B.
EARLY RISING.
(For the Mirror.)
"Whose morning, like the spirit of a youth,
That means to be of note, begins betimes."SHAKSPEARE'S Ant. and Cleop.
It is asserted by a tragic poet, "est nemo miser nisi comparatus;" which, by substituting one single word, is exactly applicable to our present subject; "est nemo serus nisi comparatus." All early rising is relative; what is early to one, is late to another, and vice versâ. "The hours of the day and night," says Steele, (Spec. No. 454.) "are taken up in the Cities of London and Westminster, by people as different from each other as those who are born in different countries. Men of six o'clock give way to those of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve; and they of twelve disappear, and make room for the fashionable world, who have made two o'clock the noon of the day." Now since, of these people, they who rise at six pique themselves on their early rising, in reference to those who rise at nine; and they, in their turn, on theirs, in reference to those who rise at twelve; since, like Homer's generations, they "successive rise," and early rising is, therefore, as I said, a phrase only intelligible by comparison, we must (as theologians and politicians ought oftener to do) set out by a definition of terms. What is early rising? Is it to rise
"What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night?"
"Patience!" I think I hear some of my fair readers exclaim, "Is this the early rising this new correspondent of the MIRROR means to enforce? Drag us from our beds at peep of day! The visionary barbarian! Why, ferocious as our Innovator is, he would just as soon drag a tigress from her's! We will not obey this self-appointed Dictator!" Stay, gentle ladies; in the first place I am not going to enforce this or any other hour; in the second place, I am not going to enforce early rising at all.—Convinced you feel, with me, the importance of time, and your responsibility for its right improvement, I leave it to your consciences whether any part of it should be uselessly squandered in your beds. The moral culpability of late rising is when it interferes with the necessary duties of the day; and though, my fair readers, you may in a great measure claim exemption from these, I would still, simply in reference to your health and complexions, advise you not to exceed seven o'clock. But, to effect this, a sine quâ non is, retiring early, say at eleven—(though really I am too liberal.—When people were compelled to retire at the sound of the curfew, when
"The curfew toll'd the parting knell of day,"