th an Empress, his heart cannot be at
quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the
other: yea, so greatly indebted are we to this kinsman of death,
that we owe the better tributary, half of our life to him: and
there is good cause why we should do so: for sleep is that golden
chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of
want? of wounds? of cares? of great men's oppressions? of
captivity? whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much
pleasure as kings: can we therefore surfeit on this delicate
Ambrosia? can we drink too much of that whereof to taste too
little tumbles us into a churchyard, and to use it but
indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no, look upon Endymion,
the moon's minion, who slept three score and fifteen years, and
was not a hair the worse for it. Can lying abed till noon (being
not the three score and fifteenth thousand part of his nap) be
hurtful?

"Besides, by the opinion of all philosophers and physicians, it
is not good to trust the air with our bodies till the sun with
his flame-coloured wings hath fanned away the misty smoke of the
morning, and refined that thick tobacco-breath which the
rheumatic night throws abroad of purpose to put out the eye of
the element: which work questionless cannot be perfectly finished
till the sun's car-horses stand prancing on the very top of
highest noon: so that then (and not till then) is the most
healthful hour to be stirring. Do you require examples to
persuade you? At what time do Lords and Ladies use to rise but
then? Your simpering merchants' wives are the fairest lyers in
the world: and is not eleven o'clock their common hour? they find
(no doubt) unspeakable sweetness in such lying, else they would
not day by day put it so in practice. In a word, mid-day slumbers
are golden; they make the body fat, the skin fair, the flesh
plump, delicate and tender; they set a russet colour on the
cheeks of young women, and make lusty courage to rise up in men;
they make us thrifty, both in sparing victuals (for breakfasts
thereby are saved from the hell-mouth of the belly) and in
preserving apparel; for while we warm us in our beds our clothes
are not worn.

"The casements of thine eyes being then at this commendable time
of the day new