IV. Ecstatic Somnambulism.—M. Bertrand has given this name to that species which is produced by a high exaltation of the mind, and becomes in a manner infectious by sympathy in such persons as are predisposed and subjected to the same influences. Of this last species, the devotional ecstasis is perhaps the most frequent and the most remarkable ; and this has been supposed to have had some connection with the oracles and other miraculous stories of antiquity. 31. Ber• trend has, however, for obvious reasons, selected his instances from four different periods iu modern times, in each of which the devotional eestasis appeared as a sort of epidemic, and presented symptoms very similar to those occurring in the three former species of somnambulism. The first series of phenomena are those which took place in connection with the burning of the unhappy Graudier on the charge of sorcery at Louditn, in 1634, an account of which may be found in Bayle (' Diet. Hist.,' art. Grandier'); or in the' Hist. des Diables de Loudun,' by a Protestant Refugee, Amst., 1693, 12mo. The next .instances are ex tracted from a scarce work entitled TheStre Satre des Cevennes; and relate to the French Protestants who, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685, went by the name of the Trembleurs des Cevennes,' and were persecuted and massacred in those mountains. The third epidemic broke out at the tomb of the Abbe Paris in the , church of St. 3Iddard, at Paris, about the year 1731. These are
perhaps the most celebrated of all, as having been selected by Hume to oppose to the miracles of the New Testament. The original and authentic account of them was published by 31. Curd de Montgeron, , in a work entitled 'La Vdritd des Miracles °Ores l'Intercessiou de 31. de Pitris,' &c., 2 vols. 4to, 1737,1741 ; and they are examined at some length and with great acuteness by Bishop Douglas, iu his ' Criterion, or Miracles Examined,' &c. To these he has added, , fourthly, some considerations on the state produced in the patients who, towards the end of the last century, were exorcised by a priest , named Gassner, at Ratisbon. An account of these (supposed) infra ' eulous cures is to be found in a work entitled L'Antimagnetisme ; ou Origine, Progthis Decadence, Renouvellement, et Refutation du Magudtisme Animal,' 8vo, Loudres, 1784 (pronounced by M. Delcuze to be the ablest publication that had appeared against the doctrines of Mesmer), which account is extracted from a work called Proc4s-verbal • des Operations Merveillcuses, &c., Isar he blinisare du Sicur Gassner,' • &c., Schillingsfiirst, 1775. is, however, neither these nor many other 1 examples that might be brought forward can be fully noticed here, it ; has been thought sufficient to point out the places where further , information may be procured.