20.  The human species only, to the great reproach of our natures, are filled with complaints—­That the day hangs heavy on them, that they do not know what to do with themselves, that they are at a loss how to pass away their time, with many of the like shameful murmurs, which we often find in the mouth of those who are styled reasonable beings.

21.  How monstrous are such expressions among creatures who have the labours of the mind as well as those of the body to furnish them with proper employments; who, besides the business of their proper callings and professions, can apply themselves to the duties of religion, to meditation, to the reading of useful books, to discourse; in a word, who may exercise themselves in the unbounded pursuits of knowledge and virtue, and every hour of their lives make themselves wiser or better than they were before.

22.  After having been taken up for some time in this course of thought, I diverted myself with a book, according to my usual custom, in order to unbend my mind before I went to sleep.  The book I made use of on this occasion was Lucian where I amused my thoughts for about an hour among the dialogues of the dead, which in all probability produced the following dream: 

23.  I was conveyed, methought, into the entrance of the infernal regions, where I saw Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the dead, seated in his tribunal.  On his left hand stood the keeper of Erebus, on his right the keeper of Elysium.  I was told he sat upon women that day, there being several of the sex lately arrived, who had not yet their mansions assigned them.

24.  I was surprised to hear him ask every one of them the same question, namely, What they had been doing?  Upon this question being proposed to the whole assembly they stared upon one another, as not knowing what to answer.  He then interrogated each of them separately.  Madam, says he to the first of them, you have been upon the earth about fifty years:  What have you been doing there all this while?  Doing, says she, really I do not know what I have been doing:  I desire I may have time given me to recollect.

25.  After about half an hour’s pause, she told him that she had been playing at crimp:  upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand, to take her into custody.  And you, Madam, says the judge, that look with such a soft and languishing air; I think you set out for this place in your nine and twentieth year; what have you been doing all this while?  I had a great deal of business on my hands, says she, being taken up the first twelve years of my life, in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances.

26.  Very well, says he, you have employed your time to good purpose.  Away with her.  The next was a plain country woman:  Well, mistress, says Rhadamanthus, and what have you been doing?  An’t please your worship, says she, I did not live quite forty years; and in that time brought my husband seven daughters, made him nine thousand cheeses, and left my eldest girl with him to look after his house in my absence, and who, I may venture to say, is us pretty a housewife as any in the country.