2. Visions of the imagination, built up by the mind itself when it has nothing better to occupy it. The mind cannot be idle, and when it is not occupied by subjects of a useful kind, it will find a resource in those which are frivolous or hurtful,— in mere visions, waking dreams, or fictions, in which the mind wanders from scene to scene, unrestrained by reason, probability, or truth. No habit can be more opposed to a healthy condition of the mental powers; and none ought to be more carefully guarded against by every one who would cultivate the high acquirement of a well-regulated mind.

3. Entirely opposed to the latter of these modes, and distinct also in a great measure from the former, is the habit of following out a connected chain of thoughts on subjects of importance and of truth, whenever the mind is disengaged from the proper and necessary attention to the ordinary transactions of life. The particular subjects to which the thoughts are directed in cultivating this habit, will vary in different individuals; but the consideration of the relative value of them does not belong to our present subject. The purpose of these observations is simply to impress the value of that regulation of the thoughts, by which they can always find an occupation of interest and importance, distinct from the ordinary transactions of life, or the mere pursuit of frivolous engagements; and also totally distinct from that destructive habit, by which the mind is allowed to run to waste amid visions and fictions unworthy of a waking

man.

DREAMS.-STEWART.

Our dreams are frequently suggested to us by bodily sensations and with these, it is well known, from what we experience while awake, that particular ideas are frequently very strongly associated. I have been told by a friend, that having occasion, in consequence of an indisposition, to apply a bottle of hot water to his feet when he went to bed, he dreamed that he was making a journey to the top of Mount Etna, and that he found the heat of the ground almost insupportable. Another person, having a blister applied to his head, dreamed that he was scalped by a party of Indians. I believe every one who is in the habit of dreaming, will recollect instances, in his own case, of a similar nature.

Our dreams are influenced by the prevailing temper of the mind; and vary, in their complexion, according as our habitual disposition, at the time, inclines us to cheerfulness or to melancholy. Not that this observation holds without exception; but it holds so generally, as must convince us, that the state of our spirits has some effect on our dreams, as well as on our waking thoughts. Indeed, in the latter case, no less than in the former, this effect may be counteracted, or modified, by various other circumstances.

After having made a narrow escape from any alarming danger, we are apt to awake, in the course of our sleep, with sudden startings, imagining that we are drowning, or on the brink of a precipice. A severe misfortune, which has affected the mind deeply, influences our dreams in a similar way, and suggests to us a variety of adventures, analogous, in some measure, to that event from which our distress arises. Such, according to Virgil, were the dreams of the forsaken Dido.

-Agit ipse furentem

In somnis ferus Æneas; semperque relinqui
Sola sibi; semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam, et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra."

Our dreams are influenced by our prevailing habits of association while awake.

In a former part of this work, I considered the extent of that power which the mind may acquire over the train of its thoughts; and I observed, that those intellectual diversities among men, which we commonly refer to peculiarities of genius, are, at least in a great measure, resolvable into differences in their habits of association One man possesses a rich and beautiful fancy, which is at all times obedient to his will. Another possesses a quickness of recollection, which enables him, at a moment's warning, to bring together all the results of his past experience, and of his past reflections, which can be of use for illustrating any proposed subject. A third can, without effort, collect his attention to the most abstract questions in philosophy; can perceive, at a glance, the shortest and the most effectual process for arriving at the truth, and can banish from his mind every extraneous idea, which fancy or casual association may suggest to distract his thoughts, or to mislead his judgment. A fourth unites all these powers in a capacity of perceiving truth with an almost intuitive rapidity, and in an eloquence which enables him to command, at pleasure, whatever

his memory and his fancy can supply, to illustrate and to adorn it. The occasional exercise which such men make of their powers, may undoubtedly be said, in one sense, to be unpremeditated or unstudied; but they all indicate previous habits of meditation or study, as unquestionably, as the dexterity of the expert accountant, or the rapid execution of the professional musician.

From what has been said, it is evident, that a train of thought which, in one man, would require a painful effort of study, may, in another, be almost spontaneous; nor is it to be doubted, that the reveries of studious men, even when they allow, as much as they can, their thoughts to follow their own course, are more or less connected together by those principles of association, which their favorite pursuits tend more particularly to strengthen.

The influence of the same habits may be traced distinctly in sleep. There are probably few mathematicians, who have not dreamed of an interesting problem, and who have not even fancied that they were prosecuting the investigation of it with much success. They whose ambition leads them to the study of eloquence, are frequently conscious, during sleep, of a renewal of their daily occupations; and sometimes feel themselves possessed of a fluency of speech, which they never experienced before. The poet, in his dreams, is transported into Elysium, and leaves the vulgar and unsatisfactory enjoyments of humanity, to dwell in those regions of enchantment and rapture, which have been created by the divine imaginations of Virgil and of Tasso.

