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 Hollingshed, "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. 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 run oft through the canvas, and pared their hardened hydes." There can be little doubt that the tendency of over-civilization, is to produce effeminacy, and many of our fashionable young aristrocrats resemble now-adays, the delicate youth, who could not sleep because, forsooth, a rose-leaf was doubled under him.

So

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, endeavor 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 overworked 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 intéresting 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

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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 daylight, and using candle-light at the close of day, instead of rising by candle-light and using it some hours before daylight 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 readjust 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 dis

covered the art of teaching people to procure sound and refreshing sleep at will, and among the number of his converts was Dr. Binns, just quoted, who gives the following description of this mysterious process. The sleepless sufferer having duly tossed about his bed, as restless and unanchored as a ship at sea, is directed to "turn on his right side, place his head comfortably on the pillow, so that it exactly occupies the angle, a line drawn from the head to the shoulder would form, and then slightly closing his lips, take rather a full inspiration, breathing as much as he possibly can through the nostrils. This, however, is not absolutely necessary, as some persons breathe always through their mouths during sleep, and rest as sound as those who do not. Having taken a full inspiration, the lungs are then to be left to their own action—that is, the respiration is not to be accelerated or retarded too much, but a very full inspiration must be taken. The attention must now be fixed upon the action in which the patient is engaged. He must depict to himself that he sees the breath passing from his nostrils in a continuous stream, and the very instant he brings his mind to conceive this, apart from all other ideas, consciousness and memory depart; imagination slumbers; fancy becomes dormant; thought ceases; and sleep supervenes. It will happen, sometimes, that the patient does not succeed on the first attempt, but he must not be discouraged. Let him persevere in taking full inspirations and expirations without attempting to count them, for if he does the act of numeration will keep him awake; and even should he not succeed in inducing very sound sleep, he will, at least, fall into that state of pleasing delirium which is the precursor of repose, and which is scarcely inferior to it. Many trials have satisfied us of this." We do not pledge ourselves, be it observed, for the success of this experiment, which re

minds us of an observation once made to us by a poor lunatic. "Ah!" said he, " every thing is now done by steam; we live by steam,-breathe by steam,-and pray by steam, which is the reason that my aunt, who is a very devout woman, although she robbed me of my snuff-box, has a turnup nose. The steam, always ascending, gave it an upward twist." Poor fellow! he was full of fancies; and we can easily conceive that if any person could (which is the difficulty) exhaust his attention by watching his own breathing until it emitted visible steam, he would fall into a sound slumber long before the phenomenon became apparent. The best preparatives for sleep at night are healthy exercise and occupation-bodily and mental, during the daybut it should be remembered that over-fatigue produces a state of irritability and restlessness. Once, however, asleep, wrapt in deep unconscious slumber, how is it that we again awake?

This, we apprehend, may be accounted for in the following manner :—As we have already endeavored to explain, sleep arises from exhaustion of the nervous energy; and when, during repose, it is re-generated in sufficient abundance, the nerves are stimulated to renewed action. Hence, in the early part of the night, our sleep is more profound than it is afterwards; it becomes lighter and lighter as this nervous power is gradually restored, until at length we are awakened by its stimulus. Ought then a person who is in a natural, placid and profound sleep, to be unnecessarily awakened? As a general rule, we think not. We conceive that sleep is a provision of Nature to restore the exhausted energies of the animal system-physical and mental-and as such it should be dealt with kindly, gently, and gratefully. The mind, too, as Sir Thomas Browne premised, should compose and prepare itself for slumber by proper