him on to a real perpetration of a like nature. If we ever derive this advantage from a dream, we cannot pronounce it useless. And this, or a similar advantage, may sometimes 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 Æsop?

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 so sublime and so interesting, that I question whether any man who attends to it can ever forget it; and if he remembers, whether he can ever cease 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,' says the TATLER, in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows: 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 woman of a good family in those parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were, in a calm evening, diverting ourselves, on the top of a cliff, with a prospect of the sea; and trifling away the time in such little fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her; when on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk under her, and threw her down from so prodigious an height, upon such a range of rocks, as would have

dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an occasion than for me to express it. I said to myself, It is not in the power of Heaven to relieve me when I awaked, equally transported and astonished, to see 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 such deliverances by means of a dream. And such a deliverance will every good man meet with at last, 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 satisfaction, similar 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 serenity of a summer morning. Let us not despise instruction, how mean soever the vehicle may be that brings it. Even if it be a dream, let us learn to profit by it. For, whether asleep or awake, we are equally the care of Providence; and neither a dream, nor a waking thought, can occur to us without the permission of him in whom we live and move, and have our being.

Some men dream more and others less; and some, perhaps, though these are few, none at all. This cannot be fully accounted for from the different degrees of health which different men enjoy, nor from their different ways of life; though these, and the like peculiarities, may no doubt have some influence. Persons who think much, and take little bodily exercise, will, perhaps, be found to be the greatest dreamers; especially if their imagination be active, and their nervous system very sensible; which last is

too common an infirmity among men of learning. The sleep of the labouring man is sweet and sound; and his dreams he rarely remembers: for the faculties of his mind are not much employed, his nerves are strong, and the sphere of his imagination narrow. As nature does nothing in vain, is it not probable that, to the constitutions of some people, dreaming may be more necessary, as a mental recreation, than to those of others? To meditate continually on one set of objects is detrimental to health, and even to reason; and, when one is oppressed with low spirits, which often proceed from this very cause, the physician never fails to recommend amusements, company, travelling, sea-voyages, and other expedients, for leading the mind out of its old gloomy track, refreshing it with new ideas, and forcing it to exert itself with unusual energy, and in a new direction.

Go, soft enthusiast, quit the cypress groves,
Nor to the rivulet's lonely moanings tune
Your sad complaint. Go, seek the cheerful haunts
Of men, and mingle with the bustling crowd.
Lay schemes for wealth, or power, or fame, the wish
Of nobler minds, and push them night and day.
Or join the caravan in quest of scenes
New to the eye, and shifting every hour,
Beyond the Alps, beyond the Apennines,
Or, more adventurous, rush into the field
Where war grows hot, and raging through the sky
The lofty trumpet swells the maddening soul;
And in the hardy camp, and toilsome march,
Forget all softer and less manly cares.

ARMSTRONG.

Men, therefore, who think more than others, may have more need than others have of that amusement and variety which is produced by dreaming. Certain it is, that dreams are often a relief to those who

are in perplexity, or who have long been ruminating upon disagreeable objects, or upon any one set of ideas which they cannot easily get rid of. Nor is it necessary in order to effect this, that a dream should in itself be pleasing. Scenes of difficulty, and even of danger, are, as we have seen, recommended to the patient oppressed with melancholy; and if a dream shall only give a new impulse, even for a short time, to the minds of those persons of whom I now speak, may do them an important service, however disagreeable in itself. Seldom, indeed, are they happy in their dreams whose faculties are worn out with much thinking.

it

Dreams depend, in part, on the state of the air. That which has power over the passions may reasonably be presumed to have power over the thoughts of men. For the thoughts that occur to a mind actuated by any passion are always congenial to that passion, and tend to encourage it. Now most people know by experience how effectual, in producing joy and hope, are pure skies and sunshine, and that a long continuance of dark weather brings on solicitude and melancholy. This is particularly the case with those persons whose nervous system has been weakened by a sedentary life and much thinking, and they, as I hinted formerly, are most subject to troublesome dreams. If the external air can affect the motions of so heavy a substance as mercury, in the tube of the barometer, we need not wonder that it should affect those finer liquids that circulate through the human body. And if our passions and thoughts, when we are awake, may be variously modified by the consistency, defect, or redundance of these liquids, and by the state of the tubes through which they circulate, need we wonder that the same thing should happen in sleep, when our ideas, disengaged from

the control of reason, may be supposed to be more obsequious to material impulse? When the air is loaded with gross vapour, dreams are generally disagreeable to persons of a delicate constitution.

If, then, our thoughts in sleep may receive form and colour from so many circumstances; from the general state of our health, from the present state of the stomach and fluids, from the temperature of the air, from the position of external objects in contact with our body, and from the tenor of our thoughts through the day*; shall we be surprised at the variety of our dreams? and when any uncommon or disagreeable dream occurs, is it not more rational to refer it to one or other of these causes, than to terrify ourselves with a foolish conceit that it is supernatural, and betokens calamity? How often, during the day, do thoughts arise, which we cannot account for, as uncommon, perhaps, and incongruous as those which compose our dreams! Once, after riding thirty miles in a very high wind, I remember to have passed a night of dreams that were, beyond description, terrible; insomuch, that I at last found it expedient to keep myself awake, that I might no more be tormented with them. Had I been superstitious, I should have thought that some disaster was impending. But it occurred to me, that the tempestuous weather I had encountered the preceding day might be the occasion of all those horrors; and I have since, in some medical author, met with a remark to justify the conjecture. A very slight cause may check that insensible perspiration which is so necessary to health; and when this happens, we cannot expect that our dreams should be so easy as at other times. Let no one, then, be alarmed at an uncommon dream. It is probably nothing more than

* See Number 73.