In this merciful state, - perhaps a third part of an existence, - the prisoner may be for awhile set free, and the mourner no longer remember that he has cause to weep; the exile may visit the home and the pleasant fields he has left for ever; and the living may once more meet the dead, and forget that they cure the dead. Nor let it be rashly interposed, what boots it that we have such cheering and soothing visions, if we awake and find them all shadows? For we may ask in return, would anyone repel the approach of happy prosperous hours, because they must pass away, and sharpen our after-perception of crosses and sorrows which cannot be kept aloof? In one sense we may say, "is not the past all shadow?" And when we awake from the slumber of death to the realities of a future existence, this life, except for its influence on our destiny, may seem as if it had been spent in one of the many districts of dreamland.

In sickness, no language can exaggerate the blessed exchange, when the frame, racked by pain, shattered by convulsions, cramped by spasms, worn with long hours of restlessness, sometimes worse than actual pain, sinks at last into quiet slumber. So slept Beatrice Cenci; -

"How gently slumber rests upon her face, Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent, Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged. After such torments as she bore last night, How light and soft her breathing comes; But I must shake the heavenly dew of rest From this sweet folded flower."

But lastly, there are benefits over and above this healing operation of sleep. While the bodily organs are infused with new vigour, the sensibility to all delightful influences of earth and sky is redoubled ; and the mental faculties, however borne down by previous toil, are again buoyant and elastic. The reason is cleared and refreshed by mere rest; and the imagination has been supplied with new materials for its operations, so that poets and romance writers have actually sought in sleep and dreams for the replenishing of their stores. But I know scarcely any intellectual advantage derived from sleep, more decided than the healthy tone which it gives to subsequent thought. It cools down the feverish imagination of the evening; sweeps away the flimsy over-subtilized webs of metaphysical speculation; subdues the morbid apprehensions of the over night; and changes the sickly sensibility to human ills,- the shrinking from humanity and its wickedness and infirmities, - for an active sympathy with suffering man, a courageous desire to know the worst, and a robust resolution to encounter whatever may be painful or revolting in the paths of benevolence.

But it is superfluous to dwell upon these points, when we have a passage, from the greatest of poets, that sums up all the benign and healthful influences of sleep: -

" Sleep, the innocent sleep, - Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care; - The death of each day's life, - sore labour's bath; - Balm of hurt minds; great nature's second course; Chief nourisher in life's feast."

[In the foregoing lecture magnetic sleep was barely alluded to. Had we discussed the subject at all, we must have traversed the domains of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance,

Electro-Biology, Electro-Psychology, Etherio-Biology, and what I dare say will be some day called Odylo-Biology ! Dubious regions, dimly-lighted, phantom-peopled ! where

" Truth that is, and truth that seems, Blend in fantastic strife."

To weigh, and sift, and test all the statements and doctrines connected with these subjects, and to determine what should be received, and what rejected, in the marvellous stories familiar to every body through the newspapers and journals, would be a long work, for which I have little leisure, less liking, and no vocation. And I doubt if any thing worthy of observation could be added to the judgment delivered some years ago by Dr. Forbes, in an admirable little work, entitled " Mesmerism True, Mesmerism False."]