CHAPTER XI.

"Quæ in vita usurpant homines, cogitant curant, vident, quæque agunt vigilantis,ea quique in somno accident."

CIC. DE DIO.

The things which employ men's waking thoughts and actions, recur to their imaginations in sleep.

OF SOMNAMBULISM.

Somnambulism, which is so well understood in the present day, presented many inexplicable phenomena to the enquiries of the preceding centuries hence, we find them confounding Somnambulism with trances, looking upon each of these as modifications of others, although essentially distinct. Many individuals, who had

fallen, or pretended to have done so, into a trance during the period of which we write, were wont to relate many marvellous things that had happened to them while in that condition, and these tales, as well as every prediction which they uttered, were implicitly believed. Somnambulism, at the present day, is divided into four classes: 1st, essential or proper somnambulism, arising from some particular nervous disposition in persons, who are otherwise in the enjoyment of perfect health; 2d, symptomatic, or morbid, occasioned by and dependent on certain diseases; 3d, artifical, or such as is induced by animal magnetism, or mesmerism; and 4th, extatic, or religious somnambulism; excited by high wrought enthusiasm.

Of these the two last were utterly unknown a century ago; and the two first form one class of Dr. Bräuner's somnambulism, the second being comprised of trances, properly so called, of which he treats more at large than the other. It was the opinion of his time that these were properly so classed because it was believed that though the body remained in a death-like torpor, the soul was meanwhile wandering even to the ends of the earth.

With this preface we proceed to the consideration of the instances adduced. The first one

we meet with is extracted from the first part, page 80, of Felix Maurus' Wonders of the World. He informs us that a learned man records that "a schoolmaster at Wimback, a town of Schwarzanburg in Thuringia, about twenty years before, had been seized with so severe an illness that he remained to all appearance dead. His wife and relations, believing him to be dead, sent a messenger to Angstett, the duties of Wimback being performed by the priest of Angstett, and requested that functionary to come and bury him. Now, as in the said Wimback there were several other sick patients lying, whom the padre was in the habit of visiting, he was on his way thither, when the messenger met him and informed him of the death of the schoolmaster. But, when the father came to the first patient, intelligence reached him that the deceased schoolmaster had come to life again, and could talk of nothing else than the wonderful visions which he had seen during his apparent death. The priest hastened thither, and found it even as it had been stated to him. The schoolmaster gave out that the Lord Jesus Christ had taken him into hell, and had shewn him the prison and the torments of the damned, and pointed out to him the persons of many known and unknown people, then alive, who, He in

formed him, were all consigned to hell, with an account of the sins which they had committed; and what was wonderful was that he described their appearance with such accuracy that those, who knew them, declared that it was just as if he had drawn their portraits before them, although he, the schoolmaster, had never seen them. The most remarkable thing was, that he declared that he had seen in hell, undergoing certain torments, a particular nobleman then living, whom he had never seen except in his trance, and had neither known him nor heard of him, setting forth the particulars with such minuteness that all men marvelled. When the schoolmaster had circumstantially related all these things, he declared that he had now fulfilled his commission, and that the Lord Jesus Christ was about to take him to heaven: then, lying quite still for about an hour, he gave up the ghost full of hope and joy."

It is needless to remark that the schoolmaster was a tool in the hands of some designing person, most probably the priest, to terrify certain obnoxious persons, who might have been rather remiss in paying up their duties. "We have also examples," says Dr. Bräuner, " of men who have fallen to the ground in a death-like trance, and, when they have recovered, they have given

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a complete account of far distant countries; and when people have had a subsequent opportunity of visiting these places, they have found the description tally exactly." This reminds us of a story that we have read of a certain Laplander. There was once upon a time a Frenchman, who had travelled to a very distant country, and, as he was very anxious to know how his wife and children were getting on at home, he summoned to him a certain Laplander in those parts, desiring him to bring him an account of them within a few hours. This the Laplander promised to do for a named reward, the Frenchman stipulating that he should bring a token with him, to assure him of the truth of his account, although the Frenchman was little inclined to believe that he could perform what he had promised. Hercupon, the Laplander, after certain violent tremors, fell to the ground, and remained for some hours as if he were dead. When he came to himself, he not only gave the Frenchman a circumstantial account of his wife and children, but also produced the wedding ring of the former, (which the Frenchman immediately recognised as the one which he had given her on the marriage day,) as a token that his account was really true, on which the other greatly wondered. After a considerable time he returned