him, there may be no more necessity for the death, or the insensibility of the mind, than there is for polar clothing for a man transplanted to the tropics. In a state of being where material objects surrounded him no longer, there would be no more necessity for the senses than there would for eyes in a globe of utter darkness, or lungs in air without an atmosphere. But the mind may survive, even on physical principles, and may, even from what we observe of its vividness when unimpeded by the bodily organs, and the impressions of external things, exhibit a much more intense vividness, when no longer requiring the connexion with the frame. But the positive proof of the subsistence of the mind is to be derived only from the Scriptures.

A curious and amusing little volume of Reminiscences by a Dr Carlyon, formerly a Fellow of Pembroke College, and since practising as a physician, has led into this topic, by detailing the extraordinary dream of the death of the Prime Minister Mr Percival. This dream is different from the vague sportings of the mind, and implies a higher influence. It has been already narrated by Dr Abercrombie, but it is here given with a more direct reference to original and corroborating authority.

"The dream in question occurred in Cornwall, and the gentleman to whom it occurred was Mr Williams, late of Scourier House, from whose own lips I have more than once heard the relation.

"Six days before the murder of the late Mr Percival (of whom he had no personal knowledge whatever), Mr Williams dreamt that he was in the lobby of the House of Commons, and saw a small man enter dressed in a blue coat and white waistcoat. Immediately after he saw a man dressed in a brown coat with yellow basket metal buttons, draw a pistol from under his coat, and discharge it at the former, who instantly fell, the blood issuing from a wound a little below the left breast. He saw the murderer seized by some gentlemen who were present, and observed his countenance, and on asking who the gentleman was that had been shot, he was told that it was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He then awoke, and mentioned the dream to his wife who made light of it; but in the course of

the night, the dream occurred three times without the least variation. He was now so much impressed by it, that. he felt much inclined to give notice to Mr Percival, but was dissuaded by some friends whom he consulted, who told him he would only get himself treated as a lunatic. On the evening of the eighth day after, he received the account of the murder, it having occurred two days previously. Being in London a short time subsequently, he found in the print shops a representation of the scene, and recognised in the countenances and dress of the parties, the blood on Mr Percival's waistcoat, and the peculiar yellow basket buttons on Bellingham's coat, precisely what he had seen in his dream.

"All this, I beg to repeat, I have myself heard more than once circumstantially related by Mr Williams, who is still alive (February 1836) and residing at Calstock, Devon, and who, I am sure, from his obliging disposition, would be most ready to corroborate the wonderful history to its full extent.

"I have compared this account of Dr Abercrombie's with a manuscript, which Mr Hill, a barrister and grandson of Mr Williams, was lately kind enough to give me, and which records the particulars of this most strange dream in the words in which he heard it related by his grandfather. is very little, and no material variation. Mr Hill states, that Mr Williams heard the report of the pistol, saw the blood fly out and stain the waistcoat, and saw the colour of the face change."

There

He likewise mentions, that, " on the day following the dream, he went to Godolphin, with Messrs Robert W. Fox, and his brother Mr Wm. Williams, and on his return home informed them of the dream, and of the uneasiness of his mind on the subject,— uneasiness in a great measure arising from his doubts about the propriety of announcing a dream which had made so great an impression upon himself, to the friends of Mr Percival: but he allowed himself to be laughed out of any such intention."

If we ask to what purpose an intimation was given, if it were from a higher source, yet given in vain, the answer can be only human ignorance of the purpose; and there the matter ends. The narrator, and the testimony to the narrator, are both alive,

and still to be questioned by those who will.

In the late Sir H. Davy's "Consolations in Travel," there is a characteristic description of his state of mind under peculiar circumstances. "About a quarter of a century ago," he says, "I contracted that terrible form of typhus fever, known by the name of jail fever, while engaged in a plan for ventilating one of the great prisons of the metropolis. My illness was severe and dangerous. As long as the fever continued, my dreams of delirium were most painful. But when the weakness consequent, and exhaustion came on; and when the probability of death seemed to my physician greater than that of life, there was an entire change in all my ideal combinations. I remained in an apparently senseless or lethargic state. But in fact, my mind was peculiarly active. There was always before me the form of a beautiful woman with whom I was engaged in the most interesting and intellectual conversation. I was passionately in love at that time, but with no ideal being. The object of my real admiration was a lady with black hair, dark eyes, and pale complexion. The spirit of my vision, on the contrary, had brown hair, blue eyes, and bright rosy complexion, and was, as far as I can recollect, unlike any of the forms which had so often haunted my imagination; the figure, for many days, was so distinct in my mind, as to form almost a visual image. As I gained strength, the visits of my good angel, for so I called it, became less frequent. And when I was restored to health they were discontinued."

