The poets, among all those that enjoy the blessings of sleep, have been least ashamed to acknowledge their benefactor.  How much Statius considered the evils of life as assuaged and softened by the balm of slumber, we may discover by that pathetick invocation, which he poured out in his waking nights:  and that Cowley, among the other felicities of his darling solitude, did not forget to number the privilege of sleeping without disturbance, we may learn from the rank that he assigns among the gifts of nature to the poppy, “which is scattered,” says he, “over the fields of corn, that all the needs of man may be easily satisfied, and that bread and sleep may be found together.”

Si quis invisum Cereri benignae
Me putat germen, vehementer errat;
Illa me in partem recipit libenter

                                          Fertilis agri.

Meque frumentumque simul per omnes
Consulens mundo Dea spargit oras;
Crescite, O! dixit, duo magna sustentaculu

          
                                                    vitae,

Carpe, mortalis, mea dona laetus,
Carpe, nec plantas alias require,
Sed satur panis, satur et soporis,

                                            Caetera sperue,

He wildly errs who thinks I yield
Precedence in the well-cloth’d field,
Tho’ mix’d with wheat I grow: 
Indulgent Ceres knew my worth,
And to adorn the teeming earth,
She bade the Poppy blow.

  Nor vainly gay the sight to please,
  But blest with pow’r mankind to ease,
    The goddess saw me rise: 
  “Thrive with the life-supporting grain,”
  She cried, “the solace of the swain,
    The cordial of his eyes.

  Seize, happy mortal, seize the good;
  My hand supplies thy sleep and food,
    And makes thee truly blest: 
  With plenteous meals enjoy the day,
  In slumbers pass the night away,
    And leave to fate the rest.”  C. B.

Sleep, therefore, as the chief of all earthly blessings, is justly appropriated to induustry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the peaceful night, are the portion only of him who lies down weary with honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury; it is the just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquillity.

Sleep has been often mentioned as the image of death[1]; “so like it,” says Sir Thomas Brown, “that I dare not trust it without my prayers:”  their resemblance is, indeed, apparent and striking; they both, when they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty:  and wise is he that remembers of both, that they can be safe and happy only by virtue.

[1]
  Lovely sleep! thou beautiful image of terrible death,
  Be thou my pillow-companion, my angel of rest! 
  Come, O sleep! for thine are the joys of living and dying: 
  Life without sorrow, and death with no anguish, no pain.
               From the German of Schmidt