the conceits thereof: were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed. Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract of sleep, hath not methinks throughly defined it, nor yet Galen, though he seem to have corrected it; for those noctambuloes and nightwalkers, though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses: we must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus, and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corps, as spirits with the bodies they assume; wherein they seem to hear, see, and feel, though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed that men sometimes upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.

XII. We term sleep a death, and yet it is waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a part of life that best expresseth death; for every man truly lives so long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself; Themistocles therefore that slew his soldier in his sleep, was a merciful executioner, 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented; I wonder the fancy of Lucan and Seneca did not discover it. It is that death by which we may be literally said to die daily; a death which Adam died before his mortality; a death whereby we live a middle and moderating point between life and death; in fine, so like death I dare not trust it without my prayers, and an half adieu unto the world, and take my farewell in a colloquy with God.

The night is come, like to the day
Depart not thou great God away!
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light;
Keep still in my horizon, for to me

The sun makes not the day, but thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,

On my temples sentry keep;

Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes,

Whose eyes are open while mine close;

Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance,

That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought,
And with as active vigour run
My course, as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death, O make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die;
And as gently lay my head
On my grave, as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at last with thee:
And thus assured, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.

These are my drowsy days, in vain

I do now wake to sleep again;

O come that hour, when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever!

This is the dormative I take to bedward, I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection.

XIII. The method I should use in distributive justice, I often observe in commutative, and keep a geometrical proportion in both; whereby becom

ing equable to others, I become unjust to myself, and supererogate in that common principle, do unto others as thou wouldst be done unto thyself. I was not born unto riches, neither is it I think my star to be wealthy; or if it were, the freedom of my mind and frankness of my disposition, were able to contradict and cross my fates; for to me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive ourselves urinals, or be persuaded that we are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of hellebore as this. The opinions of theory and positions of men are not so void of reason as their practised conclusions; some have held that snow is black, that the earth moves, that the soul is air, fire water; but all this is philosophy, and there is no delirium, if we do but speculate the folly and indisputable dotage of avarice to that subterraneous idol, and god of the earth. I do confess I am an atheist, I cannot persuade myself to honour that the world adores; whatsoever virtue its prepared substance may have within my body, it hath no influence nor operation without; I would not entertain a base design, or an action that should call me villain, for the Indies; and for this only do I love and honour

my own soul, and have methinks two arms too few to embrace myself. Aristotle is too severe, that will not allow us to be truly liberal without wealth, and the bountiful hand of fortune; if this be true, I must confess I am charitable only in my liberal intentions, and bountiful well-wishes. But if the example of the mite be not only an act of wonder, but an example of the noblest charity, surely poor men may also build hospitals, and the rich alone have not erected cathedrals. I have a private method which others observe not; I take the opportunity of myself to do good, I borrow occasion of charity from mine own necessities, and supply the wants of others when I am in most need myself; for it is an honest stratagem to take advantage of ourselves, and so to husband the acts of virtue, that where they are defective in one circumstance, they may repay their want and multiply their goodness in another. I have not Peru in my desires, but a competence, and ability to perform those good works to which the Almighty hath inclined my nature. He is rich who hath enough to be charitable, and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord; there is