ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL, &C. A^ 



perspective, through the deep vista of coming years, waiting to re- 

 ward hira with a crown as unstable and powerless as the vision 

 which created it. *' Whatever emotion prevails has a character of 

 extravagance : we see everything through the serene atmosphere of 

 the Imagination, and imbue the most trite circumstances with po- 

 etical colouring. The aspect which things assume, bears a strong 

 resemblance to that impressed upon them by ordinary dreams. 

 They are equally full of pathos and beauty, and only differ in this, 

 that, verging continually on the limits of exaggeration, they seldom 

 exceed possibility."* 



Dreaming is, however, generally limited to the sleeping state. 

 General or complete sleep is a species of temporary death : the con- 

 tinuance of the functions of the organic life, of respiration, circula- 

 tion, and a few others, merely indicate that the man thus influenced 

 is still an inhabitant of earth. The whole of those actions which 

 constitute the pride and pleasure of our existence, are extinct during 

 complete sleep. The life of relation, as it has been termed by phy- 

 siologists — the mind and the senses — for this period actually cease 

 to live ; they are not in action, and their action alone constitutes 

 their being. Complete sleep is, comparatively, a rare condition of 

 our animal existence, and is only compatible with the most perfect 

 mental and bodily health, or with that state in which both have 

 been exhausted by continued or intense fatigue.t The body may 



• Macnish, op. cit. — The waking dream is not inaptly illustrated by Sir 

 W. Scott, in the description which the White Maid of Avenel gives of her- 

 self to the Monk, Eustace : 



" 'Twixt a waking thousht and a sleeping dream, 

 A form that men spy, 

 With the half-shut eye," &c.— TAe Monastery. 



Also by Thomson, in The Castle of Indolence: 



" A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was. 



Of dreams that wave before the half-shut ey«." 



Wordsworth's ballad of The Reverie of Poor Susan^ is a hght, but perfect, il- 

 lustration of this mood of the Imagination. See his Lyrical Ballads. 



f Shakspeare well describes the perfect or complete sleep of fatigue and 

 mental healthy i. e. a mind free from all anxiety, care, and guilt : the first in 

 the words of Claudio, in Measure for Measure: 



*' As fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labour. 

 When it lies starkly in the traveller's boues :" 



the second, in the address of Brutus to his page, Lucius, in Juliui Ctuan 



" The honey heavy dew of slumber; 

 Thou hast no figures nor no phantasies. 

 Which busy care draws in the brains of mco ; 

 Therefore thou sleep'at to louiid." 



