Despair—such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls
      into being—despair alone urged me, after long irresolution, to
      uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted them. It was
      dark—all dark. I knew that the fit was over. I knew that the
      crisis of my disorder had long passed. I knew that I had now
      fully recovered the use of my visual faculties—and yet it was
      dark—all dark—the intense and utter raylessness of the Night that
      endureth for evermore. I endeavored to shriek; and my lips and my parched tongue moved
      convulsively together in the attempt—but no voice issued from the
      cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some
      incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at
      every elaborate and struggling inspiration. The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me
      that they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too,
      that I lay upon some hard substance; and by something similar my
      sides were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured
      to stir any of my limbs—but now I violently threw up my arms,
      which had been lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They
      struck a solid wooden substance, which extended above my person
      at an elevation of not more than six inches from my face. I could
      no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last. And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub
      Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made
      spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I
      felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now
      the Comforter fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned
      triumphant; for I could not help perceiving the absence of the
      paddings which I had so carefully prepared—and then, too, there
      came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist
      earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not within the
      vault. I had fallen into a trance while absent from home—while
      among strangers—when, or how, I could not remember—and it was
      they who had buried me as a dog—nailed up in some common
      coffin—and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some ordinary
      and nameless grave. As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost
      chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in
      this second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous
      shriek, or yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the
      subterranean Night. “Hillo! hillo, there!” said a gruff voice, in reply. “What the devil’s the matter now!” said a second. “Get out o’ that!” said a third. “What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a
      cattymount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken
      without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very
      rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my
      slumber—for I was wide awake when I screamed—but they restored me
      to the full possession of my memory. This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied
      by a friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some
      miles down the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we
      were overtaken by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at
      anchor in the stream, and laden with garden mould, afforded us
      the only available shelter. We made the best of it, and passed
      the night on board. I slept in one of the only two berths in the
      vessel—and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need
      scarcely be described. That which I occupied had no bedding of
      any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches. The distance of
      its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same. I found
      it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my vision—for it
      was no dream, and no nightmare—arose naturally from the
      circumstances of my position—from my ordinary bias of thought—and
      from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my
      senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a long time
      after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the crew of
      the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the load
      itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a
      silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of
      my customary nightcap. The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for
      the time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully—they
      were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for
      their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul acquired tone—acquired temper. I went abroad. I took
      vigorous exercise. I breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought
      upon other subjects than Death. I discarded my medical books. “Buchan” I burned. I read no “Night Thoughts”—no fustian about
      churchyards—no bugaboo tales—such as this. In short, I became a
      new man, and lived a man’s life. From that memorable night, I
      dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and with them
      vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had
      been less the consequence than the cause. There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the
      world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell—but
      the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity
      its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors
      cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful—but, like the Demons in
      whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must
      sleep, or they will devour us—they must be suffered to slumber,
      or we perish. THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM


The garden like a lady fair was cut,
    That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut. The azure fields of Heaven were ’sembled right
    In a large round, set with the flowers of light. The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue. —_Giles Fletcher_. From his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
      Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere
      worldly sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person
      of whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the
      doctrines of Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet—of
      exemplifying by individual instance what has been deemed the
      chimera of the perfectionists.