Night, though she dividesb to many the longest part of life, and to almost all the most innocent and happy, is yetc unthankfully neglected, except by those who pervert her gifts.

The astronomers, indeed, expect her with impatience, and felicitate themselves upon her arrival: Fontenelle2 has not failed to celebrate her praises; and to chide the sun for hiding from his view, the worlds which he imagines to appear in every constellation. Nor have the poets been always deficient in her praises: Milton has observed of the Night, that it is “the pleasant time, the cool, the silent.”3

These men may, indeed, well be expected to pay particular homage to night; since they are indebted to her, not only for cessation of pain, but increase of pleasure; not only for slumber, but for knowledge. But the greater part of her avowed votaries are the sons of Luxury; who appropriate to festivity the hours designed for rest; who consider the reign of pleasure as commencing, when day begins to withdraw her busy multitudes, and ceases to dissipate attention by intrusive and unwelcome variety; who begin to awake to joy, when the rest of the world sinks into insensibility; and revel in the soft effluence of flattering and artificial lights, which “more shadowy set off the face of things.”4

Without touching upon the fatal consequences of a custom, which, as Ramazzini5 observes, will be for ever condemned, and for ever retained; it may be observed, that however sleep may be put off from time to time, yet the demand is of so importunate a nature, as not to remain long unsatisfied; and if, as some have done, we consider it as the tax of life, we cannot butd observe it is a tax that must be paid, unless we could cease to be men; fore Alexander6 declared, that nothing convinced him that he was not a Divinity, but his not being able to live without sleep.

To live without sleep in our present fluctuating state, however desirable it might seem to the lady in Clelia, 7 can surely be the wish only of the young or the ignorant; to every one else, a perpetual vigil will appear to be a state of wretchedness, second only to that off the miserable beings, whom Swift8 has in his travels so elegantly described, as “supremely cursed with immortality.”

Sleep is necessary to the happy, to prevent satiety and to endear life by a short absence; and to the miserable, to relieve them by intervals of quiet. Life is to most, such as could not be endured without frequent intermissionsg of existence:9 Homer,1 therefore, has thought it an office worthy of the goddess of wisdom, to lay Ulysses asleep when landed on Phaeacia.

It is related of Barretier,2 whose early advances in literature scarce any human mind has equalled, that he spent twelve hours of the four and twenty in sleep: yet this appears, from the bad state of his health, and the shortness of his life, to have been too small a respite for a mind so vigorously and intensely employed: it is to be regretted, therefore, that he did not exercise his mind less, and his body more; since by this means it is highly probable, that though he would not then have astonished with the blaze of a comet, he would yet have shone withh the permanent radiance of a fixed star.

Nor should it be objected, that there have been many men who daily spent fifteen or sixteen hours in study; for by some of whom this is reported, it has never been done;i others have done it for a short time only; and of the rest it appears, that they employed their minds in such operations, as required neither celerity nor strength; in the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries, or accumulating compilations.

Men of study and imagination are frequently upbraided by the industrious and plodding sons of care, with passing too great a part of their life in a state of inaction. But these defiers of sleep seem not to remember, that though it must be granted them that they are crawling about before the break of day, it can seldom be said that they are perfectlyj awake; they exhaust no spirits, and require no repairs; but lie torpid as a toad in marble, or at least are known to live only by an inert and sluggish loco-motive faculty, and may be said, like a wounded snake, to “dragg their slow length along.”3

Man has been long known among philosophers, by the appellation of the microcosm, or epitome of the world: the resemblance between the great and little world, might by a rational observer be detailed to many particulars; and to many more by a fanciful speculatist. I know not in which of these two classes I shall be ranged; for observing, that as the total quantity of light and darkness, allotted in the course of the year to every region of the earth, is the same, though distributed at various times and in different portions; so, perhaps, to each individual of the human species, nature has ordained the same quantity of wakefulness and sleep; though divided by some into a total quiescence and vigorous exertion of their faculties, and blended by others in a kind of twilight of existence, in a state between dreaming and reasoning, in which they either think without action, or act without thought.

The poets are generally well affected to sleep: as men who think with vigour, they require respite from thought; and gladly resign themselves to that gentle power, who not only bestows rest, but frequently leads them to happier regions, where patrons are always kind, and audiences are always candid, where they are feasted in the bowers of imagination, and crowned with flowers divested of their prickles, and laurels of unfading verdure.

The more refined and penetrating part of mankind, who take wide surveys of the wilds of life, whok see the innumerable terrors and distresses that are perpetually preying on the heart of man, and discern with unhappy perspicuity calamities yet latent in their causes, are glad to close their eyes upon the gloomy prospect, and lose in a short insensibility the remembrance of others miseries and their own. The hero has no higher hope, than that after having routed legions after legions, and added kingdom to kingdom, he shall retire to milder happiness, and close his days in social festivity. The wit or the sage can expect no greater happiness, than that after having harrassed his reason in deep researches, and fatigued his fancy in boundlessl excursions, he shall sink at night in the tranquillity of sleep.

The poets among all those that enjoy the blessings of sleep, have been least ashamedm to acknowledge their benefactor. How much Statius4 considered the evils of life as asswaged and softened by the balm of slumber, we may discover by that pathetic invocation, which he poured out in his waking nights: and that Cowley,5 among the other felicities of his darling solitude, did not forget to number the privilege of sleeping without disturbance, we may learn from the rank that he assigns among the gifts of nature to the poppy; “which is scattered,” says he, “over the fields of corn, that all the needs of man may be easily satisfied, and that bread and sleep may be found together.”

Sleep, therefore, as the chief of all earthly blessings, is justly appropriated to industry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him, who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury: it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquillity.

Sleep has been often mentioned as the image of death; “so like it,” says Sir Thomas Brown,6 “that I dare not trust it without my prayers:” their resemblance is, indeed, apparent and striking;n they both, when they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty; and wise is he that remembers of both, that they can be made safe and happy only by virtue.