"Ten years after I had recovered from the fever, and when I had almost lost the recollection of the vision, it was recalled to my memory by a very blooming and graceful girl fourteen or fifteen years old, whom I accidentally met during my travels; but I cannot say that the impression made upon my mind by her was very strong. Here comes the extraordinary part of the narrative. Twenty years after my first illness, at a time when I was exceedingly weak from a severe malady, which for many weeks threatened my life, and when my mind was almost in a desponding state, being in a course of travels ordered by my medical advisers, I again met the person who was the representative of my visionary

VOL. XLI. NO. CCLVI.

female, and to her kindness and care I believe I owe what remains to me of existence; my despondency gradually disappeared, and though my health continued weak, life began to possess charms for me which I thought were for ever gone, and I could not help identifying the living angel with the vision which had appeared as my guardian genius during the illness of my youth.'

Lord Brougham, in his notes on Paley's Natural Theology, in allusion to the extraordinary rapidity with which images rise before the mind in sleep, in other words, the extraordinary omission of the measures of space and time, thus illustrates the principle-" Let any one, who is extremely overpowered with drowsiness, as after sitting up all night, and sleeping none the next day, lie down and begin to dictate; he will find himself falling asleep after uttering a few words. And he will be awakened by the person who writes repeating the last word, to show that he has written the whole. Not above five or six seconds may elapse, and yet the sleeper will find it quite impossible to believe that he has not been asleep for hours, and he will chide the amanuensis for having fallen asleep over his work. So great apparently will be the length of his dream, extending through half a lifetime. The experiment is easily tried. Again and again the sleeper will find his endless dream renewed, and he may easily be enabled to tell in how short a time he must have performed it. For, suppose eight or ten seconds required to write the four or five words dictated, sleep could hardly begin in less than four or five seconds after pronouncing the sentence; so that, at the utmost, not more than four or five seconds could have been spent in sleep. But indeed the greater probability is, that not above a single second can have so passed. For a writer will easily finish two words in a second; and supposing he has to write four, and half the time is consumed in falling asleep, one second only is the duration of the dream, which yet seems to last for years, so numerous are the images which compose it."

This, however, is an extreme case. The impressions on the mind in that state of drowsiness which arises from overwatching are generally so confused as scarcely to exhibit any distinguishable succession of images. There

M

is no story, no capacity of reference to space and time. All is a chaos, feverish, cloudy, and unimaginative. The true and interesting dream is that which arises from healthful action, composed thoughts, and in that period of the sleep when the frame is beginning to recover from the exhaustion of the day, and is refitting its powers for the day to come.

"Thus morning dreams, as poets tell, are true."

The succession of images is then habitually drawn, the story wrought with more ingenuity, the horrors of the earlier part of the night disappear, and the adventure becomes frequently interesting, picturesque, and beautiful, in a remarkable degree. Like the visions of Prospero's isle,

"This we do weep to dream again." A dream of the well-known Dr Doddridge offers a striking illustration of the finely inventive fancy of slumber. He thought that his spirit had suddenly departed from his frame. After various adventures preparatory to a final state of happiness, he was led to an apartment surrounded with pictures; which he found to contain the history of his whole life. The most remarkable incidents were represented in the most lively manner. The trials to which he had been exposed, together with the signal instances of the Divine goodness to him at such periods, excited the strongest emotions, especially when he recollected that he was now out of the reach of human trial. The ecstasy of joy into which those reflections threw him was so great, that it awoke him. But the impression remained so vivid for a considerable time after awaking, that the tears flowed down his cheeks, and he said that on no other occasion did he remember to have felt sentiments of delight equally strong.

It is perfectly certain from all the phenomena, that the state of the frame is capable of powerfully influencing the nature of the dream. That disease, wounds, accidental pressure, uneasiness of position, or indigestion, can give a sudden and direct character to the dream; they, in fact, strike the key-note; but the difficulty remains, of accounting for the instant and keen susceptibility with which the mind adopts, and composes in that strain. What wild horrors are generated by

the nightmare, what visions of flight, wo, and wandering rise before the inward eye, in any stagnation of the veins! What a world of darkness, bloodshed, robbery, pursuit, and pain, is created by a thing so simple as an uneasy posture.

