i:onnected with Literature. S29 



the vigorous stretch of intense thought. Brutus 

 tsed to read in his tent, at midnight when hi$ 

 frame was debilitated, and his spirits were 

 exhausted by a long march, and by the heat 

 of the morning; — when his mind was un- 

 strung, and prevented by weariness from ex- 

 erting its powers in one fixed direction. May 

 not the spectre have been a creature of his 

 imagination when thus pre-disposed for reverie? 

 when his ideas consisted of confused concep- 

 tions, furnished partly by his book and partly 

 by his fancy. And will it be deemed extra- 

 vagant to conjecture, that the passage he was 

 reading may have been the story of the dying 

 Bramin, who prophetically warned Alexander 

 that they should meet at Babylon ? 



I am aware, that th6 mind, when deeply 

 engaged in study, sometimes overcomes sleep, 

 and assumes new vigour at a late hour of the 

 night. In this case, a certain degree of fever. 

 In other words, of encreased action, has taken 

 place ; which will be followed, and proved to 

 have existed, by commensurate mental debi- 

 lity and nervousness. 



" Some,*' says a modem author, '* look 

 over what they want to remember, imme- 

 diately before going to sleep at night, be- 

 cause then the mind is not afterwards busied 

 about any ideas that might drive it away : or 



