Il Silenzio va intorno, e fa la scorta ;
Ha le scarpe di feltro, e'l mantel bruno;
Ed à quanti n'incontra di lontano,

Che non debban venir, cenna con mano.

My readers will be pleased, perhaps, with some more poetical eulogies of Sleep:

O sweet refreshing Sleep! thou balmy cure

Of sickness and of pain!

How has thy gentle power at length relieved me!
O soft oblivion of surrounding ills,

How grateful to th' afflicted are thy charms!

EURIP. BY HUGHES.

Sleep, that knits up the ravelled sleeve of Care,
The death of each day's life, sore Labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast!

SHAKSPEARE.

Thou silent power, whose welcome sway
Charms every anxious thought away;
In whose divine oblivion drowned,
Sore Pain and weary Toil grow mild,
Love is with kinder looks beguiled,

And Grief forgets her fondly cherished wound;
O whither hast thou flown, indulgent god
God of kind shadows and of healing dews,
Whom dost thou touch with thy Lethæan rod?
Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?

AKENSIDE.

Haste, haste, sweet stranger! From the peasant's cot,
The ship-boy's hammock, or the soldier's straw,
Whence Sorrow never chased thee; with thee bring
Not hideous visions, as of late; but draughts
Delicious of well-tasted, cordial rest;
Man's rich restorative; his balmy bath,
That supples, lubricates, and keeps in play
The various movements of this nice machine,
Which asks such frequent periods of repair.

YOUNG.

Casa, in one of his sonnets, with the usual Itablage of epithets, has this apostrophe:

'ella quieta, umida, ombrosa

ido figlio!

O Sleep, sweet son of the peaceful, humid, umbrageous night!

In a word, to conclude, these instances of homage in the poets to the downy god,' Cowley, among the other felicities of his darling solitude, has not forgotten to number the privilege of sleeping without disturbance; and, among the gifts of Nature, he assigns a rank 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'.'

How wonderful is it that a thinking being, who, in every diurnal revolution, experiences the sweet and invigorating refreshment of sleep, should never once reflect on his situation in those moments of temporary insensibility; or, at least, that he should never consider it as one of the most remarkable effects of the Divine Goodness! We have no ideas of any thing extraordinary, when sleep spreads its soft and benevolent influence over us. We are content to imagine, that this machine, our body, is

He wildly errs who thinks I yield
Precedence in the well-clothed field
Tho' mixed with wheat I grow;
Indulgent Ceres knew my worth,
And, to adorn the teeming earth,
She bade the PorPY blow.

Nor vainly gay the sight to please,
But blest with power mankind to ease,
The Goddess saw me rise:

Thrive with the life-supporting grain,'
She cried, the solace of the swain,

The cordial of his eyes.

Seize happy mortal, seize the good;
My hand supplies, thy sleep and food,
And makes thee truly blest:

With plenteous meals enjoy the day,
In slumbers pass the night away,

And leave to fate the rest,'

Adventurer, No, 39.

formed for that situation; and that the inclination which impels us to sleep proceeds merely from natural causes. But sleep, perhaps, may be considered in two points of view. On the one hand, there is nothing in it which does not necessarily result from our nature: on the other, there is something so striking and wonderful in this natural effect, that it is well worthy of the most minute examination.

It is certainly a proof of the wisdom of our Crea tor, that we fall asleep imperceptibly. Were we once to attempt to watch the moment when sleep takes possession of us, that very attempt would prove an obstacle to its approach, and we could not sleep while that idea was retained. Sleep comes unsummoned: it is the only change in our manner of existence in which reflection bears no part; and the more we endeavour to produce it, the less successful shall we prove. The Divine Being, therefore, has ordained sleep with such a design, and in such a manner, that it proves an agreeable necessity to allinankind; and he has rendered it alike independent of the understanding and of the will. Our situation, indeed, during the time of sleep, is wonderful. We live; but we live without knowing, without perceiving it. The palpitations of the heart, the circulation of the blood, with digestion, and, in a word, all the animal functions, continue to be performed without interruption. The mind appears, as it were, to suspend its activity, for a time: by degrees, it loses all sensation, every distinct idea. The senses are deadened, and stop their wonted operations. The muscles, by degrees, are moved more slowly, till all voluntary motion ceases. This change begins in the forehead: then the muscles of the eyelids, and of the neck, arms, and feet, are so much deprived of their activity, that the man seems to be metamorphosed into a plant. The situation of the brain becomes such, that it cannot transmit to the soul the

şame ideas as when we are awake, The soul perceives no object, although the nerve of vision is not altered; and it would see nothing, were the eyes to be even open. The ears not shut, and yet they hear nothing. In a word, those who have leisure to consider the subject more minutely still, by entering into anatomical inquiries concerning it, will find an unceasing source of admiration, in the wonderful preparations, and the tender care, which the Divine Being has employed, to procure us the bles sings of sleep.

There is something in the approaches of sleep so importunate and irresistible, that it cannot long remain unsatisfied; and if, as some have done, we consider it as the tax of life, we cannot but consider it also as a tax that must be paid, unless we would cease to be men. On this account, Alexander the great declared that nothing convinced him that he was not divinity, but his not being able to live with

out sleep.

Sleep is necessary to all men, in order to repair, and to invigorate again, both the intellectual and cor poreal faculties, when exhausted by long exertion and fatigue. It 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 oblivion and repose. Such, indeed, is our frame, that, whether happy or miserable, life is, to the greatest part of mankind, such as could not be endured without frequent intermissions of existence.

Sunk to rest,

The traveller forgets his toil; his charge,
The centinel; her death-devoted babe
The mother's painless breast.

Sleep has the same effect upon men, which night has upon colours: it reduces all to an equality. But, although it is the chief of all earthly blessings, it is

not equally kind to all. It is justly appropriated to industry and temperance. Refreshing rest, and peaceful nights, are chiefly the portion of him who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury. It is the just doom of indolence and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without repose. The sleep of the labouring man (says the Preacher) is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.'

Those, who are not grateful for the unspeakable blessing of sleep, must be such only that never knew the want of it. But how easy is it for disease, or grief, or infirmities, or old age, to deprive us of all the blessings of repose. Then shall we be compelled to acknowledge, that sleep is at once the most urgent necessity of Nature, and the most inestimable biessing of Heaven. Shakspeare, therefore, has finely contrasted the sweets of a sound sleep and the horrors of a restless night, in this soliloquy of king Henry the fourth :

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, ly'st thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumbers,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why ly'st thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case, or a common larum-bell?

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them