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Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew-bespangling herb and tree;

Each flower has wept and bowed towards th’ east

Above an hour since, yet you are not drest;

Nay, not so much as out of bed,

When all the birds have matins said,

And sung their thankful hymns.—Herrick.

“Up with the sun” implies, in common parlance, very early habits, of difficult attainment. But, “we rise with the sun at Christmas: it were but continuing to do so till the middle of April, and without any perceptible change we should find ourselves then rising at five o’clock; at which hour we might continue till September, and then accommodate ourselves again to the change of season, regulating always the time of retiring in the same proportion. They who require eight hours sleep would, upon such a system, go to bed at nine during four months.”

Thus wrote Southey, in his loved sojourn upon the Derwent, of which he says:

Hither I came in manhood’s active prime,

And here my head hath felt the touch of time.

In our great Public Schools, Early Rising appears to have been practised from very remote periods. A manuscript document, showing the system at Eton College about the year 1560, records that the boys rose at five to the loud call of “Surgite;” they repeated a prayer in alternate verses as they dressed themselves, and then made their beds, and each swept the part of the chamber close to his bed. They then went in a row to wash, and then to the school, where the under-master read prayers at six; then the præpositor noted absentees, and one examined the students’ faces and hands, and reported any boys that came unwashed.

The great Lord Burghley, when at St. John’s College, Cambridge, was distinguished by the regularity of his conduct, and the intensity of his application: that he might early devote several hours to study, without any hazard of interruption, he was called up by the bell-ringer every morning at four o’clock. Such was the educational basis upon which Cecil laid the foundation of his brilliant but sound reputation; and by which means, conjoined with the strong natural gift of sagacity, and a mind tinctured with piety, he acquired the esteem and confidence successively of three sovereigns, and held the situation of prime minister of England for upwards of half a century.

Of Sir Edward Coke’s laborious course of study at the Inner Temple, we have some interesting records. Every morning at three, in the winter season lighting his own fire, he read Bracton, Littleton, the Year Books, and the folio Abridgments of the Law, till the courts met at eight. He then went by water to Westminster, and heard cases argued till twelve, when pleas ceased for dinner. After a short repast in the Inner Temple Hall, he attended “readings” or lectures in the afternoon, and then resumed his private studies till five, or supper-time. This meal being ended, the moots took place, when difficult questions of law were proposed and discussed,—if the weather was fine, in the garden by the river-side; if it rained, in the covered walks near the Temple Church. Finally, he shut himself up in his chamber, and worked at his common-place book, in which he inserted, under the proper heads, all the legal information he had collected during the day. When nine o’clock struck, he retired to bed, that he might have an equal portion of sleep before and after midnight.^[21]

Bishop Ken, when a scholar at William of Wykeham’s College at Winchester, in the words of his fellow Wykehamist, the Rev. W. Lisle Bowles, on the glimmering and cold wintry mornings, would perhaps repeat to himself—watching the slow morning through the grated window—one of the beautiful ancient hymns composed for the scholars on the foundation:

Jam lucis ordo sydere

Deum precemur supplices,

Ut in diurnis actibus

Nos servet a nocentibus.

Now the star of morning light

Rises on the rear of night;

Suppliant to our God we pray,

From ills to guard us through this day.

Rising before the others, he had little to do except apply a candle to a large fagot, in winter, which had been already laid.

Ken composed a devotional Manual for the use of the Winchester scholars; but his most interesting compositions are those affecting and beautiful hymns which were sung by himself, and written to be sung in the chambers of the boys, before chapel in the morning, and before they lay down on their small boarded beds at night. Of Ken’s own custom of singing his hymn to the Creator at the earliest dawn, Hawkins, his biographer, relates, “that neither his (Ken’s) study might be the aggressor on his hours of instruction, nor what he judged duty prevent his improvement, he strictly accustomed himself to but one hour’s sleep, which obliged him to rise at one or two o’clock in the morning, or sometimes earlier; and he seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and cheerfulness to sing his Morning Hymn, as he used to do, to his lute, before he put on his clothes.” When he composed those delicious hymns, he was in the fresh morn of life; and who does not feel his heart in unison with that delightful season, when such a strain as this is heard?

