The late Mr. John Holloway, of the bank of England, brother to the engraver of that name, related of himself that being one night in bed with his wife and unable to sleep, he had fixed his eyes and thoughts with uncommon intensity on a beautiful star that was shining in at the window, when he suddenly found his spirit released from his body and soaring into that bright sphere. But, instantly seized with anxiety for the anguish of his wife, if she discovered his body apparently dead beside her, he returned, and re-entered it with _difficulty_ (hence, perhaps, the violent convulsions with which some somnambules of the highest order are awakened). He described that returning, was returning to darkness; and that while the spirit was free, he was _alternately in the light or the dark, accordingly as his thoughts were with his wife or with the star_. He said that he always avoided anything that could produce a repetition of this accident, the consequences of it being very distressing. We know that by intense contemplation of this sort, the dervishes produce a state of ecstasy, in which they pretend to be transported to other spheres; and not only the seeress of Prevorst, but many other persons in a highly magnetic state, have asserted the same thing of themselves; and certainly the singular conformity of the intelligence they bring is not a little remarkable. Dr. Kerner relates of his somnambule, Frederica Hauffe, that one day, at Weinsberg, she exclaimed in her sleep, “Oh! God!” She immediately awoke, as if aroused by the exclamation, and said that she seemed to have heard two voices proceeding from herself. At this time her father was lying dead in his coffin, at Oberstenfeld, and Dr. Fohr, the physician, who had attended him in his illness, was sitting with another person in an adjoining room, with the door open, when he heard the exclamation “Oh, God!” so distinctly, that, feeling certain there was nobody there, he hastened to the coffin, whence the sound had appeared to proceed, thinking that Mr. W——’s death had only been apparent, and that he was reviving. The other person, who was an uncle of Frederica, had heard nothing. No person was discovered from whom the exclamation could have proceeded, and the circumstance remained a mystery till an explanation ensued. Plutarch relates, that a certain man, called Thespesius, having fallen from a great height, was taken up apparently dead from the shock, although no external wound was to be discovered. On the third day after the accident, however, when they were about to bury him, he unexpectedly revived; and it was afterward observed, to the surprise of all who knew him, that, from being a vicious reprobate, he became one of the most virtuous of men. On being interrogated with respect to the cause of the change, he related that, during the period of his bodily insensibility, it appeared to him that he was dead, and that he had been first plunged