serve with what a sprightliness and alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of speech make unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are but little acquainted with. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity, that we are not sensible when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every one, some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily, that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the compositions of another. I shall, under this head, quote a passage out of the Religio Medici, in which the ingenious author gives an account of himself in his dreaming and his waking thoughts. "We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius. I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardize of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I chuse for my devotions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that has passed. Thus it is observed that men sometimes, upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality." We may likewise observe, in the third place, that the passions affect the mind with greater strength when we are asleep, than when we are awake. Joy and sorrow give us more vigorous sensations of pain or pleasure at this time than any other. Devotion likewise, as the excellent author above mentioned has hinted, is in a very particular manner heightened and inflamed, when it rises in the soul at a time that the body is thus laid at rest. Every man's experience will inform him in this matter, though it is very probable, that this may happen differently in different constitutions. I shall conclude this head with the two following problems, which I shall leave to the solution of my reader. Supposing a man always happy in his dreams, and miserable in his waking thoughts, and that his life was equally divided between them, whether would he be more happy or miserable? Were a man a king in his dreams, and a beggar awake, and dreamt as consequentially, and in as continued unbroken schemes, as he thinks when awake, whether he would be in reality a king or a beggar, or rather whether he would not be both? There is another circumstance, which methinks gives us a very high idea of the nature of the soul, in regard to what passes in dreams; I mean that innumerable multitude and variety of ideas which then arise in her. Were that active and watchful being only conscious of her own existence at such a time, what a painful solitude would her hours of sleep be! Were the soul sensible of her being alone in her sleeping moments, after the same manner that she is sensible of it while awake, the time would hang very heavy on her, as it often actually does when she dreams that she is in such a solitude. But this observation I only make by the way. What I would here remark, is that wonderful power in the soul, of producing her own company upon these occasions. She converses with numberless beings of her own creation, and is transported into ten thousand scenes of her own raising. She is herself the theatre, the actor, and the beholder. This puts me in mind of a saying which I am infinitely pleased with, and which Plutarch ascribes to Heraclitus, "That all men, whilst they are awake, are in one common world; but that each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own." The waking man is conversant in the world of nature; when he sleeps, he retires to a private world that is particular to himself. There seems something in this consideration that intimates to us a natural grandeur and perfection in the soul, which is rather to be admired than explained. I must not omit that argument for the excellency of the soul, which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power of divining in dreams. That several such divinations have been made, none can question, who believes the holy writings, or who has but the least degree of a common historical faith; there being innumerable instances of this nature in several authors, both ancient and modern, sacred and prophane. Whether such dark presages, such visions of the night, proceed from any latent power in the soul, during this her state of abstraction, or from any communication with the Supreme Being, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a great dispute among the learned; the matter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has been looked upon as such by the greatest writers, who have been never suspected either of superstition or enthusiasm. I do not suppose that the soul, in these instances, is entirely loose and unfettered from the body: it is sufficient, if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor entangled and perplexed in her operations, with such motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the machine in its waking hours. The corporeal union is slackened enough to give the mind more play. The soul seems gathered within herself, and recovers that spring which is broke and weakened, when she operates more in concert with the body. The speculations I have here made, if they are not arguments, they are at least strong intimations, not only of the excellency of a human soul, but of its independence on the body; and if they do not prove, do at least confirm these two great points, which are established by many other reasons that are altogether unanswerable. I No. 488. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Quanti empte? Parvo. Quanti ergo? Octo assibus. Eheu! FIND, by several letters which I receive daily, that many of my readers would be better pleased to pay three-half-pence for my paper, than two-pence. The ingenious T. W. tells me, that I have deprived him of the best part of his breakfast; for that, since the rise of my paper, he is forced every morning to drink his dish of coffee by itself, without the addition of the Spectator, that used to be better than lace to it. Eugenius informs me very obligingly, that he never thought he should have disliked any passage in my paper, but that of late there have been two words in every one of them, which he could heartily wish left out, viz. Price Two-pence. I have a letter from a soap-boiler, who condoles with me very affectionately upon the necessity we both lie under of setting a higher price on our commodities, since the late tax has been laid upon them, and desiring me, when I write next on that subject, to speak a word or two upon the present duties on soap. But there is none of these my correspondents, who writes with a greater turn of good sense, and elegance of expression, than the generous Philomedes, who advises me to value every Spectator at six-pence, and promises that he himself will engage for above a hundred of his acquaintance, who shall take it in at that price. Letters from the female world are likewise come to me, in great quantities, upon the same occasion; and as I naturally bear a great deference to this part of our species, I am very glad to find that those who approve my conduct in this particular, are much more numerous than those who condemn it. A large family of daughters have drawn me up a very handsome remonstrance, in which they set forth, that their father having refused to take in the Spectator, since the additional price was set upon it, they offered him unanimously to abate him the article of bread and butter in the tea-table account, provided the Spectator might be served up to them every morning as usual. Upon this the old gentleman, being pleased, it seems, with their desire of improving themselves, has granted them the continuance both of the Spectator and their bread and butter; having given particular orders, that the tea-table shall be set forth every morning with its customary bill of fare, and without any manner of defalcation. I thought myself obliged to mention this particular, as it does honour to this worthy gentleman; and if the young Lady Lætitia, who sent me this account, |