Awake, my soul, and with the sun

Thy daily stage of duty run;

Shake off dull sloth, and early rise

To pay thy morning sacrifice.

* * * *

Lord, I my vows to thee renew;

Disperse my sins as morning dew.

May we not also say that when the evening hymn is heard, like the sounds that bid farewell to evening’s parting plaint, it fills the silent heart with devotion and repose?

All praise to thee, my God, this night

For all the blessings of the light;

Keep me, oh, keep me, King of kings,

Under thine own almighty wings.

Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,

The ills that I this day have done;

That with the world, myself, and thee,

I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.

Ken died, Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 1711, in his 74th year, and was carried to his grave, in Frome churchyard, by six of the poorest men of the parish, and buried under the eastern window of the church, at sunrise, in reference to the words of his Morning Hymn:

Awake, my soul, and with the sun.

The same words are sung, to the same tune, every Sunday, by the parish children, in the church of Frome, and over the grave of him who composed the words, and sung them himself, to the same air, nearly two centuries since.

Rubens, the consummate painter, enlightened scholar, skilful diplomatist, and accomplished man of the world, was in the habit of rising very early,—in summer at four o’clock; and he made it a law of his life to begin the day by prayer. After this he went to work, and before his first meal made those beautiful sketches known by the name of breakfast sketches. While painting, he habitually employed a person to read to him from one of the classical authors (his favourites being Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca), or from some eminent poet. This was the time when he generally received his visitors, with whom he entered willingly into conversation on a variety of topics in the most animated and agreeable manner. An hour before dinner was always devoted to recreation; which consisted either in allowing his thoughts to dwell, as they listed, on subjects connected with science or politics,—which latter interested him deeply,—or in contemplating his treasures of art. As work was his great happiness, he indulged but sparingly in the pleasures of the table, and drank but little wine. After working again till the evening, he usually mounted a spirited Andalusian horse, and rode for an hour or two. On his return home, he customarily received a few friends, principally men of learning, or artists, to partake of a frugal supper, and passed the evening in conversation. This active and regular mode of life could alone have enabled Rubens to satisfy all the demands which were made upon him as an artist; for, including copies, the engravings from works of Rubens amount to more than 1500; and the astonishing number of his works, the genuineness of which is beyond all doubt, can only be accounted for by his union of extraordinary diligence with the acknowledged fertility of his productive powers.

John Wesley, at an early age, was sent to the Charter-house, where he suffered under the tyranny which the elder boys were permitted to exercise. The boys of the higher forms were then in the practice of taking their portion of meat from the younger ones, by the law of the strongest; and during great part of the time that Wesley remained there, a small daily portion of bread was his only food. He strictly performed an injunction of his father’s, that he should run round the Charter-house playing-green, of three acres, three times every morning; and to this early practice he attributed his great length of days.

Wesley satisfied himself of the expediency of rising early by experiment, which he describes thus:

I waked every night about twelve or one, and lay awake for some time. I readily concluded that this arose from my being longer in bed than nature required. To be satisfied, I procured an alarum, which waked me the next morning at seven (near an hour earlier than I rose the day before), yet I lay awake again at night. The second morning I rose at six; notwithstanding this I lay awake the second night. The third morning I rose at five; nevertheless I lay awake the third night. The fourth morning I rose at four, as I have done ever since; and I lay awake no more. And I do not now lie awake, taking the year round, a quarter of an hour together in a month. By the same experiment, rising earlier and earlier every morning, may one find out how much sleep he really wants.

But Wesley’s moderation in sleep, and his rigid constancy in rising early, admit of explanation. Mr. Bradburn, who travelled with him almost constantly for years, said that Wesley generally slept several hours in the course of the day; that he had himself seen him sleep three hours together often enough. This was chiefly in his carriage, in which he accustomed himself to sleep on his journeys as regularly, as easily, and as soundly, as if he had gone to bed.

