ASTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound sleep? Was it not the opinion of Berkley, that the mind even then was _percipient_? How else can we account for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour? If we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with fatigue, so strong an impression is produced in our mind, that the breaking of our sleep is almost at the given moment. EV. I will answer you at present, Astrophel, only by analysis; it is not yet time to _explain_. I may grant that there is some _latent_ effect,—_passive_ memory, if you will,—for we do not _count_ the hours in sleep, and calculate our time _by the clock_; but we wake, and soon the bell strikes. We have on record some very curious instances of the periodical recurrence of ideas in a waking state, the measurement of time being referrible to mental impression, mechanically established by constant habit. There was an idiot once, who was in the habit of amusing himself constantly by counting the hours as they were struck on the clock. It chanced, after some time, that the works of the clock were injured, so that the striking for a time had ceased. The idiot, notwithstanding, continued to measure the day with perfect correctness, by counting and beating the hour. This is a story of Dr. Plott’s, in his History of Staffordshire. There is one of more modern date, somewhat analogous to this. I may quote Holy Writ in support of this passive condition of true sleep; nay, even its similitude to death. How often do we find allusions to sleep and death as synonymous! Sir Thomas Brown was impressed so deeply with this _likeness_, that he “did not dare to trust it without his prayers.” And the Macedonian, who wished for more worlds to conquer, confessed his sleep proved to him his mortality. I may quote ancient poetry also in my support. Homer and Virgil describe sleep as the “Brother of Death;” and, among the profane poets of later times, the same sublime association is traced of this “Mortis imago—et simulacrum.” Among the ancient allegories, sleep is portrayed as a female, with black unfolded wings,—in her left hand, a white child, the image of Sleep; in her right, a black child, the image of Death. On the tomb of Cypselus, according to Pausanias, _night_ is thus personified. CAST. How true, then, was the thought of the first deep sleeper, on the sensation of slumber:— “——There gentle sleep First found me, and with soft oppression seiz’d My drownéd sense, untroubled; tho’ I thought I then was passing to my former state, Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve.” But how fearful is this resemblance which changes “tir’d nature’s sweet restorer” into a type of death! Pr’ythee, Evelyn, do not affright me thus, by clothing sleep with terror, as if it were disease and danger.