eaner sort, &c., old folks have their beads: an excellent invention to
keep them from idleness, that are by nature melancholy, and past all
affairs, to say so many paternosters, avemarias, creeds, if it were not
profane and superstitious. In a word, body and mind must be exercised, not
one, but both, and that in a mediocrity; otherwise it will cause a great
inconvenience. If the body be overtired, it tires the mind. The mind
oppresseth the body, as with students it oftentimes falls out, who (as
[3374]Plutarch observes) have no care of the body, "but compel that which
is mortal to do as much as that which is immortal: that which is earthly,
as that which is ethereal. But as the ox tired, told the camel, (both
serving one master) that refused to carry some part of his burden, before
it were long he should be compelled to carry all his pack, and skin to boot
(which by and by, the ox being dead, fell out), the body may say to the
soul, that will give him no respite or remission: a little after, an ague,
vertigo, consumption, seizeth on them both, all his study is omitted, and
they must be compelled to be sick together:" he that tenders his own good
estate, and health, must let them draw with equal yoke, both alike, [3375]
"that so they may happily enjoy their wished health."

MEMB. V.
_Waking and terrible Dreams rectified_.

As waking that hurts, by all means must be avoided, so sleep, which so much
helps, by like ways, [3376]"must be procured, by nature or art, inward or
outward medicines, and be protracted longer than ordinary, if it may be, as
being an especial help." It moistens and fattens the body, concocts, and
helps digestion (as we see in dormice, and those Alpine mice that sleep all
winter), which Gesner speaks of, when they are so found sleeping under the
snow in the dead of winter, as fat as butter. It expels cares, pacifies the
mind, refresheth the weary limbs after long work:

[3377]Somne quies rerum, placidissime somne deorum,
Pax animi, quem cura fugit, qui corpora duris
Fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque labori."

"Sleep, rest of things, O pleasing deity,
Peace of the soul, which cares dost crucify,
Weary bodies refresh and mollify."

The chiefest thing in all physic, [3378]Paracelsus calls it, _omnia arcana
gemmarum superans et metallorum_. The fittest time is [3379]"two or three
hours after supper, when as the meat is now settled at the bottom of the
stomach,