When at Oxford, he formed for himself a scheme of studies: Mondays and Tuesdays were allotted for the Classics; Wednesdays to logic and ethics; Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic; Fridays to metaphysics and natural philosophy; Saturdays to oratory and poetry, but chiefly to composition in those arts; and the Sabbath to divinity. It appears by his diary, also, that he gave great attention to mathematics. Full of business as he now was, he found time for writing by rising an hour earlier in the morning, and going into company an hour later in the evening: he had generally from ten to twelve hours in the day which he could devote to study: and thus he became alike familiar with the literature of his day, as well as with that of past ages.

Dr. Philip Doddridge attributes the production of his various writings to his rising early; adding, “the difference between rising at five and seven o’clock in the morning for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to his life.”

Through life, Gibbon the historian was a very early riser. Before the first volume of his Decline and Fall had given him celebrity, six o’clock was his usual hour of rising: fashionable parties and the House of Commons brought him down to eight.

The day of the profound German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, was begun early. Precisely at five minutes before five o’clock, winter or summer, Lampe, Kant’s servant, who had formerly served in the army, marched into his master’s room with the air of a sentinel on duty, and cried aloud in a military tone, “Mr. Professor, the time is come.” This summons Kant invariably obeyed without one moment’s delay, as a soldier does the word of command—never, under any circumstances, allowing himself a respite, not even under the rare accident of having passed a sleepless night. As the clock struck five, Kant was seated at the breakfast-table, where he drank what he called one cup of tea, and no doubt he thought it such; but the fact was, that, in part from his habit of reverie, and in part also for the purpose of refreshing its warmth, he filled up his cup so often, that in general he is supposed to have drunk two, three, or some unknown number. Immediately after, he smoked a pipe of tobacco; during which operation he thought over his arrangements for the day, as he had done the evening before during the twilight.

Thomson, who has advocated early rising more eloquently than any other writer, was himself an indolent man; he usually lay in bed till noon, and his principal time for composition was midnight. One of his early pictures is:

When from the opening chambers of the east,

The morning springs, in thousand liveries drest,

The early larks their morning tribute pay,

And in shrill notes salute the blooming day.

* * * *

The crowing cock and chattering hen awakes

Dull sleepy clowns, who know the morning breaks.

In his Golden Age of Innocence—

The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened race

Of uncorrupted man, nor blushed to see

The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam,

Then, his charming Summer morn:

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,

And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy

The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,

To meditation due, and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?

To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life,—

Total extinction of the enlightened soul!

Or else to feverish vanity alive,

Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams!

Who would in such a gloomy state remain

Longer than Nature craves; when every muse

And every blooming pleasure wait without,

To bless the wildly devious morning walk?

Lord Chatham, writing to his nephew, January 12, 1754, says: Vitanda est improba Syren, Desidia, I desire may be affixed to the curtains of your bedchamber. If you do not rise early, you can never make any progress worth mentioning. If you do not set apart your hours of reading, if you suffer yourself or any one else to break in upon them, your days will slip through your hands unprofitably and frivolously, unpraised by all you wish to please, and really unenjoyed by yourself.

Harford relates of Dr. Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury:

Of his literary labours and self-denying life, writes a clergyman, “few can have any conception. I was frequently admitted to see him on business, even as early as six in the morning, when, rather than detain me, he has seen me in his dressing-room. Often he kindly remarked, ‘Your time is not your own, and is as precious to you as mine; scruple not to send to me when you really want to see me.’ On one of my early morning visits, about eight o’clock, in the winter, I found him seated in his greatcoat and hat, writing at a table, in a room without a carpet, the floor covered with old folios, and his candles only just extinguished. ‘I have been writing and reading,’ he said, ’since five o’clock.’ At another time I breakfasted with him one morning, by appointment, at his hotel in town; and found him at eight o’clock, about Christmas, writing by candlelight; the whole room being strewed with old books, collected from various places in the metropolis. The untiring perseverance with which he prosecuted his researches for evidence on any particular subject is inconceivable.”

