ON REVEHII. 113 



makes us wish to have a public speaker in our view, 

 while we are listening to him. 



When the habit of mental absence is sufficiently con- Mental ab- 

 firmed to constitute a disease, the appulses of external J^Jej^e jg a 

 objects, which would interrupt reverie in stronger minds, disease 

 are found to strike upon the senses in vain. A man is 

 mentioned in Zoonomia, who, during the paroxysm of 

 reverie, was reciting some lines from Pope, one of which 

 he had forgotten: it was several times inetfectually shouted 

 in his ears ; till at length, after much labour, he recol- 

 lected it by his own eftbrts. Yet though such appulses —which Is not 

 do not destroy, they sometimes harmonize with the wak- external im^ 

 ing dream. In this case they excite attention; and the pressions; 

 reverie, without being broken, insensibly glides into sub- 

 jects connected with these appulses. In the work we 

 have just now quoted, is an interesting account of a 

 young person, who, while lost in reverie, heard a passing- —though they 

 bell ; and without being recalled to a consciousness of ^^^ ^^ ^^^' 

 wandering thought, was soon after heard to say, " I 

 wish I were in ipy grave;" — and pulling off' her shoe — 

 ^' A little longer and a little wider ; and even this would 

 make a coffin." 



Such are the various kinds and degrees of reverie* The It Is of great 



enumeration of them was necessary to the discovery of in^po^tance to 



•^ •' studious men 



those means by which this mental affection maybe regu- that they 

 lated or remedied. The subject is of the highest import- should not m- 



X .1 u i • ^1 • r J- • dulge reverie, 



ance to those who are entering upon tlieir studies; since, * 



as it is an argument against wasting much of our time in 

 sleep, that we may be said only to live while we are 

 awake;— -so, with regard to letters or business, it may be 

 asserted, that we do not study all the hours we number 

 at our desk, but those only, during which the vigour of 

 our minds has been exerted in our proper employment. 



There are several methods by which reverie may be 

 regulated and modified. 



1st. The abstraction of excitement produced by ex- Reflections on 

 ternal stimuli, will, in most cases, give a preponderance the causes 

 o n the side of study,and thus be inimical to reverie. A o^r which fav«r 

 walk along the shore is more favourable to abstraction, reverie. 

 than in a garden or terrace, where the frequent-turnings 

 interrupt reflection. Philosophers in general have 

 Vol. XV.—Oct. 1806. " Q shunned 



