2^1^ Beverie, considered as 



broke loose, how long it has been absent, or 

 what has occasioned its return. 



Physicians, who have treated this mental in- 

 firmity as a disease, have confined themselves 

 to a description of the constitutional frame, 

 -frhlch renders us liable to it.* Having omitted 



* I>r. Darwen, vol. 1. p. 361. says (hat " people with 

 ancfeased sensibility, who may be known by high co- 

 loured lips, dark hair, and large eyes, are most liable to 

 enthusiasm, delirium and reverie. In this last aB'ection, 

 they are seen to start at the clapping of a door, because 

 the more intent any one is on the passing current of his 

 ideas, the more is he surprized at their being dissevered 

 by external violence. But owing to the great expendi- 

 ture of sensorial power on these sensitive motions, it 

 follows, that there will be a deficiency of it in the irritative, 

 which will be performed with le^s energy. 



Hence these persons do not attend to slight stimulus: 

 but when a stimulus is great enough to excite sensa- 

 tion, it excites greater sensitive actions than in other 

 constitutions. This is the case in delirium or inflamma* 

 tjon. — Thus persons addicted to reverie are absent in 

 company; — sit or lie long in one posture, and in winter 

 have the skin of their legs burnt in various colours by the 

 fire. They are fearful of pair. ; covet music and sleep; — 

 and delight in poetry and romance.*' As the motions 

 excited in consequence of encreased sensation, are more 

 than natural, and thus expend a greater portion of sen- 

 sorial power, the voluntary motions, like the irritative, 

 are less easily exerted. — Hence the persons we have been 

 describing are indolent with regard to all voluntary ex- 

 ertions, whether of mind or body. They are alsb known 



