this island
than it is at present. By the night, I mean that portion of time which
Nature has thrown into darkness, and which the wisdom of mankind had
formerly dedicated to rest and silence. This used to begin at eight
o'clock in the evening, and conclude at six in the morning. The curfew,
or eight o'clock bell, was the signal throughout the nation for putting
out their candles and going to bed.

Our grandmothers, though they were wont to sit up the last in the
family, were all of them fast asleep at the same hours that their
daughters are busy at crimp and basset. Modern statesmen are concerting
schemes, and engaged in the depth of politics, at the time when their
forefathers were laid down quietly to rest and had nothing in their
heads but dreams. As we have thus thrown business and pleasure into the
hours of rest, and by that means made the natural night but half as long
as it should be, we are forced to piece it out with a great part of
the morning; so that near two-thirds of the nation lie fast asleep for
several hours in broad day-light. This irregularity is grown so very
fashionable at present, that there is scarcely a lady of quality in
Great Britain that ever saw the sun rise. And, if the humour increases
in proportion to what it has done of late years, it is not impossible
but our children may hear the bell-man going about the streets at nine
o'clock in the morning, and the watch making their rounds till eleven.
This unaccountable disposition in mankind to continue awake in the night
and sleep in sunshine, has made me inquire, whether the same change
of inclination has happened to any other animals? For this reason, I
desired a friend of mine in the country to let me know whether the lark
rises as early as he did formerly; and whether the cock begins to crow
at his usual hour? My friend has answered me, "that his poultry are
as regular as ever, and that all the birds and the beasts of his
neighbourhood keep the same hours that they have observed in the memory
of man; and the same which in all probability they have kept for these
five thousand years."

If you would see the innovations that have been made among us in this
particular, you may only look into the hours of colleges, where they
still dine at eleven, and sup at six, which were doubtless the hours
of the whole nation at the time when those places were founded. But at
present, the courts of justice are scarce opened in Westminster Hall at
the time wh