but less licentious in morals, than most of the islanders of the South Seas, and the other savages of that part of the globe. They are described such as they are: the voyager neither attempts, like Bougainville, and the early visiters of Otaheite, to adorn his savages with the elegance and taste of Arcadian simplicity; nor does he dwell with complacent vanity on his own exploits, like Valiant among the Hottentots-a second Gulliver in Lilliput.

As Jewitt understood their language, and was finally adopted in. to the nation, his account of the religious opinions and worship, the manners, customs, and government of the Nootka savages, is curious and satisfactory. These are subjects upon which the traveller, who is ignorant of the language of the people whom he describes, and new to their usages, is liable to the grossest mistakes. We see this every day in the ludicrous blunders which Frenchmen, and other foreigners make, with respect to our own laws and customs; and how much more strongly do all these causes of error operate where there is no sort of community, in manners or religion, to guide conjecture. We do not wish to give a disproportionate importance to this unassuming little volume, and shall therefore abstain from extract or analysis. It is proper, however, to state, that there is scarce any relation of savage manners which can lay higher claim to authenticity, than this simple narration. The facts are undoubted, and the book was prepared for the press by a literary gentleman of Connecticut, who has scrupulously abstained from all digression or embellishment of style, and restricted himself to a plain relation of the story in simple and correct language.

The form and size of the volume afford pretty strong proof that arts of literary manufacture are yet in their infancy among us. If by any chance these materials had fallen into the hands of one of the regularly-bred literary artisans of London, the lean narrative would have been larded and stuffed out with sonnets, sentiments, and philosophy, with digressions and disquisitions political, commercial, and economical, until at length, "Jewitt's Voyages and Travels" were fit to be ushered to the world in full pomp of quarto typography. The very mention of the name of Kinneclimmets, the Climmerhabee of his Nootkian majesty, an officer who discharges the double duties of poet laureat and court wit, and whose sole

business is to amuse the King and his subjects with monkey tricks and buffoonery, would have naturally led to an examination of the relative merits of the English comic writers of the present age, and a discussion of the peculiar excellences of Dibdin, Cherry, Reynolds, Morton, and George Colman the Younger. A still more favourable opportunity for digressing would be found in Mr. Jewitt's account of the Nootkian orators, of whom he observes, "that in speaking they appear to be in the most violent rage, acting like so many maniacs, foaming at the mouth, and spitting most furiously; but this, says he, is rather a fashion with them, than a demonstration of malignity, as, in their public speeches, they always use the same violence, and he is esteemed the greatest orator who bawls the loudest, stamps, tosses himself about, foams, and spits the most." This would of course have led to a disquisition on the present state of parliamentary and political eloquence in Great Britain and the United States.

It would have been well if this were all; for, as our worthy armourer relates with grave simplicity, that Yealthlower, the king's eldest brother (a royal duke we presume) came to him, for his the purpose of getting his teeth filed sharp, in order to bite off wife's nose, your thorough book maker could never have lost so glorious an opportunity to dilate this little matrimonial squabble, into a "Genuine Book" of the Nootkian court, for the improvement of the morals and taste of the British and American public, and the edification of those who are desirous of prying into the present state of royal and noble morals, in every quarter of the globe.

Our Connecticut Redacteur has done much better; by scrupulously adhering to the simple truth, he has made a book which, while it may communicate a good deal of entertainment and information to all classes of readers, is peculiarly fitted for the perusal of the young; it forms, in fact, a very appropriate companion to Robinson Crusoe. It is, to be sure, not so entertaining that was an advantage not to be obtained without bold deviation from real facts; but it is written in the same unaffected, perspicuous, and pleasing style, and though the writer never indulges in reflections or general remarks, a serious air of piety and morality reigns through the whole,

497

Devotional Somnium, or a collection of prayers and exhor tations, uttered by Miss Rachel Baker, during her abstracted and unconscious state, to which pious and unprecedented exercises, is prefixed an Account of her Life, &c. &c. By several Medical gentlemen. 12mo. pp. 288. New-York, Van Winkle & Wiley.

THE mysterious and unaccountable phenomena of dreaming, together with the kindred illusions of delirium and insanity, have long been the torment of honest metaphysical inquirers after subtile and recondite truth; while those sceptical philosophers, who have no other object than to puzzle and perplex, have found in them an inexhaustible stock of arguments" of exceeding good command," (as Corporal Bardolph phrases it,) and of admirable use to argue young metaphysicians out of all faith in their own

senses.

