An Essay on the Incubus, or Night-mare

The cover has been created by the transcriber from elements in the book and has been placed in the public domain.
By JOHN BOND, M. D.
Ac velut in somnis oculos ubi languida pressit
Nocte quies, necquicquam avidos extendere cursus
Velle videmur, et in mediis conatibus ægri
Succidimus; non Lingua valet non corpore notæ
Sufficiunt vires, nec vox nec verba sequuntur.
Virgil. Æneid. xii.
LONDON: Printed for D. Wilson and T. Durham, at Plato’s Head, in the Strand. MDCCLIII.
To his Excellency ARTHUR DOBBS, Esquire, Governor and Captain General of the Province of North Carolina.
SIR,
YOUR extensive knowlege in every branch of useful and polite literature will sufficiently justify the propriety of this address, though it offers to your acceptance and protection an Essay merely medical. Besides, the subject I have chosen is in a great measure new, and must, I think, if successfully treated, prove highly useful. It seems therefore peculiarly intitled to your patronage, who are so judicious, so generous, and so zealous a promoter of every discovery which may tend to the public good. I shall not trespass farther on your patience, with the usual apologies of young Authors; nor on your modesty, with the trite panegyrics of Dedicators: the whole tenour of your life has render’d such encomiums superfluous; for you have always pursued the shortest and the surest road to fame, the real esse quod videri velis .