Sir Astley Cooper, in one of his Lectures to his pupils, used to say: “The means by which I preserve my own health are: temperance, early rising, and sponging my body every morning with cold water,—a practice I have pursued for thirty years; and though I go from this heated theatre into the squares of the Hospital in the severest winter-nights, with merely silk stockings on my legs, yet I scarcely ever have a cold. An old Scotch physician, for whom I had a great respect, and whom I frequently met professionally in the City, used to say, as we were entering the patient’s room, ‘Weel, Mister Cooper, we ha’ only twa things to keep in meend, and they’ll sarve us for here and herea’ter: one is always to have the fear of the Laird before our ees, that ’ill do for herea’ter; and the t’other is to keep your booels open, and that will do for here.’”

William Cobbett, who had great contempt for conventionalities, was an early riser from his boyhood,—when his first occupation was driving the small birds from the turnip-seed and the rooks from the peas; when he trudged with his wooden bottle and his satchel, and was hardly able to climb the gates and stiles; when he weeded wheat, and had a single horse at harrowing barley; drove the team, or held the plough—which employments he apostrophises as “Honest pride, and happy days!” He tells us that to the husbanding well of his time he owed his extraordinary promotion in the army. He says: “I was always ready: if I had to mount guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never did any man or any thing wait one moment for me. Being at an age under twenty years, raised from Corporal to Sergeant-Major at once, over the heads of thirty Sergeants, I naturally should have been an object of envy and hatred; but the habit of early rising really subdued these passions; because every one felt that what I did he had never done, and never could do. Before my promotion, a clerk was wanted to make out the morning report of the regiment. I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and long before any other man was dressed for the parade, my work for the morning was all done, and I myself was on the parade, walking, in fine weather, for an hour perhaps. My custom was this: to get up in summer at daylight, and in winter at four o’clock; shave, dress, and even to the putting of the sword-belt over my shoulder, and having the sword lying on the table before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese, or pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour or two to read, before the time came for my duty out of doors, unless when the regiment, or part of it, went out to exercise in the morning. When this was the case, and the matter was left to me, I always had it on the ground in such time as that the bayonets glistened in the rising sun; a sight which gave me delight, of which I often think, but which I should in vain endeavour to describe. When I was commander, the men had a long day of leisure before them: they could ramble into the town or into the woods; go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or to pursue any other recreation; and such of them as chose and were qualified, to work at their trades. So that here, arising solely from the early habits of one very young man, were pleasant and happy days given to hundreds.”

Elsewhere Cobbett addresses this advice “to a lover:” “Early rising is a mark of industry; and though, in the higher situations of life, it may be of no importance in a mere pecuniary point of view, it is, even there, of importance in other respects: for it is, I should imagine, pretty difficult to keep love alive towards a woman who never sees the dew, never beholds the rising sun, and who constantly comes directly from a reeking bed to the breakfast-table, and there chews about without appetite the choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps, endure this for a month or two without being disgusted; but that is ample allowance of time. And as to people in the middle rank of life, where a living and a provision for children is to be sought by labour of some sort or other, late rising in the wife is certain ruin; and never was there yet an early-rising wife who had been a late-rising girl. If brought up to late rising, she will like it; it will be her habit; she will, when married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit: at first she will be indulged without bounds; to make change afterwards will be difficult; it will be deemed a wrong done to her; she will ascribe it to diminished affection; a quarrel must ensue, or the husband must submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit of his labour snored and lounged away. And is this being rigid? is it being harsh? is it being hard upon women? Is it the offspring of the frigid severity of the age? It is none of these: it arises from an ardent desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural, legitimate, and salutary influence of the female sex. The tendency of this advice is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong the duration of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the last day of their lives; and to give them, during the whole of their lives, weight and consequence, of which laziness would render them wholly unworthy.”

When Cobbett had become a public writer, he constantly inveighed against those who