occasion, when he asked
for wine, they gave him water, which he drank for wine, and remarked
that his stomach felt the better for it. On a fellow-servant touching
his legs with a stick, the idea arose in his mind that it was a dog, and
he scolded to drive it away; but the servant continuing his game,
Negretti took a whip to beat the dog. The servant drew off when Negretti
began whistling and coaxing to get the dog near him; so they threw a
muff against his legs, which he belaboured soundly.

M. Pigatti watched these proceedings with great attention, and convinced
himself by many trials that Negretti did not use his senses. The
suspension of taste was shown by his not distinguishing between salad
and cake. He did not hear the loudest sound, when it lay out of the
circle of his dreaming ideas. If a light was held close to his eyes,
near enough to singe his eyebrows, he did not appear to be aware of it.
He seemed to feel nothing when they inserted a feather into his
nostrils. The ordinary sensibility of his organs seemed withdrawn.

Altogether, the most interesting case of somnambulism on record, is that
of a young ecclesiastic, the narrative of which, from the immediate
communication of an Archbishop of Bordeaux, is given under the head of
somnambulism in the French Encyclopaedia.

This young ecclesiastic, when the archbishop was at the same seminary,
used to rise every night, and write out either sermons or pieces of
music. To study his condition, the archbishop betook himself several
nights consecutively to the chamber of the young man, where he made the
following observations.

The young man used to rise, to take paper, and to write. Before he wrote
music, he would take a stick and rule the lines with it. He wrote the
notes, together with the words corresponding with them, with perfect
correctness. Or, when he had written the words too wide, he altered
them. The notes that were to be black, he filled in after he had written
the whole. After completing a sermon, he read it aloud from beginning to
end. If any passage displeased him, he erased it, and wrote the amended
passage correctly over the other; on one occasion he had to substitute
the word "_adorable_" for "_divin_;" but he did not omit to alter the
preceding "_ce_" into "_cet_," by adding the letter "_t_" with exact
precision to the word first written. To ascertain whether he used his
eyes, the archbishop interposed a sheet of pasteboard between the
writing