When our own Harvey was passing through Dover, on his continental travels, he was unexpectedly detained for a night by the order of the governor. On the next day, news came that the packet, in which Harvey was to have sailed, was lost in a storm; and then it came out, that his excellency had, on the night before his arrival, a phantom of the doctor passing before him, which besought him to detain _his substance_ in Dover for a day. Alderman Clay, of Newark, dreamed twice that his house was on fire. From the second dream, he was induced to quit with his family; and, soon afterwards, it was burned by the engines of Cromwell, which were bombarding the town. For this providential salvation, an annual sermon is preached, and bread given to the poor, in Newark. The lady of Major Griffiths dreamed thrice of her nephew, Mr. D. The first vision imparted his intention of joining a party of his companions on a fishing excursion; the second, that his boat was sinking; the third, that it was actually sunk. At her entreaty, this gentleman was induced to remain on land; and, in the evening, it was learned, that his ill-fated friends had been all drowned, by the swamping of the boat. CAST. I pr’ythee, Astrophel, draw not too largely on our faith; reserve yourself for a struggle, for I see in the glance of Evelyn’s eye, that he has taken up your glove. MORAL CAUSES OF DREAMING. “I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.” MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM. EV. Listen,—it is my turn to speak. Like confirmed insanity, the essence of the dream is usually _a want of balance between the representative faculty and the judgment_; being produced, directly or indirectly, by the excitement of a chain of ideas, rational or probable in parts, but rendered in different degrees extravagant, or illusive, by imperfect association,—as in the dream of the “Opium Eater:”—“The ladies of Charles I.’s age danced and looked as lovely as the court of George IV.; yet I knew, even in my dream, that they had been in the grave for nearly two centuries.” The relative complexity of these combinations includes the two divisions of dreams,—the _plain_, θεωρηματικοι; and the _allegorical_, or images presented in their own form, or by similitude. If we grant that certain faculties or functions of the mind are the result of nervous influence, we can as readily allow that an _imperfection_ of these manifestations shall be the result of derangement of equilibrium in this influence, as the _material_ function of muscle shall be disturbed by primary or secondary disease about the brain; of which we have daily examples among the spasmodic and nervous diseases of the body.