my
estate, and try and read a page or two, assuring me, if I did, that I
should infallibly fall asleep. I took his advice, and selecting this
place, which I considered the pleasantest part of my property, I came,
and lying down, commenced reading the book, and before finishing a page
was in a dead slumber. Every day since then I have repeated the
experiment, and every time with equal success. I am a single man,
without any children; and yesterday I made my will, in which, in the
event of my friend's surviving me, I have left him all my fortune, in
gratitude for his having procured for me the most invaluable of all
blessings--sleep."

"Dear me," said I, "how very extraordinary! Do you think that your going
to sleep is caused by the meadow or the book?" "I suppose by both," said
my new acquaintance, "acting in co-operation." "It may be so," said I;
"the magic influence does certainly not proceed from the meadow alone;
for since I have been here, I have not felt the slightest inclination to
sleep. Does the book consist of prose or poetry?" "It consists of
poetry," said the individual. "Not Byron's?" said I. "Byron's!"
repeated the individual, with a smile of contempt; "no, no; there is
nothing narcotic in Byron's poetry. I don't like it. I used to read it,
but it thrilled, agitated, and kept me awake. No; this is not Byron's
poetry, but the inimitable ---'s"--mentioning a name which I had never
heard till then. "Will you permit me to look at it?" said I. "With
pleasure," he answered, politely handing me the book. I took the volume,
and glanced over the contents. It was written in blank verse, and
appeared to abound in descriptions of scenery; there was much mention of
mountains, valleys, streams, and waterfalls, harebells and daffodils.
These descriptions were interspersed with dialogues, which, though they
proceeded from the mouths of pedlars and rustics, were of the most
edifying description; mostly on subjects moral or metaphysical, and
couched in the most gentlemanly and unexceptionable language, without the
slightest mixture of vulgarity, coarseness, or pie-bald grammar. Such
appeared to me to be the contents of the book; but before I could form a
very clear idea of them, I found myself nodding, and a surprising desire
to sleep coming over me. Rousing myself, however, by a strong effort, I
closed the book, and, returning it to the owner, inquired of him,
"Whether he had any motive in coming and lyi