hysteria and catalepsy. It resembles reverie; though this is so moderate in the present case, that the train of thought may be changed by interrogatories, without rousing her. It is allied to somnambulism; though she remains in a decumbent posture with her eye-lids constantly shut. It would not be incorrect to liken it to the common though, curious phenomena of dreaming. Strictly its name is Somniloquism; at least as far as speaking goes. The actual condition of her faculties has such an affinity to reverie, somnambulism and dreaming, as to induce a conviction that it is a kindred malady, or an affection of the bodily and mental powers nearly associated with them, or with one or more of the other diseases mentioned in this paragraph.

It is reported that the habitation of the patient's father was frequently opened to travelling preachers, from the days of her childhood to the commencement of her present malady. With a constitution readily susceptible of religious impressions, and a correct and retentive memory, she appears to have treasured up a large proportion of the words and phrases uttered in her presence by her spiritual teachers, She can read; but not with ease, or freedom. It may therefore be presumed that her ideas were derived in a great measure from the public exhibitions; and that they have been continued and renewed by constant applications. While these impressions were deepest, the age of puberty arrived, a period when the female frame acquires additional sensibilities, and undergoes a peculiar revolution. For a while she doubted whether she had any participation in the great work of redemption. During this period her parents remarked that her exercises were gloomy and desponding. At length she received consolation; and her nightly performances immediately became sprightly and cheerful. The love of her Maker was now quickened into a lively emotion; and her desire to be near him was followed by an admission into the society of his adorers. The attendance on worship,

which with most children is an affair of obedience or imitation, was now become in her a matter of desire and duty.

Her docile and susceptible mind has undoubtedly been moulded and conformed by the power of habit. She has acquired modes of thinking and of acting which recur at periodical times; and like some other diseases, without either volition or consciousness. If the paroxysm be compared to those of the hysteric, or as some pathologists may suppose of the epileptic kind; like them it effaces all knowledge of herself, and recollection of occurrences during the fit. In this state, she possesses a distinct recollection of all her religious information. She goes further. She exercises the faculty of invention, by combining her ideas in new ways, by pronouncing discourses infinitely diversified amidst the sameness of topics, and of uttering some phrases and metaphors that are peculiar to herself. And yet she forgets that she ever exerted this recollection, or made any use of her inventive powers. The condition of her sensorium is such, that devotional trains of thinking are presented to her, and she gives utterance to them in words. In the main, they are very similar to those she has been accustomed to hear. From these they differ about as much as glowing and connected dreams vary from waking thoughts. These images never would offer themselves during her wakeful state, on account of the occupation of her mind and body in other pursuits. But when the will ceases to preside, the latent impressions gain a temporary ascendancy, run their round and disappear.

Perhaps, the most extraordinary trait in her case, is the readiness and aptness with which she answers the questions by which the bye-standers interrupt the current of her thoughts. On the principal part of these however, there may be observed a profound submission of every thing to the disposal and government of the Most High; without entering into moral, political, or economical details. Such general re

plies of humility and reverence are the easiest of all to give, and are of no particular or individual application when analyzed. They are in their matter and composition remarkably similar, in this respect, to the exercises when they proceed without interruption. They have a strong tincture of the same quality.

To comprehend the present case, let a few facts be stated, not from the books of metaphysics or medicine, but from real life.

A young woman is now living, who has been known to feel a most imperative call to go forth and preach to her neighbours and acquaintance. It has happened, that on these occasions, the missionary has suffered strong and regular hysteria. After a few days, the paroxysm usually abates, she gets well and loses the inclination and ability to be a minister of the word. She has experienced about a dozen of such fits of religious hysterics.

A layman who is accustomed to attend regularly the worship of a christian society, has acquired the habit of rising from bed and of praying and preaching during his sleep. This man is a steady, moderate, and respectable attendant; but has never experienced the call, of conversion. His exercises are consonant to those he has been accustomed to hear. He is wholly unconscious of every thing relating to them ; or in other words, he has no recollection of any such consciousness. They have this peculiarity, that when he has ended his sermon, he gives notice to his supposed audience, that the next meeting, for the special purpose he assigns, will be held at a particular hour of a day which he mentions. He is never troubled with a fit until the proposed time arrives. He never fails to observe his own adjournments, and always with the utmost punctuality. The periods of his oxysm are regulated by his own prescription at a preceding meeting. Always before the dismissal, he announces the time of the future meeting. He has been under this diseased habit for several years, and is in other respects well. His place of performance is the upper window of his house.

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A man not attached to any religious society, had serious meditations of his own. W hen volition was lost and consciousness suspended by sleep, he performed the exercises of prayer to God and exhortation to men with zeal and fervour. The paroxysm was renewed nightly; the time a little after he fell asleep; the attitude, that of kneeling in his bed. He knows nothing of these transactions but by information from those who have attended him. Being rather unrestrained in his religious opinions, he owns himself afflicted and ashamed on being told that he has become a preacher in his sleep.

During a calamitous war, a farmer buried some pieces of gold in his field. He forgot the spot, and sought his hidden treasure, until he despaired of success. The loss dwelt upon his mind night and day, and gave him perpetual uneasiness. At length, about fifteen years after the concealment of the money, he rose at night from his bed in a fit of somnambulism, and went forth to the field. In a short time he returned with the guineas in his hand. Being observed to be in a sleep-walking condition, he was waked by his wife and brought to his senses. His surprise was extreme on discovering his situation. And he immediately related to her and the family the dream by which he was instructed where to find the precious metal, which he produced in proof of the correctness of his recollection during that dream.

A boy very much exercised by somnambulism, fell asleep one day in the religious meeting he was attending. During that sleep, his somnambulism invaded him. It continued through the rising of the meeting, and during his walk to his lodgings. He then ate his dinner, went to school (it was a week day) and performed several tasks in calculation. After he done these and various other things, he suddenly applied his hand to his forehead, rubbed his eyes and waked up. He instantly enquired if the meeting was dismissed, and said he was ashamed of having fallen asleep. He had a belief that he was yet in the meet

ing; and had lost all recollection of events from the moment of falling asleep until the instant of coming to himself in the school. He had no recollection whatever of taking food, walking and talking, or of making calculations in Arithmetic.

I know a man who is addicted to talking in his sleep. His conversation generally turns upon the business he follows. He rattles on and discourses

without the smallest reserve. The fit commonly takes him in bed. Whenever his wife finds the soliloquy troublesome, she speaks loud to him, shakes him and wakes him. Then he ceases to speak, and once more goes quietly to sleep. If, on the contrary, the lady wishes to bear him further, she asks him questions in a gentle tone, and he discloses to her overy thing he knows. He has not the faintest recollection afterwards of any thing he has said.

It would be easy for one to write more ofthese living occurrences by way of elucidation. Abundance of them are extant, offering themselves to him who will gather and record them. While they convince us that we have much to learn on the intricate subject of the mind, they assure us too that we have made important advances into this department of knowledge. The examples adduced are sufficient to illustrate the two conditions of the sensorium, first, when the ima ges excited are those of the memory chiefly; and secondly, when in addition thereto, there is a degree of hallucination.

Miss B's case, combines the strong ideas of memory, with probably stronger hallucinations, especially of the organ of sight. This sense more than any other, is active in dreaming. Hence it has happened that extatic emotions, mental abstractions, trances, and a configuration of the sentient extremities, of the optical nerves from external causes, similar to that configuration usually induced by external agents, have been denominated VISIONS. They are so called because the eyes are peculiarly concerned. Visions are usually accompanied with a belief of their own re