farther Sarmatia, are related to die on the twenty-seventh of November like swallows, in consequence of the intense cold, and not to awake again till the twenty-fourth of April *.

These wonderful suspensions of the corporeal powers must be considered as more than common trances, such as those by which Barton, the maid of Kent, could absorb her faculties, or than such extasies as Mr. Locke describes to be dreaming with the eyes open †.

The notion of a trance with the eyes open appears very early to have been connected with the idea of divine visions ‡, and it seems in modern times to have been imagined, that the senses of those who are entranced leave the body, and are occupied in acquiring the knowledge of things secret and remote.

* Wanley's Wonders, C. xxiv. p. 627. Essay on the Unders. B. ii. Ch. i, §. 2. Numb. xxiv. 4.

After the marvellous accounts which have been here produced, it must be an insipid relation to mention that Baker speaks of a William Foxley who fell asleep on Tuesday in Easter week, and could not be awakened even with pinching and burning till the first day of next term, which was full fourteen days*. These relations, it may be incidentally observed, prove the necessity of caution in not burying persons prematurely.

The circumstances under which epileptic persons have been known to think and act as if waking, and even to address other persons in long and connected discourses, are deserving of philosophical investigation.

There are other accounts of an opposite nature equally remarkable. Seneca reports that Mæcenas lived three years without any sleep,

Baker's Chron. p. 428.

and was at last cured of his distemper by soft music*.

Nizolius is related to have lived thirty-five years without sleep †.

The modern account of the woman of Padua, who lived fifteen days without sleep, will easily be credited by those who receive the former histories.

It is to be observed, that in these accounts no mention is made of dreams having been enjoyed by the persons thus subjected to the dominion of Morpheus, and it is doubtful whether we are to consider dreams as necessarily attendant on sleep.

Herodotus asserts of the Atlantes, the inhabitants of Mount Atlas, that they neither eat animal food nor dream. Lode professes to

* De Providentiâ.

+ Schenk's Observat. L. i. p. 64.

have seen a man who, though his memory was by no means defective, assured him that he had never dreamt till after a fever which affected him about the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year of his age; and Plutarch mentions his friend Cleon, who though he had attained a great age, had never dreamed, and says that the same was recorded of Thrasymenes. It is possible, however, that these persons had dreamed, though the impression made on their mind might have been so slight as not to excite any recollection. Aristotle observes, that those who never dream till grown up are generally liable after their experience of this kind to some change of constitution, a remark confirmed by Beattie, who professes to have known a gentleman who never dreamed but when his health was disordered. The habit of dreaming, however, prevails so generally, that it may be considered as an ordinary exercise of the human mind, and its tending to prove its inherent powers of reflection; and it is probable that if the mind is capable of being entirely quiescent, it rarely ceases to think

however its thoughts may sometimes be forgotten as speedily as they arise. Clemens Alexandrinus deemed an entire quiescence to be a death of the soul. Mr. Locke's argument that it is not essential to the soul to think, because it does not always dream *, is founded upon an argument which is at least disputable, for though it may be allowed that the mind cannot think without being sensible that it does think, it need not necessarily be admitted that it does not always dream, because it cannot recal its dreams when awake, or because it does not even remember that it has dreamed; since it might be conscious of its reflections when the body was asleep, though no recollection of them be retained at the return of morning, which instantly presents new scenes to the eyes, and excites new and stronger impressions on the mind. The voluntary operations of the mind seem to cease during sleep,

* Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, B. ii. C. §. 1. Watts's Essays, p. 12). Aristot. de Insomn. Hobbes's Leviathan, B. ii. C. 45.

VOL. II.

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