SLEEP-WAKING. 633 



her sleep with great fluency, and repeat great portions of poetry, 

 especially when unwell, but even cap verses for half an hour 

 at a time, never failing to quote lines beginning with the final 

 letter of the preceding, till her memory was exhausted." f 



I will now give instances of sleep-floating and sleep-swim- 

 ming. 



Dr. Franklin says, " I went out to bathe in Martin's salt water 

 hot bath, in Southampton, and, floating on my back, fell asleep, 

 and slept nearly an hour, by my watch, without sinking or turning, 

 a thing I never did before, and should hardly have thought 

 possible." This showed only the completeness of his repose : 

 but Dr. Macnish quotes a case of actual swimming in sleep on 

 the coast of Ireland. " About two o'clock in the morning, the 

 watchmen on the revenue quay were much surprised at descry- 

 ing a man disporting himself in the water, about 100 yards from 

 the shore. Information having been given to the revenue boat's 

 crew, they pushed off, and succeeded in picking him up, but 

 strange to say, he had no idea of his perilous situation, and it 

 was with the utmost difficulty they could persuade him he was 

 not still in bed. But the most singular part of this novel ad- 

 venture, and which was afterwards ascertained, was that the 

 man had left his house at twelve o'clock that night, and walked 

 through a difficult and, to him, dangerous road, a distance of 

 nearly two miles, and had actually swum one mile and a half, 

 when he was fortunately discovered and picked up." He then 

 adds a case of fishing. " Not very long ago a boy was seen 

 fishing off Brest up to the middle in water. On coming up to 

 him, he was found to be fast asleep." 



The information given us with respect to these cases extends 

 no further, and we cannot tell the state of the eyes. 



Dr. Pritchard mentions an individual who, having " been in the 

 habit of frequenting a public promenade where he used to meet 

 his acquaintances, was seen to rise, from his bed at night and 

 walk in his shirt along the same path, which extended a mile on 

 the brow of a hill, stopping very frequently and greeting dif- 

 ferent individuals whom he had been accustomed to see in the 

 same place." g 



f Edinburgh Journal of Science. See Dr. Macnish. 



e A Treatise on Insanity and other Disorders respecting the Mind. By James 

 Cowles Pritchard, M.D. F.R.S. 1835. p. 407. 



