have attributed their success in the University to the practice (though, in some instances, adopted late,) of rising at five every morning. Some will assert, that it signifies nothing at what hour we rise, provided we make the night supply the deficiencies of the day. It signifies as much as the difference between health and infirmity, between quantity and quality. In the morning hours the man are * equal to almost any powers of intellectual * "All nations and ages have agreed that the morning season is the proper time for speculative studies, and those employments that most require the faculties of the mind. For then the stock of the spirits is undiminished, and in its greatest plenty; the head is clear and serene; the passions are quieted and forgot; the anxiety and inquietude that the digestions beget in the nervous system are settled and wrought off. Nothing can be more prejudical than lying long in bed. I would advise, therefore, those whose professions lead them to much use of their intellectual faculties, or who would indulge speculative studies, to go early to bed, and to rise betimes." Dr Cheyne's Essay on Health and Long Life. exertion afterwards they are not, but he will be wearied and worn out; if not with the effects of his morning's activity, yet with the restlessness and distraction which is the concomitant of morning sloth; and though he may afterwards, at the approach of night, spur himself to a vigorous prosecution of study, it is but a false and unnatural alacrity; a forced effort of the understanding, which will go further to impair his constitution than any honest day's work, commenced at an early hour. Late hours are not equal to early ones, let a man rise when he will. "Posces ante diem librum cum lumine; si non Intendes animum studiis et rebus honestis, Invidiâ vel amore vigil torquebere." Considering this quotation is so trite, it is to be wished that the advice contained in it were more generally followed. The only comment I shall presume to make on the passage is, that "rebus ho bus honestis," being words of wide signification, need not be limited to the pursuits of the scholar. To purposes as various as are the pursuits of human life, the morning hours will most successfully administer; but whatever use is made of them, they are ever fraught with satisfaction and joy; "Grata superveniet quæ non sperabitur hora." "Fashion, and the common opinion, having settled wrong notions, and character and custom ill habits, the just values of things are misplaced, and the palates of men corrupted. Pains should be taken to rectify these; and contrary habits change our pleasures, and give a relish to that which is necessary or conducive to our happiness. This every one must confess he can do; and when happiness is lost, and misery overtakes him, he will confess he did amiss in neglecting it. "Trials often reconcile us to that which, at a distance, we looked on with aversion; and, by repetitions, wear us into a liking of what, possibly, in the first essay, displeased us. Habits have powerful charms, and put strong attractions of easiness and pleasure into what we accustom ourselves to*." Scarcely any greater service can be rendered to a man, than to impress upon his mind, in early youth, the expediency of rising early, before the contrary custom gain over him despotic power. At school he is wisely trained to it; and if, at the University, he keep up the practice, he comes into the world with the advantage of having acquired one of those habits which go far to rectify wrong notions, and correct vitiated tastes; which enable us to estimate rightly, and to distinguish what is pure from what is cor * Locke's Essay. rupt; which can reconcile us to that which we once looked on with aversion, and put strong attractions of easiness and pleasure into that which is necessary and conducive to our happiness; a habit to which the elevation or fame of many a great and good man is, in a great measure, attributable; a habit which afterwards to gain requires more resolution, at all events, than men are, in general, willing to exert. Remarks like these, no doubt, are trite and obvious; but I am not inventing, or preferring any claim to novelty. Alas! we stand in need of being exhorted more than of being convinced; and writings are multiplied less to inform us what we are ignorant of, than to remind us of the importance of that which we already know. The things which belong to our peace are obvious to all. The things which relate to our happiness, here and for ever |