"It is," says Sir Thomas Brown, "a death whereby we live, a middle moderating point between life and death, and so like death, I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God. After which I close my eyes in security, content to take my leave of him, and sleep unto the resurrection*."

Thomas Tryon, a student in physick in the last century, defines sleep to be the natural rest of a living creature, or a partial temporary cessation of animal action, and the functions of the external senses, caused immediately by the weakness of the animal faculty proceeding from a steep and stupifying vapour, arising from the concoction and digestion of the alimentary food exhaled from the stomach, and hence ascending to the brain, and watering and bedewing it with unctious fumes, whereby the operation of the senses is for a time obstructed, to the end the powers of the mind

*Religio Medici. B. ii. §. 12.

and body may be recruited, refreshed, and strengthened.

Sleep as it is a state of exemption from impressions from external objects, can occasion no positive sensations of pain or pleasure, unless by the aid of dreams. If during sleep we are safe and tranquil, yet, as insensible of our security, we derive no satisfaction from it.

To enjoy advantages we must be conscious that we possess them, and the only consciousness which we have in sleep is a consciousness of the existence of the ideal objects which our imagination creates in dreams, for when the senses are so strongly affected by external impressions as to produce sensations on the mind, sleep is disturbed, and if no impressions continue we awake.

To the unhappy sleep may indeed be considered as good, inasmuch as it intermits the agonies of pain, and closes the wounds of misery; if it bring no joys, it at least suspends

sorrow, he who mourns even that thankless ingratitude which is "sharper than a serpent's tooth" forgets the anguish of his soul in sleep, which, like the medicated wine of Circe, induces a cessation of sorrow and passion, and a forgetfulness of all evils. The tear is at least for some time checked, the sigh suppressed.

As the will seems to exercise little influence over the powers of the mind or body in sleep, though it occasionally exert a control over them, the character of sleep must take its cast from the nature of the dreams which occur; and in this state of ideal existence the man whose waking thoughts revel in festivity may pine under imaginary distress, while the wretched and depressed may enjoy the cheerful scenes of prosperity. The sovereign whose living brows are encircled with a diadem may see himself

despoiled of the pride of kingly sway" till the early courtiers attend his levee. The embarrassed debtor may be restored to opulence,

and the wretched exile return to the land of his affection.

In general, however, our reflections in sleep are regulated by certain laws of association, and the predominant complection which distinguishes the mind when awake, continues to spread its influence over our waking thoughts.

"Whatever love of burnished arms obtains,
Of chariots whirling o'er the dusty plains,
Whatever care to feed the glossy steeds
By day prevails, again by night succeeds *.”

Or as the idea is expressed by Garth :

"The slumb'ring chiefs of painted triumphs dream, While groves and streams are the soft virgin's theme t."

The "

memory retains the colouring of the day", which fades only by insensible transitions. In times of prosperity

* Virgil. B. vi. Quæ gratia currum, &c.

+ See Dispensary.

Walpole's Mysterious Mother..

"Glorious dreams stand ready to restore
The pleasing shapes of all we saw before *."

In scenes of sorrow, as Job pathetically complained, the afflictions end not with the day; "when I say my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint, then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions † ;" and Plutarch has expressed a similar sentiment, saying, "when grief takes me sleeping I am disturbed by dreams ‡.

To the coward conscience and guilty reflections, of that murderer of innocent sleep, and of Richard, "the dreadful minister of hell," the night, could bring but perturbation and shadowy terrors, rendering that by which wearied nature was to revive a rude state of

* Dryden.

↑ Job vii. 14. 15. So Cicero, Cura oppressi animi vel corporis sive fortunæ, qualis vigilantem fatigaverit talem se ingerit dormienti. De Divin. Lib. i. C. 3.

Plutarch. Weps apɛrng nas saxiaç.