If you approve of thefe remarks, you fhall have more on the fame fubject in a few days,

from

Yours, &c.

INSOMNIOSUS.

N° 74.

Ffa

N74.

SATURDAY, January 22. 1780.

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

SIR,

N my laft, I hinted that dreams may be

I fhould go a step further, and fay, that they may be ferviceable as means of our mo ral improvement ? I will not affirm, however, as fome have done, that, by them, we may make a more accurate discovery of our temper and ruling paffions, than by obferving what paffes in our minds when awake: For, in fleep, we are very incompetent judges of ourfelves, and of every thing else; and one will dream of committing crimes with little remorfe, which, if awake, one could not think of without horror. But, as many of our paffions are inflamed or allayed by the temperature of the body, this, I think, may be faid with truth, that, by attending to what paffes in fleep, we may fometimes difcern what paffions are predominant, and, confequently, re

ceive fome ufeful cautions for the regulation of them. A man dreams, for example, that he is in a violent anger, and that he strikes a blow, which knocks a perfon down, and kills him. He awakes in horror at the thought of what he has done, and of the punishment he thinks he has reafon to apprehend; and while, after a moment's recollection, he rejoices to find that it is but a dream, he will alfo be inclinable to form refolutions against violent anger, left it should one time or other hurry him on to a real perpetration of a like nature. If we ever derive this advantage from a dream, we cannot pronounce it ufelefs. And this, or a fimilar advantage, may fometimes be derived from dreaming. For why may we not in this way reap improvement from a fiction of our own fancy, as well as from a novel, or a fable of Æfop?

One of the finest moral tales I ever read, is an account of a dream in the TATLER, which, though it has every appearance of a real dream, comprehends a moral fo fublime and fo interesting, that I question whether any man who attends to it can ever forget it; and, if he remembers, whether he can ever ceafe to be the better for it. ADDISON is the author

of the paper; and I shall give the story in his own elegant words.

"I was once," fays the TATLER, “in a

gonies of grief that are unutterable, and in "fo great a diftraction of mind, that I thought "myself even out of the poffibility of recei ❝ving comfort. The occafion, was as fol"lows: When I was a youth, in a part of the "army which was then quartered at Dover, "I fell in love with an agreeable young wo"man, of a good family in thofe parts, and "had the fatisfaction of seeing my addreffes kindly received, which occafioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were, in "a calm evening, diverting ourfelves on the top of the cliff with the prospect of the fea; "and trifling away the time in fuch little fond"neffes as are moft ridiculous to people in "bufinefs, and moft agreeable to thofe in love. "In the midst of thefe our innocent endear

ments, she fnatched a paper of verses out of << my hand, and ran away with them. I was << following her; when, on a fudden, the 66 ground, though at a confiderable distance "from the verge of the precipice, funk under "her, and threw her down, from fo prodi

gious an height, upon fuch a range of rocks,

as

"mant.

"as would have dafhed her into ten thousand "pieces, had her body been made of adaIt is much easier for my reader to "imagine my state of mind upon fuch an occafion, than for me to exprefs it. I faid "to myself, it is not in the power of Heaven "to relieve me when I awaked, equally "transported and astonished, to fee myself "drawn out of an affliction, which, the very "moment before, appeared to be altogether " inextricable."

.

What fable of Æsop, nay, of Homer, or of Virgil, conveys so fine a moral! Yet most people have, if I mistake not, met with fuch deliverances by means of a dream. And fuch a deliverance will every good man meet with at laft, when he is taken away from the evils. of life, and awakes in the regions of everlasting light and peace; looking back upon the world and all its troubles, with a surprise and a fatisfaction, fimilar in kind, though incomparably higher in degree, to that which we now feel, when we escape from a terrifying dream, and open our eyes upon the sweet ferenity of a fummer morning. Let us not defpife instruction, how mean foever the vehicle may be that brings it. Even if it be a

dream,