“Et canis in somnis leporis vestigia latrat.” And Lucretius has left us a very comprehensive poetical account of the dreams of brutes. Even Chaucer refers to these dreams; and in the Hall of Branksome, “The stag-hound, weary with the chace, Urged in dreams the forest race.” It is probable that the dreams of brutes are very _short_. From simple, unassociated memory, too, springs the dream of the _infant_; pure and innocent as the thought of a cherub. For delight is the common feeling of a dreaming child; and when its lips are touched in sleep, the memory of its mother’s bosom will excite its lips and tongue to the congenial action of suction, though a fright of the previous day will change its slumbers into moments of terror, and it will murmur and cry in its dream. I believe it is Sir H. Wotton who lays much stress on the adoption of _plans of education_ for a child, grounded on the discovery of its secret thoughts during its simple somniloquent dream. CAST. It is wonderful how vividly are revived in our dream those scenes of our early life, which our waking efforts could not recollect. This did not escape Chaucer, as I remember in Dryden’s version of a fable: “Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind, Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind. The nurse’s legends are for truths receiv’d, And the man dreams but what the boy believ’d. Sometimes we but rehearse a former play, The night restores our actions done by day.” EV. Yet do not associate this brilliancy of infantine reminiscence with _vigour_ of the thought. The brain in children is, as it were, like wax, _easily impressible_. And remember, the _ideas_ of children are more resembling the _imperfect_ associations of our dreams; the tutorage of our advancing mind fills it with more serious and rational images characterized by judgment. The first impressions of childhood are bright as fancy; so that we think in waking more of things present. But, in dreams of things long agone there is, in fact, no complete oblivion, in a healthy mind, for any one of our infantile impressions _may_ chance to be brought to us in our dream. But if impression be intense, it may assimilate that of childhood, and become as permanent. My friend, Dr. Uwins, told me of a patient who, in a joke, once amused himself by throwing stones at the gibbeted pirates on the bank of the Thames. An epileptic tendency succeeded; and ever after this, his dreams were of gibbets and chains, and to that degree, that his judgment and philosophy were powerless in controlling his fears. And in the book of the Prussian, Greding, we read of J. C. V., a youth, who, in his eighth year, had been attacked by a dog. His future, and, indeed, nightly dreams, were of this creature, and these so intense, as to reduce his health to a very low degree.