But Mr Carlyon shrewdly remarks on another unexpected evil which may arise from too frequent a use of this faculty" It is certain, from the fact that persons are seldom, if ever, conscious of having talked in their sleep, that dreams often take place without being remembered by us. This may, now and then, lead to very awkward discoveries.

"I was, at one time of my professional life, in frequent attendance upon a gentleman subject to attacks of gout, who talked a great deal in his sleep; and his man-servant, who often sat up by him at night, gave me such accounts of his master's talk as would have led to any thing but pleasant results, if the secrets of the pillow had been allowed further to transpire. There are few physcians who could not unfold tales of this kind; but they are not confined to the gouty. Let the love-sick damsel beware who occupies a bed in the same room with her.

I once heard a lady boast, as I thought with very bad taste, of having discovered a female friend's secret in the following way :-They lay in the same room, and in the course of the night her friend divulged in her sleep the name of a lover respecting whom no suspicion had previously existed. Good feeling, doubtless, required that no allusion should have been made, directly or indirectly, to such a circumstance. But, on the contrary, a favourable opportunity was ungenerous. ly taken to put the poor dreamer to dire confusion, by an unexpected allusion to what she previously believed to have been confined to her own breast."

Cobbett, of whom the world has so happily got rid at last, was the most notorious performer of his time in the art of contradicting to-day what he said yesterday. His regular plea on such occasions was, that he was only wiser to-day than he was yesterday; the true reading would have been, that he was baser. But, as every thing in this march-of-mind age improves, Cobbett has left behind him professors of falsehood, who throw the miserable

old man's fame into utter eclipse. Casting out of the calculation the Humes, and all that race, whose wretched deficiency of mind and manners marks them for oblivion, we shall give a few specimens of the leading professor of political chicane at the present day. Mr O'Connell is now the lavish panegyrist of the Melbourne coterie. He knew them just as thoroughly a year ago. And a year ago what was his published language? We quote the fragments from a Letter to Lord Duncannon; a letter whose primary object was that of a filip for the "Rent," but which fully declared his real sentiments of the men and manners which he now calls on his rabble to love, honour, and obey.

"Oct. 11, 1834. "My Lord, I write more in sorrow than in anger. You have deceived me, bitterly and cruelly deceived Ireland. After four years of experience we ought to have known that Ireland had nothing to expect from the Whigs but insolent contempt, and malignant but treacherous hostility! The political turpitude of your party is really inconceivable. Of what value is it to Ireland that Earl Grey should have retired, if he have left to his successors the same proud and malignant hatred he appeared to entertain towards Ireland? I know that Lord John Russell cherishes feelings of a similar description. I know, and every body knows, that Lord Melbourne wants sufficient powers of mind to be able to comprehend the favourable opportunities afforded to him to conciliate Ireland. In plain truth, it is quite manifest that Lord Melbourne is utterly incompetent for the high office he holds. It is lamentable to think that the destinies of the Irish people should depend in any degree on so inefficient a person. Lord Lansdowne, too, is hostile to Ireland, with a hatred the more active and persevering, that he is bound by every obligation to entertain diametrically the opposite sentiments. None of you dare to act in the government of Ireland on the principles of common sense and common political honesty. On this account then, I repeat, the chorus of that song called The Wild Irish cry, HURRAH FOR THE REPEAL!"

The cry of repeal, which would be virtually rebellion, and if effected, would be separation. But this cry he raises or sinks monthly, as it suits his purpose, to frighten or soothe down the

triumphing Cabinet. In his letter of September 1834, he thus halloos his dogs of war:-" Are we to abandon REPEAL of consent, that Ireland shall be without the protection or sympathy of a domestic legislature? Abandon repeal! Never! never! Can we consent, even for an hour, to allow Ireland to continue the sport and make game of the King Log, in person of Brougham, of this ministry; or the helpless victim of the King Stork, in the person of Wellington, of a Tory administration?"

The agitator's opinion of Lord Brougham is couched in the same style of insolent invective, which prepares us for the slavering of this perhaps more offensive sycophaney. We shall of course see him idolizing Lord Brougham the first moment he finds it convenient to dupe the noble Lord.

