But the worst Pandemonium which those who indulge in opium suffer, is that of the mind. Opium retains at all times its power of exciting the imagination, provided sufficient doses are taken; but when it has been continued so long as to bring disease upon the constitution, the pleasurable feelings wear away, and are succeeded by others of a very different kind. Instead of disposing the mind to be happy, it acts upon it like the spell of a demon, and calls up phantoms of horror and disgust. The fancy, still as powerful, changes its direction. Formerly it clothed all objects with the light of heaven—now it invests them with the attributes of hell. Goblins, spectres, and every kind of distempered vision haunt the mind, peopling it with dreary and revolting imagery. The sleep is no longer cheered with its former sights of happiness. Frightful dreams usurp their place, till at last the person becomes the victim of an almost perpetual misery. The truth of all this is acknowledged by De Quincey, when writing of the pains of opium. Almost every circumstance becomes transformed into the source of terror. Visions of the past are still present in dreams, but not surrounded by a halo of pleasure any longer. The outcast Ann and the wandering Malay come back to torment him with their continued presence. All this is told in language so graphic, that it would be almost criminal to attempt its description in any other. The Dream of Piranesi is cited as a type of those he now suffered:——“Many years ago, as I was looking over Piranesi’s ‘Antiquities of Rome,’ Coleridge, then standing by, described to me a set of plates from that artist, called his ‘Dreams,’ and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever. Some of these represented vast Gothic halls, on the floor of which stood mighty engines and machinery—wheels, cables, catapults, &c.—expressive of enormous power put forth, or resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceived a staircase; and upon this, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself. Follow the stairs a little farther, and you perceive them reaching an abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who should reach the extremity, except into the depths below. Whatever is to become of poor Piranesi! At least, you suppose that his labours must now in some way terminate. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, on which again Piranesi is perceived, by this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Once again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is descried; and there again, is the delirious Piranesi, busy on his aspiring labours; and so on, until the unfinished stairs and the hopeless Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. With the same power of endless growth and self-reproduction did my architecture proceed in dreams. In the