because dreams take place without the knowledge of the dreamer, and there are many cases when the dream is not remembered till long after it has happened. When the dream is not of a terrific nature, and does not rouse us from sleep, it is seldom if ever recalled but by association. If we see or think of any object connected with the dream, it is instantly recalled like other mental impressions; and if such an object should not present itself till after the lapse of years, the train of association which includes the dream is not recalled as a dream, but in the more vague character of some past event, about which we feel that the mind has been previously occupied. This, in short, is the class of thoughts which has given rise to the poetical notion of the pre-existent state of the soul:Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, And cometh from afar.' The second theory, or that of mental excitation, as it may be called, has, under different modifications, been maintained by Sir Henry Wotton, Bonnet, and Cabanis. That the mind never sleeps is admitted by all; and from the fact that many dreams are never remembered, it is equally clear that the operations carried on by the mind during the sleep of the body may never become known to us. These operations may, however, show themselves when the sleep is modified or interrupted by disease or external causes, and their intellectual character may be destroyed by the mixture of impressions made from without. When Dr. Gregory, in his dreams, composed thoughts and clothed them in words, which were 'so just in point of reasoning, and so good in point of language, that he used them in his lectures and in his written lucubrations,' -when Henry Mackenzie composed a parody on the witty epigram of Piron, and satirised a learned society and certain individuals in Edinburgh,-when Condorcet had presented to him in his dreams the final steps of a difficult calculation which had puzzled him during the day,-when Franklin discovered in his sleep the bearings and issue of political events which had baffled his sagacity when awake,-and when Coleridge composed that exquisitely melodious piece of versification, which he calls a psychological curiosity',-it is not easy to admit that operations so purely intellectual had their origin in abdominal or external uneasiness. That the mental operations have not always this character during sleep arises from the connexion of the mind with the body, and from the necessity of all its functions being performed through the organs of sense. The mind cannot retransmit along the nerves of these organs any impressions but those which have been previously transmitted through the same nerves to the brain; and when it is exercising exercising its highest powers during sleep, its combinations and its reasonings may be interrupted or destroyed, or rendered ridiculous, by their admixture with other impressions produced by corporeal excitement. These views receive some sanction from the curious physiological doctrines respecting sleep, which have recently come into repute. Dr. Cullen was the first person who rendered it probable that the different senses and organs sleep successively and with unequal intensity; and M. Cabanis has gone so far as to fix the order in which different parts of the body go to sleep. According to him the muscles of the legs and arms lose their power before those which support the head, and these last sooner than the muscles which sustain the back; and he illustrates this by the cases of persons who sleep on horseback, or while they are standing or walking. He conceives that the sense of sight first sleeps, then the sense of taste, next the sense of smell, next that of hearing, and lastly that of touch. He maintains, also, that the viscera fall asleep one after another, and sleep with different degrees of soundness. If these results are physiologically correct, it is not difficult to understand how the mind is so seldom unfettered in its nocturnal lucubrations; for, while any one of the senses, or any part of these organs is awake, or imperfectly asleep, so as to retain any of their power, the impressions which they are capable of conveying to the brain must be mingled with the operations of the mind so as to produce those strange inconsistencies which characterize the great proportion of our dreams. It is impossible to touch upon this interesting subject without expressing a regret that some able and active mind is not busily employed in its investigation. A rich harvest of discovery can hardly fail to reward the first individual who shall devote to it the vigour of his faculties. Our limits will not permit us to enter into the same analysis of somnambulism, insanity, and spectral illusions. We must, therefore, refer the reader to Dr. Abercrombie's work, where he will find much curious, and at the same time much useful and practical information on those singular states of the mind. The subject of spectral illusions is one of such high interest, that we may be induced to devote a separate article to its illustration. ART. II.-Orain le Rob Donn, &c.-Songs and Poems in the Gaelic Language, by Robert Mackay, the celebrated bard of Lord Reay's country; with a Memoir of the Author. 8vo. Inverness. 1829. WE are tempted to give two or three pages to this production of the Highland press, because, although we make no pretension to skill in the dialect used by Robert Mackay, we con sider sider the English essay prefixed to his poems as interesting in itself, and the production of an author well entitled, on many accounts, to be heard of beyond the limits of his province. It is written by the Rev. Dr. Mackay, minister of Laggan, in Invernessshire, who is described to us as still a very young man, although he has already done more for the language of the Scottish Gael than any other individual of the present, or of the last age, and whose meritorious exertions ought assuredly to have been noticed ere now in the critical journals of his native kingdom. This gentleman has recently had the principal share in preparing a complete dictionary of that dialect of the Celtic which has been spoken time out of mind in the north of Britain: thus performing a service to philology, which, had another generation been allowed to pass away, it is highly probable no man could ever have supplied; and, having finished this Herculean labour, he appears to be proceeding to collect and edit real authentic productions of the Highland muse, with such diligence and fidelity, that soberminded persons, willing to appreciate the efforts of genius, under whatever circumstances developed, and in whatever phraseology conveyed, but long repelled from this particular region of inquiry, by the ravings of indiscriminate credulity on the one hand, and the sneers of sceptical fanaticism on the other, may, we are inclined to think, at length promise themselves something like a resting place. It will say little for the learned doctor's countrymen at large if his efforts are suspended, or turned aside, through the want of adequate support; and we even presume