I waked every night about twelve or one, and lay awake for some time. I readily concluded that this arose from my being longer in bed than nature required. To be satisfied, I procured an alarum, which waked me the next morning at seven (near an hour earlier than I rose the day before), yet I lay awake again at night. The second morning I rose at six; notwithstanding this I lay awake the second night. The third morning I rose at five; nevertheless I lay awake the third night. The fourth morning I rose at four, as I have done ever since; and I lay awake no more. And I do not now lie awake, taking the year round, a quarter of an hour together in a month. By the same experiment, rising earlier and earlier every morning, may one find out how much sleep he really wants. But Wesley’s moderation in sleep, and his rigid constancy in rising early, admit of explanation. Mr. Bradburn, who travelled with him almost constantly for years, said that Wesley generally slept several hours in the course of the day; that he had himself seen him sleep three hours together often enough. This was chiefly in his carriage, in which he accustomed himself to sleep on his journeys as regularly, as easily, and as soundly, as if he had gone to bed. When at Oxford, he formed for himself a scheme of studies: Mondays and Tuesdays were allotted for the Classics; Wednesdays to logic and ethics; Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic; Fridays to metaphysics and natural philosophy; Saturdays to oratory and poetry, but chiefly to composition in those arts; and the Sabbath to divinity. It appears by his diary, also, that he gave great attention to mathematics. Full of business as he now was, he found time for writing by rising an hour earlier in the morning, and going into company an hour later in the evening: he had generally from ten to twelve hours in the day which he could devote to study: and thus he became alike familiar with the literature of his day, as well as with that of past ages. Dr. Philip Doddridge attributes the production of his various writings to his rising early; adding, “the difference between rising at five and seven o’clock in the morning for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to his life.” Through life, Gibbon the historian was a very early riser. Before the first volume of his _Decline and Fall_ had given him celebrity, six o’clock was his usual hour of rising: fashionable parties and the House of Commons brought him down to eight.