CAST. _I_ can illustrate this question from the recollection and knowledge of an ancestor of my own. Early on a morning, an immense number of foot-prints were observed by the men about a gate (on a farm in Sussex), which were not there _overnight_. On their return the servant girl was relating her _dream_; that she was told the cows had got into a wrong field, and that she had gone out, opened the gate, and driven them back. And I remember reading that a young gentleman of Brenstein was seen to rise, get out of his window on the roof, and take a brood of young magpies from their nest, and wrap them in his cloak. He then returned quietly to his bed, and in the morning _related his dream_, to his two brothers. They had slept with him, and had witnessed this feat, of which he would not be persuaded until they showed him the birds in his cloak. I interrupt you, Evelyn. EV. It is evident, as in dreams, and in rare cases of disease, that the mind of the somnambulist is often a contrast to its waking faculty. The memory will leap over intervals. Dr. Dyce records an illustration of this. A girl, _in a state of somnambulism_, was taken to church, and wept at the subject of the sermon. She never adverted to this impression when she awoke; nor could she be brought to recollect it until, in her _next sleeping paroxysm_, she spoke of it distinctly. In delirium, also, we see these intervals of thought. The patient will commence a subject in the delirious state; when this has subsided, the subject is dropped. In the _next attack_ of delirium it will again be started, ay, and at the very point, even _the word itself_, at which it was broken off. We read, in an American journal, that a man, previous to an attack of mania which lasted _several years_, had placed his work tools in the hollow of a tree. To them no allusion was made during the period of his disorder. When, however, this passed off, he directed his son to fetch them, believing that he left them _only yesterday_. In the same book, too, we learn of that lady who became maniacal as she was engaged in needle-work. For seven years she thought not of this; but directly she recovered, she asked for her needle-work and canvass. The same may occur in intoxication also, which _is_ but another form of delirium. In Mr. Combe’s work we are told of a drunken man who left a parcel at a wrong house. When _sober_, he recollected nothing of the circumstance; but when _again intoxicated_, he soon remembered his error, and reclaimed the parcel. ASTR. These cases form high contrasts with Hamlet’s proof of insanity: ——“Bring me to the test, And I the matter will reword, which madness Wou’d gambol from.”