not rest, but action. If thou dost good to man, as an evidence of thy love to God, thy virtue will be exalted from moral to divine; and that happiness which is the pledge of Paradise, will be thy reward upon earth. "At these words I was not less astonished than if ❝ a mountain had been overturned at my feet; I hum"bled myself in the dust; I returned to the city: I "dug up my treasure; I was liberal, yet I became "rich. My skill in restoring health to the body, gave "me frequent opportunities of curing the diseases of "the soul. I put on the sacred vestments; I grew "eminent beyond my merit; and it was the pleasure "of the king that I should stand before him. Now, "therefore, be not offended; I boast of no knowledge "that I have not received; as the sands of the desert "drink up the drops of rain, or the dew of the morn"ing; so do I also, who am but dust, imbibe the in"structions of the prophet. Believe then, that it is he "who tells thee, all knowledge is prophane, which "terminates in thyself; and by a life wasted in spe"culation, little even of this can be gained. When "the gates of Paradise are thrown open before thee, "thy mind shall be irradiated in a moment: here thou "canst little more than pile error upon error; there "thou shalt build truth upon truth. Wait, therefore, "for the glorious vision; and in the mean time emu"late the eagle. Much is in thy power; and there"fore much is expected of thee. Though the Al"mighty only can give virtue, yet, as a prince, thou mayest stimulate those to beneficence, who act from "no higher motive than immediate interest: thou "canst not produce the principle, but mayest enforce "the practice. The relief of the poor is equal, whe"ther they receive it from ostentation or charity; and "the effect of example is the same, whether it be in"tended to obtain the favour of God or man. Let thy virtue be thus diffused; and if thou believest with " reverence, thou shalt be accepted above. Farewell, "May the smile of him who resides in the Heaven "of Heavens, be upon thee! and against thy name, "in the volume of his will, may happiness be writ"ten !" The king, whose doubts, like those of Mirza, were now removed, looked up with a smile that communicated the joy of his mind. He dismissed the prince to his government; and commanded these events to be recorded, to the end that posterity may know," that "6 no life is pleasing to God, but that which is useful "to mankind." No. XXXIX. TUESDAY, MARCH 20. ар Αθηνη HOM. Οδυσεος Φυλλοισι καλύψατο, το Pallas pour'd sweet slumbers on his soul; Calm'd all his pains, and banish'd all his woes. POPE. IF every day did not produce fresh instances of the ingratitude of mankind, we might, perhaps, be at a loss, why so liberal and impartial a benefactor as Sleep, should meet with so few historians or panegyrists. Writers are so totally absorbed by the business of the day, as never to turn their attention to that power, whose officious hand so seasonably suspends the burthen of life; and without whose interposition man would not be able to endure the fatigue of labour, however rewarded, or to struggle with opposition, however successful. Night, though she divides to many the longest part of life, and to almost all the most innocent and happy, is yet unthankfully neglected, except by those who pervert her gifts. The astronomers, indeed, expect her with impatience, and felicitate themselves upon her arrival; Fontenelle 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." 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 encrease 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." Without touching upon the fatal consequences of a custom, which, as Ramazzini observes, will be forever condemned, and forever 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 but observe it as a tax that must be paid, unless we could cease to be men; for Alexander 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, 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 of the miserable beings, whom Swift 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 intermissions of existence: Homer, therefore, has thought it an office worthy of the goddess of wisdom, to lay Ulysses asleep when landed on Phæacia. It is related of Barretier, 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 with 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 bas never been done; 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 perfectly 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 "drag their "slow length along." 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 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, who 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 |