The poets are generally well affected to sleep: as men who think with vigour, they require respite from thought; and gladly resign themselves to that gentle power, who not only bestows rest, but frequently leads them to happier regions, where patrons are always kind, and audiences are always candid; where they are feasted in the bowers of imagination, and crowned with flowers divested of their prickles, and laurels of unfading verdure. The more refined and penetrating part of mankind, who take wide surveys of the wilds of life, who see the innumerable terrours and distresses that are perpetually preying on the heart of man, and discern with unhappy perspicuity, calamities yet latent in their causes, are glad to close their eyes upon the gloomy prospect, and lose in a short insensibility the remembrance of others' miseries and their own. The hero has no higher hope, than that, after having routed legions after legions, and added kingdom to kingdom, he shall retire to milder happiness, and close his days in social festivity. The wit or the sage can expect no greater happiness, than that, after having harassed his reason in deep researches, and fatigued his fancy in boundless excursions, he shall sink at night in the tranquillity of sleep. 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 benignæ 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 vitæ, Carpe, mortalis, mea dona lætus, Carpe, nec plantas alias require, Sed satur panis, satur et soporis, Cætera 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.