MAURY ON" SLEEP AtfD DREAMS. 385 



bably slept more soundly than any of the idlers of a city 

 life at home. The ' Somnus agrestium lenis virorum' of 

 Horace, is more powerfully expressed by Shakspeare in 

 describing the dreamless sleep of the day-hireling, 



' Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind, 

 Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, 

 Sleeps in Elysium,' &c. 



And who can forget that noble soliloquy in the Second 

 Part of ' Henry IV.,' where the king upbraids Sleep for 

 deserting ' the perfumed* chambers of the great,' and 

 giving its repose to the wet sea-boy in the midst of 

 storms ? 



' Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast 

 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes and rock his brains 

 In cradle of the rude imperious surge ? ' 



We might well go on through the whole of this won- 

 derful passage. If forgotten by anyone, it ought 

 promptly to be renewed to memory. 



We need not dwell further on a fact so familiar to 

 common experience. But the diversity of forms which 

 sleep assumes is more interesting to the physiologist in 

 its relation to the particular organs and functions 

 affected by it. We have already alluded to this topic ; 

 one which, associated as it is with the phenomena ot 

 dreams, offers a special mode of mental analysis as con- 

 nected with material organisation, and may even in 

 certain cases be made the subject of experiment. It 

 does not, indeed, carry us farther into the mystery than 

 a similar analysis of the waking state. But in showing 

 how the two states commingle and graduate into one 

 another, it serves as a fresh proof of the unity of our 



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