"The night is come like to the day,
Depart not thou, great God, away.
Let not my sins, black as the night,
Eclipse the lustre of thy light.
Keep still in my horizon, for to me
The sun makes not the day, but thee.
Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
On my temples sentry keep;

Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes,
Whose eyes are open while mine close.
Let no dreams my head infest,
But such as Jacob's temples blest.
While I do rest, my soul advance,
Make my sleep a holy trance:
That I may, my rest being wrought,
Awake into some holy thought.
And with as active vigour run
My course as doth the nimble sun.
Sleep is a death, O make me try,
By sleeping, what it is to die;
And as gently lay my head,
On my grave, as now my bed.
Howe'er I rest, great God, let me
Awake again at least with thee.
And thus assur'd, behold I lie
Securely, or to wake or die.

2

These are my drowsy days, in vain
I do now wake to sleep again.

O come that hour, when I shall never
Sleep again, but wake for ever.

"This is the dormitive I take to bedward. I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection."

The author immediately after this passage makes a sudden transition to the consideration of distributive and commutative justice, presenting us, during the discussion, with some admirable observations on the use and abuse of riches. No man was perhaps less a slave to mercenary motives than Sir Thomas Browne, who appears, indeed, at all times, to have considered intellectual wealth as the best and most valuable of human possessions. "I was not born," he observes, "unto riches, neither is it, I think, my star to be wealthy; or if it were, the freedom of my mind, and frankness of my disposition, were able to contradict and cross my

fates: for to me avarice seems not so much a vice, as a deplorable piece of madness; to conceive ourselves urinals, or to be persuaded that we are dead, is not so ridiculous, nor so many degrees beyond the power of Hellebore as this.-I have not Peru in my desires, but a competence, and ability to perform those good works to which he hath inclined my nature. He is rich who hath enough to be charitable, and it is hard to be so poor, that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord. - Upon this motive only, I cannot behold a beggar without relieving his necessities with my purse, or his soul with my prayers; these scenical and accidental differences between us, cannot make me forget that common and untouched part of us both; there is under these centoes and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to salvation as ourselves. Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealth without poverty, take away the object of charity, not understanding only the commonwealth of a

Christian, but forgetting the prophecy of Christ."

!

And here I must beg leave to make a single deviation from the plan laid down, and present my readers with a quotation from the first part of the Religio Medici, on the distribution of the goods of fortune, forming an appendage to the passage just brought forward, too valuable and important to be omitted, more especially as it may tend to reconcile many a mind of taste and talent to the patient indurance of the res angustæ domi.

"It is, I confess, the common fate of men of singular gifts of mind, to be destitute of those of fortune; which doth not any way deject the spirit of wiser judgments, who thoroughly understand the justice of this proceeding; and being enriched with higher donatives, cast a more careless eye on these vulgar parts of felicity. It is a most unjust ambition to desire to engross the mercies of the Almighty, nor to be content with the goods of mind, without a possession of those of body or fortune: and it is an error worse than heresy, to adore these complemental and circumstantial pieces of feli

city, and undervalue those perfections and essential points of happiness, wherein we resemble our Maker. To wiser desires it is satisfaction enough to deserve, though not to enjoy the favours of fortune; let Providence provide for fools; it is not partiality, but equity in God, who deals with us but as our natural parents; those that are able of body and mind, he leaves to their deserts; to those of weaker merits he imparts a larger portion, and pieces out the defect of one by the access of the other."

It is, in fact, one of the soundest parts of religion and morality, to believe that the Almighty looks down upon us with favour, in proportion as we cultivate that part of our being which is more immediately the offspring of his own essence, in proportion as we learn to view him as the source of all that is purely intellectual, and therefore, pre-eminently good, in proportion as we learn to despise the accidental differences which constitute the wealth of this world. It is then, that, in the language of our author, we learn to love God for himself, and our neighbour for God;" it is then that to us, "all that is truly amiable is God, or as it were a divided