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es, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things: those who move much may, and indeed ought to eat more; those who use little exercise should eat little. In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad, if we have not dined; but restless nights naturally follow hearty suppers, after full dinners. Indeed, as there is a difference in constitutions, some rest well after these meals; it costs them only a frightful dream, and an apoplexy, after which they sleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers, than instances of people, who, after eating a hearty supper, are found dead a-bed in the morning.

Another means of preserving health, to be attended to, is the baving a constant supply of fresh air in your bed-chamber. It has been a great mistake, the slep ing in rooms exactly closed and in beds surrounded by curtains. No outward air, that may come into you, is so unwholesome as the unchanged air, often breathed, of a close chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat can escape; so livig bodies do no putify, if the particles, as fast as they become putrid, can be thrown off. Nature expels them by the pores of the skin and lungs, and in a free open air, they are carried off; but, in a close room, we receive them again and again, thongh they become more and more corrup.A number of persons crowded into a small room, bus spoil the air in a few minutes, and even render it mor tal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. A single person is said to spoil only a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to spoil a chamber full, but it is done, however, in proportion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorde of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept

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always in the open air; for, when he had lived five hurt dred years, an angel said to him: Arise, Methusalem; and build thee an house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer." But Methusalem answer ed and said: "IfI am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me an house➡I will sleep in the air as I have been used to do." Phy sicians, after having for ages contended that the sick should not be indulged with fresh air, have at length discoverd that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped that it is not hurtful to those who are in health and that we may be then cured of the aerophobia that at present distresses weak minds, and makes them choose to be stifled and poisoned, rather than leave open the windows of a bed-chamber, or put down the glass of a coach.

Confined air, when saturated with perspirable mattr.* will not receive more; and that matter must remain in our bodies, and occasion diseases: but it gives some previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasinesses slight indeed at first, such as, with regard to the lungs, is a trifling sensation, and to the pores of the skin a kind of restlessness which is dificult to describe, and few that feel it know the cause of it. But we may recollect, that sometimes, on Waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it antican to get asleep again. We turn often without finding e pose un any position. This fidgetiness, to use a volgar expression for want of a better, is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retention of the perspirable matter-the bed clothes having received their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more.

To become sensible of this by an experiment, let a person keep his position in the bed, and throw off the

* What physicians call the perspirable matter, is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five eighths of what we eat.

bed-clothes, and suffer fresh air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel that part suddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of perspirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air that approaches the warin skin, in receiving its part of that vapour, receives therewith a degree of heai, that rarifies and renders it lighter, when it will be pushed away, with its burthen by cooler, and therefore heavier fresh air; which for a moment, supplies its place, and then, being likewise. changed, and warmed, gives way to a succeeding quan tity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perspiration. He will now be sensible of the difference between the part exposed to the air, and that which, remaining sunk in the bed, denies the air access: for this part now manifests its uneasiness more distinctly by the comparison, and the seat of the uneasiness is more plainly perceived, than when the whole surface of the body was affected by it.

Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleasing dreams. For when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and disagreeable ideas of vari❤ ous kinds, will, in sleep, be the natural consequences. The remedies, preventative and curative, follow:

1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake) less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bed-clothes receive it longer before they are saturated; and we may, therefore, sleep longer, before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more.

2. By using thinner and more porous bed-clothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable.

3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bed clothes well,

with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed opet, and leave it to cool; in the meanwhile, continuing an drest, walk about your chamber, ill your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed; and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented by your fancy, will be of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them, as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may instead of it, lift up your bed-clothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This, repeated twenty times, will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterwards. But this latter method is not equal to the former.

Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to bave two beds, will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds, would also be of great service to persons ill in a fever; as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a degree answer the same end.

One or two observations more will conclude this lite tle piece. Care must be taken, when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to suit your manner of placing your head, and to be perfectly easy; then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one another, as for instance, the joints of your ancles: for though a bad position may at first give but little pain, and be hardly noticed, yet a continuance will ren der it less tolerable, and the uneasiness may come on while you are asleep, and disturb your imagination.

These are the rules of the art. But though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual ob

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sary above all things, A GOOD CONSCIENC

ADVICE TO A YOUNG TRADESMA

WRITTEN ANNO 1748, TO MY FRIEND A. I As you have desired it of me, I write the followin which have been of service to me, and may, if

be so to you.

REMEMBER that time is money. He that c ten shillings a day by his labour, and goes ab sits idle one half of that day, though he sper sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought reckon that the only expence; he has really sp rather thrown away five shillings besides.

Remember that credit is money. If a man money lie in my hands after it is due, he gives interest, or so much as I can make of it duri time. This amounts to a considerable sum man has good and large credit, and makes go of it.

Remember that money is of a prolific genera ture. Money can beget money, and its offspr beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned turned again, it is seven and three pence; and till it becomes an hundred pounds.

The more

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of it, the more it produces, every turning, so profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a ing sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousa neration. He that murders a crown, destroys it might have produced, even scores of pounds. Remember that six pounds a year is but a groa For this little sum, which may be daily wasted

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