluntary motion is silent and at rest. It is, however, by no means certain that the mind is ever so dormant as not to be harassed or amused by its own fancies, which in proportion as they are more or less strong may be remembered or forgotten. Those which excite vehement and interesting sensations, as particularly of fear and danger, as when as likewise those of excessive exultation and joy, are probably always remembered.

* P. 2. §. 2.

† Somnus ut sit levis, sit tibi coena brevis.

"In dreams we fearful precipices tread,

Or shipwreck'd labour to some distant shore *;"

* Dryden.

Some writers have pushed the notion of complexional dreams to a great extent, maintaining that the mind is so tinctured with the colouring of the predominating sentiments and passions, that the choleric uniformly dream of quarrelling, and the melancholy of gloomy objects, while the sanguine aud cheerful exhibit the vivacity of their thoughts in the most agreeable dreams.