and those other disorders of a more active kind which attend inflammation of the brain, and are known as frenzy, if closely studied and acutely analysed, would doubtless supply us with data applicable to the unsound mind more properly so called

SECTION IV.-SOMNAMBULISM.

IF it be true that Dreaming and Insanity are conditions nearly allied; if, so to say, dreaming is a brief insanity in repose, and insanity a prolonged dream blended with more or less of waking activity, what shall we say of that strange state known as Somnambulism ? Sleep-walking in its most highly developed form is an "acted dream," which carries into effect some design previously formed in the waking state, or follows out some train of thought which had engrossed the attention; or it transacts business and performs all the routine duties of some office or post with the utmost regularity and exactness.

A young French peasant has set his heart on gathering grapes in a vineyard at a distance from his house: he rises in the night and accomplishes his purpose. An apothecary leaves his bed, goes down to the shop, and weighs out medicine to supposed customers, with whom he converses. A man-servant, asleep on a bench in the kitchen, first talks, then walks about, then goes to the dining-room, arranges the table for dinner, and places himself behind a chair, plate in hand, waiting on his When he thinks that his master has dined, he clears the table, puts the food in a basket, and locks it in a cupboard. Then he warms a bed, locks up the

master.

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house, and retires to rest. A man known to Prichard is in the habit of attending a weekly market: he rises from bed, saddles his horse, and proceeds on his journey as far as a turnpike, and, finding the gate shut, he awakes. The frequenter of a public promenade, which extends for a mile on the brow of a hill, rises from his bed at night, and walks along the road in his shirt. On his way he stops frequently to greet and converse with persons whom he is in the habit of meeting there.

Such cases as these might be multiplied to any extent; nor are those at all uncommon in which the actors are scholars and persons of education, puzzling while awake over problems which find their solution during a fit of sleep-walking. We have the following cases on good authority.

A distinguished Scottish lawyer had been consulted about a case of great difficulty and importance, which he studied closely and anxiously for several days. One night his wife saw him rise from bed, seat himself at a writing desk, write a long paper, put it in his desk, and return to bed. Next morning he told her that he had dreamt of delivering a luminous opinion on a case which had greatly perplexed him; and that he would give anything to recover the train of thought which had passed before him. She directed him to his desk, where he found the opinion clearly and fully written out. This case is related by Abercrombie on the authority of the lawyer's family. The next case is given by Carpenter as also resting on good authority.

A banking-house once gave to a Dutch professor of

mathematics a question to solve, which required a long and difficult calculation. He first tried it himself several mistake; so he handed it One of these attacked the

times, but never without over to ten of his pupils. problem with great vigour, but more than once without success. Late in the night which preceded the day fixed for the giving in of the answers, he went to bed baffled and tired. But, in the morning, most strange to relate, he finds a paper on his desk, in his own handwriting, on which the problem is solved without a single blunder. He had calculated the problem in his sleep and in the dark. It was singularly clear and condensed, and the professor himself declared that he had never thought of a solution so simple and concise. I am indebted to the same authority, Dr. Carpenter, for a third case of the same kind.

A student of divinity was required to compose a discourse on a given text of Scripture. He felt unequal to the task, fell into a state of nervous agitation, and on the evening of the day appointed for the delivery of the discourse composed something with which he was "utterly disgusted," went to bed, and fell asleep. He then dreamed of a novel mode of treating his subject, awoke, and leaped out of bed to commit his thoughts to paper. But, on opening his desk, he finds them already written out, in his own writing, the ink hardly dry. In this case, then, there must have been two identical dreams rapidly following each other; the one acted and forgotten, the other remembered; and this second dream, occupying the time required for a literary work

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of some length, flashes through the mind while the ink with which the last sentences were written is drying.

These, again, are cases which might be largely multiplied, and reinforced by others strictly analogous. So that (to repeat Dr. Carpenter's summary), “A mathematician will work out a difficult problem; an orator will make a most effective speech; a preacher will address an imaginary congregation with such earnestness and pathos as deeply to move his real auditors; a musician will draw forth most enchanting harmonies from his accustomed instrument; a poet will improvise a torrent of verses: a mimic will keep the spectators in a roar of laughter at the drollness of his imitations."

The cases just cited are, as I have said, instances of Somnambulism in its highly developed form; outlines of cases elsewhere given in greater detail. Its lessdeveloped phases consist in changes of posture, feeble attempts at escape or resistance under the oppression of nightmare; muttering, talking, and conversing in sleep; re-wording the transactions of the previous day; resuming one night the spoken dream of the previous one; strange imitations, too (as of conversations and musical performances, rendered with marvellous accuracy and exquisite taste, by a servant-girl, dull and awkward when awake); and such odd jumbling of ideas as was shown by a scholarly friend of mine, who would get out of bed and shake the curtains violently, and when asked what he was doing, reply that he was driving nouns, verbs, and other parts of speech out of their hiding-places.