"And hither Morpheus sent his kindest dreams,
Raising a world of gayer tinct and grace;

O'er which were shadowy cast Elysian gleams,
That play'd, in waving lights, from place to place,
And shed a roseate smile on Nature's face.
Not Titan's pencil e'er could so array,

So fleece with clouds the pure ethereal space;
Nor could it e'er such melting forms display,
As loose on flowery beds all languishingly lay.

No, fair illusions! artful phantoms, no!
My muse will not attempt your fairy land:
She has no colors, that like your's can glow;
To catch your vivid scenes, too gross her hand."

As a farther proof that the succession of our thoughts in dreaming is influenced by our prevailing habits of association, it may be remarked, that the scenes and occurrences which

most frequently present themselves to the mind while we are asleep, are the scenes and occurrences of childhood and early youth. The facility of association is then much greater than in more advanced years; and although, during the day, the memory of the events thus associated, may be banished by the objects and pursuits which press upon our senses, it retains a more permanent hold of the mind than any of our subsequent acquisitions; and, like the knowledge which we possess of our mother tongue, is, as it were, interwoven and incorporated with all its most essential habits. Accordingly, in old men, whose thoughts are, in a great measure, disengaged from the world, the transactions of their middle age, which once seemed so important, are often obliterated; while the mind dwells, as in a dream, on the sports and the companions of their infancy.

I shall only observe farther, on this head, that in our dreams, as well as when awake, we occasionally make use of words as an instrument of thought. Such dreams, however, do re affect the mind with such emotions of pleasure and of pain as those in which the imagination is occupied with particular objects of sense. The effect of philosophical studies, in habituating the mind to the almost constant employment of this instrument, and of consequence, its effect in weakening the imagination, was formerly remarked. If I am not mistaken, the influence of these circumstances may also be traced in the history of our dreams; which, in youth, commonly involve, in a much greater degree, the exercise of imagination, and affect the mind with much more powerful emotions, than when we begin to employ our maturer faculties in more general and abstract speculations.

SIGNS.-SIR H. DAVY.

Poietes. I hope we shall have another good day to-morrow, for the clouds are red in the west.

Physicus. I have no doubt of it, for the red has a tint of purple

Halieus. Do you know why this tint portends fine weather? Phys.-The air, when dry, I believe, refracts more red, or heat-making rays; and as dry air is not perfectly transparent, they are again reflected in the horizon. I have generally observed a coppery, or yellow sunset to fortell rain; but, as an in

dication of wet weather approaching, nothing is more certain than a halo round the moon, which is produced by the precipitated water; and the larger the circle, the nearer the clouds, and consequently the more ready to fall.

Hal.-I have often observed that the old proverb is correct

A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning:
A rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight.

Can you explain this omen?

Phys.-A rainbow can only occur when the clouds containing, or depositing the rain, are opposite to the sun,-and in the evening the rainbow is in the east, and in the morning in the west; and as our heavy rains, in this climate, are usually brought by the westerly wind, a rainbow in the west indicates that the bad weather is on the road, by the wind, to us; whereas the rainbow in the east, proves that the rain in these clouds is passing from us.

Poiet. I have often observed that when the swallows fly high, fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low, and close to the ground, rain is almost surely approaching. Can you account for this?

Hal.-Swallows follow the flies and gnats, and flies and gnats usually delight in warm strata of air; and as warm air is lighter, and usually moister than cold air, when the warm strata of air are high, there is less chance of moisture being thrown down from them by the mixture with cold air; but when the warm and moist air is close to the surface, it is almost certain, that, as the cold air flows down into it, a deposition of water will take place.

Poiet. I have often seen sea-gulls assemble on the land, and have almost always observed that very stormy and rainy weather was approaching. I conclude that these animals, sensible of a current of air approaching from the ocean, retire to the land to shelter themselves from the storm.

Ornither.-No such thing. The storm is their element; and the little petrel enjoys the heaviest gale, because, living on the smaller sea insects, he is sure to find his food in the spray of a heavy wave--and you may see him flitting above the edge of the highest surge. I believe that the reason of this migration of sea-gulls, and other sea birds, to the land, is their security of finding food. They may be observed, at this time, feeding greedily on the earth worms and larvæ, driven out of the ground by severe floods; and the fish, on which they prey in fine