comparison, we must (as theologians and politicians ought oftener to do)
set out by a definition of terms. What is early rising? Is it to rise

"What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night?"

"Patience!" I think I hear some of my fair readers exclaim, "Is this the
early rising this new correspondent of the MIRROR means to enforce? Drag us
from our beds at peep of day! The visionary barbarian! Why, ferocious as
our Innovator is, he would just as soon drag a tigress from her's! We will
not obey this self-appointed Dictator!" Stay, gentle ladies; in the first
place I am not going to enforce this or any other hour; in the second
place, I am not going to enforce early rising at all.--Convinced you feel,
with me, the importance of time, and your responsibility for its right
improvement, I leave it to your consciences whether any part of it should
be uselessly squandered in your beds. The moral culpability of late rising
is when it interferes with the necessary duties of the day; and though, my
fair readers, you may in a great measure claim exemption from these, I
would still, simply in reference to your health and complexions, advise you
not to exceed seven o'clock. But, to effect this, a sine quâ non is,
retiring early, say at eleven--(though really I am too liberal.)--When
people were compelled to retire at the sound of the curfew, when

"The curfew toll'd the parting knell of day,"

early rising was a necessary consequence, as they were earlier tired of
their beds; and this may account for the singular difference between
ancient and modern times in this respect; so that late rising, though a
modern refinement, is by no means exclusively attributable to modern luxury
and indolence, but partly to a change of political enactments, (you see,