nd putting the bottle of port, with a white powder
floating at the top of it, into a china bowl, compelled me to drink off
the whole of it. Then, with a look of great and truly motherly
affection, she took her leave of me, telling the two nurses to put
another blanket on me, and to hold me down in the bed if I attempted to
get out.

Then began the raging agony of fever. I felt as one mass of sentient
fire. I had a foretaste of that state which, I hope, we shall all
escape, save one, of ever-burning and never-consuming; but, though
moments of such suffering tell upon the wretch with the duration of
ages, this did not last more than half an hour, when they became
exchanged for a dream, the most singular, and that never will be
forgotten whilst memory can offer me one single idea.

Methought that I was suddenly whisked out of bed, and placed in the
centre of an interminable plain of sand. It bounded the horizon like a
level sea: nothing was to be seen but this white and glowing sand, the
intense blue and cloudless sky, and, directly above me, the eternal sun,
like the eye of an angry God, pouring down intolerable fires upon my
unprotected head. At length, my skull opened, and, from the interior of
my head, a splendid temple seemed to arise. Rows of columns supported
rows of columns, order was piled upon order, and, as it arose,
Babel-like, to the skies, it extended in width as it increased in
height; and there, in this strange edifice, I saw the lofty, the
winding, the interminable staircase, the wide and marble-paved courts;
nor was there wanting the majestic and splashing fountain, whose cool
waters were mocking my scorched-up lips; and there were also the long
range of beautiful statues. The structure continued multiplying itself
until all the heavens were full of it, extending nearly to the horizon
all around.

Under this superincumbent weight I had long struggled to stand. It kept
bearing down more and more heavily upon the root of my brain: the
anguish became insufferable, but I still nobly essayed to keep my
footing, with a defiance and a pride that savoured of impious
presumption. At length I felt completely overcome, and exclaimed, "God
of mercy, relieve me! the burthen is more than I can bear." Then
commenced the havoc in this temple, that was my head, and was not; there
were the toppling down of the vast columns, the crushing of the several
architraves, the grinding together of the rich entablatures