SECT. XVIII. 12. OF SLEEP. 22? 



our paflions, the abfurdities of palling over many 

 days or years, and of perpetual changes of place, 

 are not perceived by the audience ; as is experienced 

 by every one, who reads or lees foine plays of the 

 immortal Shakefptar ; but it is necefiary for inferior 

 authors to obferve thofe rules of the *d*'** and 

 *& inculcated by Ariftotle, becaufe their works 

 do not intereft: the paflions fufficiently to produce 

 complete reverie. ^ 



Thofe works, however, whether a romance or a 

 fermon, which do not intereft us fo much as to in- 

 duce reverie, may neverthelefs incline us to fleep, 

 For thofe pleafurable ideas, which are prefented to 

 us, and are too gentle to excite laughter, (which is 

 attended with interrupted voluntary exertions, as 

 explained Seel:. XXXIV. i. 4.) and which are not 

 accompanied with any other emotion, which ufually 

 excrtes fome voluntary exertion, as anger, or fear, 

 are liable to produce fleep ; which confifts in a fuf- 

 penfion of all voluntary power. But if the ideas 

 thus prefented to us, and intereft our attention, are 

 accompanied with fo much pleafurable or painful 

 fenfation as to excite our voluntary exertion at the 

 fame time, reverie is the confequence. Hence an 

 inter-efting play produces reverie, a tedious one pro- 

 duces fleep : in the latter we become exhaufted by 

 attention, and are not excited to any voluntary ex- 

 ertion, and therefore fleep j in the former we are 

 excited by fome emotion, which prevents by its pain 

 the fufpenfion of volition, and in as much as it in? 

 terefts us, induces reverie, as explained in the next 

 Settion. 



But when our fleep is imperfect, as when we have 

 determined to rife in half an hour, time appears 

 longer to us than in moft other fituations. Here 

 our folicitude not to overfleep the determined time 

 induces us in this imperfect fleep to compare the 

 quick changes of imagined fcenery with the parts 



of 