I

"I pay very little attention to any thing Lord Brougham says. He makes a greater number of foolish speeches than any other man of the present generation. There may be more nonsense in some one speech of another person. But, in the number, in the multitude of foolish speeches, Lord Brougham has it hollow. would start him ten to one, ay, fifty to one, in talking nonsense, and flatly contradicting himself in one dozen of off hand discourses against any other pretty prattler in pantaloons' now living. But it is pitiful, it is melancholy, that a man who ought at least to affect to wear Solomon's fabled bonnet of wisdom, should prefer to put on the fool's cap over his Chancellor's wig, and run riot through the isle to demonstrate with how little of steady sense the judgment-seat may be occupied." In this broad and brute style it pleases Mr O'Connell to flourish his contempt for a man, who would be immeasurably degraded by being brought into comparison with him. We are no lovers of his Lordship's political notions. But we cannot speak of him in the same breath with the foul-tongued poltroon, who, reckoning upon his own scandalous impunity, thus vilely insults a scholar and a man of genius. Yet the abuse is but preliminary to O'Connell's falling down and licking the dust off his shoes, at the first instant he can find or make an opportunity to approach in the hope to delude and degrade. But there are some fierce, followers in his own clique, whom all the dinners at

his ordinary in Langham-place cannot keep from rebelling now and then. Feargus O'Connor is one of those. He declares that he has been injured and insulted in all imaginable ways by the tool of the priests, and the master of the Ministry. Feargus had plunged his pen in bitter ink, and sketches the agitator with a fidelity worthy of his wrath. The pamphlet is long, curious, and unanswerable. We have room at present only for a fragment of the picture.

"My mind turns on the anomalous condition of Ireland under your dictatorship. The great community, divided into two parties, the one a set of needy place-hunters, bending beneath your nod, while the people, who create the power, are starving.

"Good heaven! how can I write with temper, when I reflect upon the degraded state to which you have brought public opinion in Ireland. Ambition's slave, and power's pander, you have taught a brave people to be cowards, a generous nation selfishness, and a nation of freemen to wear their chains as hereditary bondsmen. You have balanced lucre against greatness, and prostituted your country. By others' follies more than your own deserts, you have been raised to a po-litical pre-eminence. A forged letter from a Pope, and the silenced Catholic minister, with neither of which you had any concern, have tended to mix your name with the ridiculous and the sublime."

The dedication to the reader declares, that "timid individuals submit to this licensed defumer," the Dictator, rather than brave the slanderer. "Therefore," says Feargus, "I boldly meet the foe to stop this system of offering up honest men at the shrine of venality, obscenity, prostitution, ambition, and jealousy.

Language like this from one of the fellow conspirators is doubtless very galling to Mr O'Connell, who loves a prostration, as low as he himself paid to the Popish bishop when he fell on his knees before him in the perennial mire of the Irish village. But it will not do him the slightest harm as a faction. The more characterless a ruffian becomes, the more congenial to the hearts of the gang. The Jacobin in clean clothes raises suspicion of his sincerity. Black, brutal, and bloody

is the true Jacobin.

There is an exceedingly trifling ambition of science at present flourishing in the world. Every feeble affectation of research claims the title of knowledge, and thus the world is filled with three classes of sciolists, who pass by the respective names of geologists, naturalists, and political economists. Some frivolous creature who has nothing on earth to do with his time or himself, sets out on a summer excursion to Hampstead or Highgate, picks up half a dozen pebbles on the common, or gathers half a dozen shells in a chalk pit, and then triumphing in his advancement to the honours of a discoverer, scribbles his theory of pebbles and shells in some penny magazine, and is thenceforth a philosopher and fool for life.

Another gathers half a dozen mice in a cage, or minnows in a bottle, watches their daily proceedings in love and war, registers them duly in a book, and reports himself to the public as an investigator of nature. A third addicts himself to the examination of mankind, pores over bills of mortality, collects the returns of the corn market, files turnpike tickets, and having, after deep deliberation, pronounced, that the more children are born the more wheaten loaves will be consumed, if they can get them; and that the more debts a poor man has, the more likely he is to come on the parish, sits down in the happy consciousness of having fixed himself in the niche of modern fame.

All this might be pardoned, like any other folly. But the result is malice. The whole three classes, drunk with vanity, do mischief to the full extent of their means. The geologist, in his presumption, disputes the knowledge of creation with Him who commanded it to be. The naturalist founds some equally solemn and silly objection against the immateriality of the soul, the cerebellum of a bird, or the web of a spider, and escapes luckily if he is not at once a Jacobin and an Infidel; the political economist, a fabricator at one time of argument against Providence, and at another of insults against a monarchy. The modern tribe of this school are nearly all republicans, and the shallowness of their knowledge is to be equalled only by the bitterness of their disaffection. But a kind of judicial punishment seems actually to follow the three.