The fourth is the Insomnium *, which Macrobius represents as some solicitude of an oppressed mind, body, or fortune, which, as it harassed us when awake, so it affects us in our sleep; as for instance, when a lover finds himself possessed or deprived of the object of his affections; or when any one under apprehensions of some insidious enemy seems to have fallen into his power, or to have escaped from it. With respect to the body, when a person filled with wine, or distended with food, fancies. himself either strangled with repletion, or suddenly relieved; or when, on the contrary, a man hungry or thirsty appears to desire, or to seek, or to find, food or liquor: lastly, with respect to fortune, when any one seems, according to his hopes or fears, to be elevated to or degraded from power and high stations.

These dreams were considered by the an cients as especially deceitful and vain †, as

* Ενύπνιον.

† ψευδεῖς ὄνειροι, Sophocles.

leaving no significant impression; they are spoken of by Virgil as those

"Fallacious dreams which ghosts to earth transmit *,”

and are directly opposite to the dreams which Persius describes as

"Visions purg'd from phlegm t,"

and which were considered as sent from the gods, and not proceeding from humours of the body.

Petronius Arbiter, or rather Epicurus, thus describes the Insomnium with discrimination from the oracle.

The fleeting spectres which in dreams arise
Come not from temples, or indulgent skies;

The mind creates them, when its powers uncheck'd
May sport, and leave the body in neglect.

Falsa ad cœlum mittunt insomnia manes. Virgil. Æneid. I. vi. The earth is here mentioned as heaven, in relation to the lower regions, in which the dead were supposed to be.

† Sat. ii. v. lvii.

The hero sees disorder'd legions fly,

And helpless monarchs bath'd in slaughter die,
Renews the war, besieged towns assails,

With sword and flames the lofty fortress scales.
In visionary courts the lawyers spar,

And convicts tremble at th' ideal bar.

Still o'er his hidden gold the miser quakes,

The sportsman still with dogs the woodlands shakes:
The skilful mariner the vessel saves,

Or buffets, from the wreck escap'd, the waves.
All that affection breathes by love is penn'd,
And tokens sent which love delights to send.
Ev'n dogs in sleep the same impression bear,
And tongue the scented footsteps of the hare.
The wretched must the wounds of mis'ry feel,
Though night's still influence on the world should steal *.

Macrobius illustrates the Phantasm, which is the fifth sort, and which is styled Visus by Cicero, as that which takes place between waking and sleeping, as it does in the first clouds of sleep, when the person who begins to doze, thinking himself awake, imagines that he sees forms differing in shape and magnitude from natural objects rushing upon him, and wandering about; or any strange confusion of

* Petron. Arbit. p. 178. Somnia quæ mentes, &c.

things, cheerful or distressing.

Under this class he places the Ephialtes, or night-mare, which common opinion supposes to invade persons when asleep, and to load and incommode them by the weight.

Macrobius represents the Phantasm and the Insomnium as little deserving of attention, conceiving them to furnish no subject of divination or assistance in the discovery of futurity: popular superstition, however, seems to have regarded the night-mare as capable of predicting.

Macrobius, in his description, has not included visions which were supposed to be seen in the day, when the senses were awake, several of which are recorded in the fabulous relations of ancient history, as that of the appearance of Romulus, who is said to have presented himself in glittering armour, and with an aspect more bright and august than when living, to Julius Proculus, a patrician of distinguished character, as he was travelling on the public road, and to have assured him of the future

power and prosperity of Rome*: and another example was furnished in the apparition which appeared to Tarchetius, king of the Albans, and which was feigned to have been the father of Romulus. Those, indeed, come under the general idea of visions, treated of in the second definition of Macrobius, differing from them only as they occurred in the day; but, properly speaking, they should be distinguished as being imparted to persons whose senses were awake.

A more simple distribution of dreams than that of Macrobius was adopted by those who divided them only into two sorts-plain and allegorical: the former including such as exhibited things in their own form the latter such as intimated circumstances under similitudes.

*Plutarch. in Romul.

+ Ibid.

† Θεωρηματικοί — things which appeared in their own likeness.