The last and greatest puzzle of this kind, with which we are acquainted, was invented-or, if not invented, at least revived with great effect, by the Edinburgh Reviewers.* Dreaming and delirium, say they, appear to afford a sort of experimentum crucis, to demonstrate that a real external existence is not necessary to produce sensation and perception in the human mind. Is it, then, utterly absurd and ridiculous to maintain, that all the objects of our thoughts may be "such stuff as dreams are made of?" or that the uniformity of nature gives us reason to presume that the perceptions of maniacs and of rational men are manufactured like their organs out of the same materials?

We believe that the immaterial philosophy is rather of too fine a texture to have become very popular among a people so immersed in matter and money making as we are; but if, perchance, these ingenious arguments have staggered any of our countrymen in their faith of the actual existence of a material external world, we would briefly suggest to them, that these considerations, iu fact, prove nothing more than the bare possibility of our being in

* Edinburgh Review of Stewart's Life of Reid, Vol. 3.

an habitual state of delusion, constantly mistaking mere impres sions on the senses, or the phantoms of thought and imagination, for real and present existence and of such a possibility, no man who believes in the omnipotence of his creator, could well have doubted. But, as to any farther consequence, it does not seem very sound logic to argue, from this assumed uniformity of nature, that, what takes place in a certain state of the mind and body, must, or even probably may, take place, in another state, which the consent of all mankind agrees in considering as altogether dif ferent. It is attempting to prove from a solitary and temporary delusion, in which no other individual participates, and which the subject himself soon perceives to have been a delusion, that those universal and constant perceptions, in which all men concur through their whole lives, are also delusions. This is substituting the exception in place of the general rule. It would be as wise to infer from the errors and imperfections of memory, that we have no power of treasuring up, or recalling the past; or, from the mistakes produced by optical deceptions, that no reliance is to be placed upon our acquired power of judging, by the eye, of magnitude and distance.

Thus much for the general argument: but if any individual is in doubt, about his own particular case, and wishes to satisfy himself whether he is awake or not, and whether he has not bees dreaming all his life, we fear reason will not help him out of his difficulty. He must call in his own consciousness to his aid, and settle the matter for himself; like honest master Launce, in a similar perplexity about his own identity, after a little puzzling, he will come right at last: "I am the dog-No, the dog is himself, and I am the dog-No, the dog is me, and I am myself."

But, alas! ill fares the man who wanders from the regions of common sense into metaphysic land; difficulties, doubts, and objections rise, upon every side, as fast and as numerous as the dragons, hydras, gorgons, and walls of fire, which used to start up to impede the heroes of romance, in their adventures on enchanted ground, until, at length, the hapless inquirer surrenders himself, without a struggle, to the tyrant sway of the Lord of Doubting Castle. Scarcely have we groped our way through the mists of speculative scepticism, when we are encountered by a volume

of sturdy facts, supporting a system of medical metaphysics, which again send us back to doubt and uncertainty. The doubt is now, not as to the truth of our own perceptions, or the reality of an external world, but whether those who live, and move around us-the politicians, the divines, the men of business, the wits, the belles, who rule, and instruct, and animate the world, are awake or asleep. And this is a pretty serious practical difficulty shall we punish the criminal for a crime which, perhaps, he committed in an unconscious state? how unjust! Can we enforce the contract entered into by a merchant who was doing business in his sleep? Can we censure the beauty for rejecting the suitor upon whom she had smiled, when in a state of Somnium.

We have before noticed the case of Miss Rachel Baker. This young woman is an uneducated, but pious and virtuous, member of the Baptist church. Every evening, upon her retiring to rest, she is seized by a slight spasmodic agitation, which soon goes off, and she begins to pray and preach in a distinct and audible tone, which she continues for about an hour. Her sermons are strictly conformable to the general faith of the reformed communions; she cites scripture readily, and appositely, and her style and matter are about as good as the ordinary run of pulpit discourses. She pours forth her elocution in a fluent and rapid stream; but when called by her name stops, listens to any question, and replies, always turning the subject to some religious use. The circumstances of the case are described in an introductory paper, by Dr. Mitchill, with all the perspicuity and circumstantiality for which that learned gentleman is so remarkable.*

The young lady soon attracted public attention, and for three years she continued every night to astonish and edify numerous assemblages of hearers by her nocturnal discourses. During the whole of this time, there was no attempt to build any peculiar system of religious faith upon the credit of this prodigy, nor was it turned to any purpose of private emolument.

Indeed, such was the impression which Rachel produced upon many of her most sober and discreet auditors, that had she thought fit to lay claim to divine inspiration, and to assume the

For a more minute account of the particular circumstances of this case, we re fer the reader to an abridgment of Dr. M.'s paper in our January number, P. 84.