be a proper distribution of time for grown-up young ladies. Idleness, late rising, engender melancholy; romantic notions are the rocks to be avoided; they are fatal to purity of mind and manners. Diana, when a huntress, was chaste; pensive and indolent, she became enamoured of Endymion.

Sleep should be calm and deep; exercise alone can render it so. After an idle day, a sleepless night generally ensues; how many useless thoughts may then intrude on an active mind and sensitive heart.

A wholesome bed, and well aired apartment, are essentially important, and it is advisable for children to sleep alone, but on no account with elderly people; it may be greatly to the advantage of the latter, but decidedly injurious to youth. There are instances in the Bible, of the health of young women being sacrificed to old age, of which the advice given to king David is an example.

Millin de La Courvault relates, that a poor girl, of fifteen, slept in the same bed with her mother, and the side turned towards her was attacked with an ædematous humour, and lost nearly all feeling. Mr. Chomel, of the Faculty of Medicine, in Paris, visited this patient, and ordered a separate bed, and by other appropriate remedies, cured the patient; but two years afterwards, again sleeping with her mother, she fell ill. The same author relates an edict of the parliament

of Bordeaux, against an old woman who paid young girls to sleep with her, and they gradually wasted away, and died.

Without endeavouring to discover how this phenomenon of loss of health on one side, and a recovery on the other, takes place, it is certain that whichever side is turned towards an old person is first affected.

Dreams, according to a philosophical writer, are but the inheritance of the illusions of the day; they are a continuation of forcible impressions affecting the heart or brain; they are the luminations of the mind, or the emotion of the heart, outliving the drowsiness of the senses;-without farther seeking to interpret dreams, or draw an horoscope, if considered as a prolongation of violent sensations and eager thoughts, they may powerfully assist in making known the true state of the youthful mind. Socrates and Sylla could not dream alike, neither could dream like the vulgar.

The nightmare is the evil genius of sleep; it is a species of oppression, accompanied by anxiety, fright, and the impossibility of moving or pronouncing a word, until suddenly awaking, liberty is restored, and the cruel illusion disappears. This often occurs to young persons whose imaginations are ardent, subjected to hypocondria, or hysterical fits; among those, in short, who have an excess of sensibility. The nightmare sometimes denotes an affection of

the heart or lungs, or a bad position taken during sleep, or an overloaded stomach. From whatever cause this may be, when this evil genius is a frequent visitor, attention should be given to the person suffering from his assiduity.

Somnambulism is common to many young people, and is evinced by screams and muscular movements; this may be said to constitute a malady, and depends on an over excitation of the nervous system. Sleep is not then restorative; proper exercise, during the day, is the best remedy for these illusions.

The somnambulist is greatly influenced by magnetism, and we feel it our duty to guard parents againt a practice which may injure their children by over exciting the nervous sensibility.

CHAP. XXXII.

Excreta.

LOCKE has devoted several pages of his work on Education, to show the necessity, and possibility, of regulating the wants of nature; he was of opinion, that good health depended greatly on the attention given to the accomplishment of these functions; and as this subject is so intimately connected with health, we feel bound to recommend all parents to bear in mind, that disorder in the excretive functions may be at tended with the most serious results.

In early infancy the derangement of the digestive functions is of the highest importance; prolonged constipation often brings on convulsions; if the bowels are loose, children are liable to contract all sorts of disease. At about two years old, the secretive functions may be regulated. Locke advises, that children may be habituated to satisfy these natural wants immediately after breakfast. It appears to us preferable, that they should do so after rising in the morning; and having gone through the necessary ablutions, washing the face, hands, and mouth, is favourable to the accomplishment of this function.

It is, however, much more difficult to regulate these functions, if meals are not taken at stated hours; and Locke was certainly guilty of con

tradiction, in advising irregularity in the repasts, and regularity in the excretive functions; but we quite agree with this philosopher, in considering it unwise to have too frequent recourse to medicine, to obtain freedom of the bowels.

It appears to us more easy to obtain these results by a change of food, and giving that which is more or less easy of digestion, according to the state of the case

Restraint may sometimes be necessary, but it should never be too much prolonged. In the pages of history it will be found, that Tycho Brae, driving out with the Emperor of Austria, and not daring to have the carriage stopped, in order that he might satisfy his natural wants, died from the effects of this restraint.

Some persons perspire a great deal; however unpleasant it may be to them, this perspiration must not be suppressed, as the suppression might be dangerous, and attended with serious diseases.

When females reach the age of puberty, they are subject to a natural discharge; this secretion, of a peculiar nature, becomes the regulator of health, and as it is one of the most striking phenomena in the life of woman, it requires particular attention, and we shall treat of it in a separate chapter.