to hint that posterity will complain, if they do not take the first suitable opportunity of transplanting a gentleman whose attainments are so singular, and his objects so curious and important, into some situation less remote from great libraries and the intercourse of the learned, than his present cure among the most desolate wildernesses of Lochaber. He has already, as the dictionary shows, made some progress in more than one of the cognate dialects of the Celtic race; and we are persuaded that if he were fitly encouraged at the present early period of his life, we might fairly look to him, in due season, for a scholar-like analysis, and comparative anatomy, of that family in all its branches-Welsh, Cornish, Armorican,* as well as Irish and Gaelic-thus filling up a hitherto almost hopeless chasm in the general map of the ancient philology of Europe-solving, in all likelihood, various vexed questions concerning the structure and composition of the * We understand there is no doubt of the fact that the Celtic dialect of Brittany bears a far closer resemblance to the Irish and Gaelic than to the Welsh tongue as now spoken. This is one of the many dark matters which remain to be cleared up by some general Celtic scholar-a character to which, it seems to be allowed, no man has hitherto been entitled. 2 B 2 Latin Latin itself—and, it is scarcely to be doubted, furnishing invaluable assistance to the person, whoever that may be, who shall hereafter attempt in fact, what has as yet been but a name, an etymological dictionary of the English language. When we reflect what benefits have already been derived from the institution of an Anglo-Saxon professorship at Oxford, it is impossible not to regret that neither in that nor in the sister university has the foundation of a Welsh chair been thought of. The want of a professorship of the Irish language and antiquities in the only university of Ireland is, no doubt, a circumstance still more discreditable; but, considering the enthusiastic interest which the Scotch have ever taken in the old monuments of their national existence, and the abundance of their academical apparatus for almost all purposes, even that does not surprise us so much as the absence of any Gaelic endowment among their four universities. Surely the numberless Highland and Celtic clubs, of whose proceedings for the improvement of black cattle, and the encouragement of the philabeg, the newspapers are continually reminding us, might do well to set apart a tithe, at least, of their annual funds for an object of such unquestionable importance. There has, we are informed, been of late some grave discussion about the propriety of erecting a Craniological chair in one of these northern seminaries. That invaluable branch of doctrine, however, might, we humbly think, be held, at least for some time to come, in commendam with political economy. At all events its claims ought not to interfere just yet with those of the language, literature, and fast vanishing manners of the Scottish Gael. 6 But we must not allow dictionaries and professorships to carry us out of sight of the celebrated bard of Lord Reay's country,' who perhaps never heard either of a dictionary or a professorship, and of whose existence probably not one out of a thousand among our readers ever heard till now, or ever would have heard at all, but for the accident which introduced a stray copy of this the editio princeps of his Orain' to our desk. This celebrated bard,' whose proper name has yielded to the more familiar and distinctive sound of Rob Donn,' i. e. brown Robert, was born, in the year 1714, at Durness, in the heart of that extensive district in the extreme north of Scotland, which, having been inhabited from a period beyond the reach of history by the clan Mackay, has always been designated, in common parlance, as the country of the Lord Reay,' the chief of that clan, and which may probably continue to be so designated for ages to come, although the whole of it has now passed into the hands of the princely house of Stafford and Sutherland. Napoleon Buonaparte was often heard to say, that in every instance in in which he had been able to trace the history of a distinguished man, he had found him greatly indebted, for whatever made him remarkable, to his mother; and Mr. Moore, after quoting the emperor's dictum, appears to intimate his own suspicion, that, in poetical biography, Lord Byron affords almost a solitary exception to this rule. Rob Donn's mother-the reader may perhaps smile, but no matter-Rob's mother was celebrated in her native district for vigour of understanding, readiness of wit, a memory inexhaustible in stores of Gaelic minstrelsy, skill in recitation, and an exquisite ear for music-while nothing whatever is recorded concerning the father, except that he was an honest herdsman, who early appreciated and took pride in the talents of his son. We have here almost a double of Burns's parentage; and by turning over Johnson's Lives of the Poets, any one may readily help himself to a score of parallel passages. Rob Donn was born and reared in a region almost as remote in manners as in language from that with whose peculiarities the genius of Burns has made southern readers familiar. Although his talents excited much attention even in early childhood, he never received a particle of what is (too exclusively) called education-he never knew his alphabet; but the habits of oral recitation were in vigour all about him, and ere he marked himself man, he had laid in a prodigious stock of such lore as had, from time immemorial, constituted the intellectual wealth of his countrymen. His knowledge of Highland traditions, legends, and ballads of all sorts, was quite extraordinary; and-Sunday in that quarter really coming aboon the pass,'-he mastered in time a more intimate acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures, though accessible to him only through extempore translations (in those days no Gaelic Bible had been printed), than perhaps falls to the share of many persons who may smile at our simplicity in taking any notice of such a barbarian.' The reverend editor quotes in his preface a letter written so lately as 1828, by a lady of the clan, well acquainted with the deceased bard's family and connections, in which this passage occurs :— I have of late frequently heard strangers express their surprise at the marked intelligence evinced in the works of a man devoid of every degree of early cultivation. To this it may be answered, that the state of society was very different then, from what it is now, progressively retrograding, as it has been, for the last thirty years at least, in this country. In the bard's time, the lords, lairds, and gentlemen of this country, not only interested themselves in the welfare and happiness of their clan and dependants, but they were always solicitous that their manners and intelligence should keep pace with their personal appearI perfectly remember that my grandfather would every postday evening go into the kitchen where his servants and small ance. tenants |