If, therefore, insomnia had prevailed in or before his time, in his pages shall we find it duly set forth. If he had suffered, if the "fringed curtains of his eyes were all the night undrawn," we shall find his dreary experiences--his hours of pathetic misery, his nights of desolation--voiced by the tongues of his men and women. Shakespeare speaks often of the time in life when men have left behind them the dreamless sleep of youth. Friar Laurence says:-- "Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep can never lie; But where unbruisèd youth with unstuffed brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign." Shakespeare describes, too, with lifelike fidelity, the causes of insomnia, which are not weariness or physical pain, but undue mental anxiety. He constantly contrasts the troubled sleep of those burdened with anxieties and cares, with the happy lot of the laborer whose physical weariness insures him a tranquil night's repose. Henry VI. says:-- "And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds, His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle, His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade, All which secure and sweetly he enjoys, Are far beyond a prince's delicates." And Henry V. says:-- "'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farcèd title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world,-- No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who, with a body filled and vacant mind, Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, that child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set, Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night Sleeps in Elysium.... And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Hath the forehand and vantage of a king." Prince Henry says, in "Henry IV.":-- "O polished perturbation! Golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night, sleep with it now! Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet As he whose brow with homely biggin bound Snores out the watch of night." In this same play, too, is found the familiar and marvellous soliloquy of Henry IV.:--