admiral's wife who was awakened by not hearing
the morning gun go off. It is certain that by
habit a person may bring himself to awake at
any given hour. Seamen and soldiers on duty
do so constantly. When the British troops
returned into cantonments, after bivouacking
in the Peninsula, and sleeping constantly on
the ground, they preferred sleeping on the
floor in the barracks and hospitals, even to
the palliasses, or mattressed beds provided
for them. Hence, persons accustomed to sleep
on a mattress cannot endure what others
conceive to be the luxury of a feather bed. How
differently our ancestors fared, in respect to
these comforts will be found detailed in many
an old chronicle. " Our fathers," says Holinshed,
"and we ourselves have lain full often
upon straw pallettes, covered only with a
sheet, under coverlets made of dagswain, or
hoperlots (I use their own terms) and a good
round log under their heads, instead of a
bolster. If it were so that the father or the
good man of the house had a mattress, or a
flock bed, and thereto a sack of chaff to rest
his head upon, he thought himself to be as
well lodged as the lord of the town. So
well were they contented. Pillows, said they,
were thought meet only for women. As for
servants, if they had any sheet above them, it
was thought well; for seldom they had any
under their bodies to keep them from the
prickling straws that ran oft through the
canvas, and pared their hardened hydes."
There can be little doubt that the tendency
of over-civilisation, is to produce effeminacy;
and many of our fashionable young aristocrats
resemble, now-a-days, the delicate youth, who
could not sleep because, forsooth, a rose-leaf
was doubled under him.

There is one very curious fact connected
with this subject, that merits particular
attention it is the periodicity of sleep. The laws
of nature may be tampered with, but they
cannot be subverted; we may step out of the
paths she has prescribed, but we cannot go
far beyond them with impunity. It needs
scarcely any evidence to prove that the day
was intended for exercise, and the night for
repose; yet many persons, forgetting that
this is the order of nature, endeavour to what
is familiarly called "turn day into night."
The votary of pleasure retires to his couch
frequently after sunrise, and the university
student, not unfrequently, remains poring over
his books all night, abridging the amount of
repose which is necessary to recruit the
exhausted energies of his brain. The result of
this bad custom is sooner or later severely
felt; study becomes more and more difficult,
and, at last, impossible. The over-worked
brain can toil no longer; its intimate structure
gives way, and the most distressing
symptoms extreme debility of body, and
prostration of mind, ensue. Many of the
most talented and promising young men in
our universities, have thus fallen victims to
their not having properly disciplined the
hours of their sleep. That night cannot, with
impunity, be converted into day, has been
proved by a variety of observations. Two
colonels of horse in the French army had
much disputed, which period of the twenty-
four hours was fittest for marching, and for
repose; and it being an interesting question
in a military point of view, they obtained
leave from the commanding officer to try the
following experiment. One of them, although
it was in the heat of summer, marched in the
day and rested at night, and arrived at the
end of a march of six hundred miles without
the loss of either men or horses; but the
other, who thought it would be less fatiguing
to march in the cool of the evening and part
of the night, than in the heat of the day, at
the end of the same march had lost most of
his horses, and some of his men. Another
remarkable circumstance has been observed.
It is more unhealthy to get up before the
sun has risen, and burn candles until daylight,
than it is to sit up by candle-light after sunset.
" I have no doubt," says Sir John Sinclair,
"of the superior healthiness, in the
winter time, of rising by day-light, and using
candle-light at the close of the day, instead of
rising by candle-light and using it some hours
before day-light approaches."

But, it may be said, " All this is very well,"
Mr. Philosopher, " but supposing that we
cannot sleep, and that with all appliances and
means to boot, we toss about our bed, beat
our pillow, and adjust and re-adjust our bed
clothes, counterpane, blankets, and sheets, in
vain. What then is to be done? " Our
answer is, emphatically, avoid having recourse
to narcotics, for although they may produce a
temporary repose, the sleep will not be refreshing,
and the following morning the deleterious
effects, whether of opium or henbane,
will still linger in the system. We believe,
speaking generally, that the more the mind
can be brought to dwell on any single impression,
the sooner the attention will be fatigued,
and sleep induced. It is upon this principle
that monotonous sounds produce sleep: but
other sensations, monotonously excited and
repeated, produce the same effect. A common
blister, by fatiguing the attention, often brings
on sleep; so also will frictions, particularly
along the course of the spine. It is a common
practice with Spanish women to put their
children to sleep by rubbing the spine
along the vertebræ of the back. It is quite
certain, also, that the waving of the hands
before the face and body during the operation
of animal magnetism, produces a very
profound sleep, followed by hysterical symptoms
which are sometimes extremely perplexing.
"We have seen boys at school," says Dr. Binns,
"fall asleep by fixing their eyes steadily on a
candle, or a hole in the shutter." A few
years ago a Mr. Gardner, in London,
professed to have discovered the art of teaching
people to procure sound and refreshing sleep
at will, and among the number of his converts