is therefore unpleafing. Nor fhould you give the leaft hint to either party, by any kind of noise or motion. If you do, you are unworthy to be a spectator. If you have a mind to exercife or fhew your judgment, do it in playing your own game, when you have an opportunity, not in criticifing, or meddling with, or counselling the play of others.

Laftly, If the game is not to be played rigoroufly, according to the rules above mentioned, then moderate your defire of victory over your adversary, and be pleased with one over yourfelf. Snatch not eagerly at every advantage offered by his unskilfulness or inattention; but point out to him kindly, that by fuch a move he places or leaves a piece in danger and unfupported; that by another he will put his king in a perilous fituation, &c. By this generous civility (fo oppofite to the unfairnefs above forbidden) you may, indeed, happen to lofe the game to your opponent, but you will win what is better, his effeem, his refpect, and his affection; together with the filent approbation and goodwill of impartial spectators.

THE

THE

ART OF PROCURING PLEASANT DREAMS,

INSCRIBED TO MISS

BEING WRITTEN AT HER REQUEST.

As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have fometimes pleafing, and sometimes painful dreams, it becomes of fome confequence to obtain the one kind, and avoid the other; for, whether real or imaginary, pain is pain, and pleasure is pleasure. If we can fleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we fleep, we can have any pleafing dreams, it is, as the French fay, tant gagné, fo much added to the pleasure of life.

To this end it is, in the firft place, neceffary to be careful in preferving health, by due exercife, and great temperance; for, in fickness, the imagination is difturbed; and difagreeable, fometimes terrible, ideas are apt to prefent themselves. Exercise fhould precede meals, not immediately follow them; the firft promotes, the latter, unlefs moderate, obftructs digeftion. If, after exercife, we feed fparingly, the digeftion will be eafy and good, the body lightfome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions performed agreeably. Sleep, when it follows, will be natural and undisturbed. While indolence, with full feeding, occafion night-mares and horrors inexpreffible: we fall from precipices, are affaulted by wild beafts, murderers, and demons, and expe

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rience every variety of diftrefs. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things thofe who move much: may, and indeed ought, to eat more; thofe who ufe little exercife, fhould eat little. In general, mankind, fince the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad, if we have not dined; but reftlefs nights naturally follow hearty fuppers, after full dinners, Indeed, as there is a difference in conftitutions, fome reft well after thefe meals; it cofts them only a frightful dream, and an apoplexy, after which they fleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers, than inftances of people, who, after eating a hearty fupper, are found dead a-bed in the morning.

Another means of preferving health, to be attended to, is the having a conftant fupply of fresh air in your bed-chamber. It has been a great miftake, the fleeping in rooms exactly clofed, and in beds furrounded by curtains. No outward air, that may come in to you, is fo unwholfome as the unchanged air, often breathed, of a clofe chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat can efcape; fo living bodies do not putrify, if the particles, as faft 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 clofe room, we receive them again, though they become more and more corrupt. A number of perfons crowded into a fmall room, thus fpoil the air in a few minutes, and even render it mortal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. A fingle perfon is faid to fpoil only a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to fpoil a chamberfull; but it is done, however, in proportion,

portion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorded of Methufalem, who, being the longeft liver, may be fuppofed to have beft preferved his health, that he flept always in the open air; for, when he had lived five hundred years, an angel faid to him: "Arife, Me"thufalem; and build thee an house, for thou "fhalt live yet five hundred years longer." But Methufalem anfwered and faid: "If I am to live "but five hundred years longer, it is not worth "while to build me an house-I will fleep in the "air as I have been used to do." Phyficians, after having for ages contended that the fick fhould not be indulged with fresh air, have at length difcovered that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped that they may in time discover likewife, that it is not hurtful to thofe who are in health; and that we may be then cured of the aerophobia that at prefent diftreffes weak minds, and make them choofe to be ftifled and poifoned, rather than leave open the window of a bed-chamber, or put down the glafs of a coach.

Confined air, when faturated with perfpirable matter*, will not receive more and that matter muft remain in our bodies, and occafion diseases : but it gives fome previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneafineffes, flight indeed at firft, fuch as, with regard to the lungs, is a trifling fenfation, and to the pores of the fkin a kind of reftleffnefs which is difficult to defcribe, and few that feel it know the cause of it. But we may recollect, that fometimes, on waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get afleep again. We

* What phyficians call the perfpirable matter is, that vapour which paffes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is faid to be five-eights of what we eat.

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turn often without finding repofe in any position. This fidgettinefs, to ufe a vulgar expreffion for want of a better, is occafioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retenfion of the perfpirable matter-the bed-clothes having received their quantity, and, being faturated, refufing to take any more. To become fenfible of this by an experiment, let a perfon keep his pofition in the bed, but throw off the bed-clothes, and fuffer fresh air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel that part fuddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of perfpirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air that approaches the warm fkin, in receiving its part of that vapour, receives therewith a degree of heat, that rarifies and renders it higher, when it will be pufhed away, with its burthen, by cooler, and therefore heavier fresh air; which, for a moment, fupplies its place, and then, being likewife changed, and warmed, gives way to a fucceeding quantity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perfpiration. He will now be fenfible of the difference between the part expofed to the air, and that which, remaining funk in the bed, denies the air accefs: for this part now manifefts its uneafinefs more dif tinctly by the comparison, and the feat of the uneafinefs is more plainly perceived, than when the whole furface of the body was affected by it.

Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleafing dreams. For when the body is uncafy, the mind will be difturbed by it, and difagreeable ideas of various kinds will, in fleep, be the natural confequences. The remedies, preventative, and curative, follow: