Dean Ramsey relates that the Earl of Lauderdale was alarmingly ill, one
distressing symptom being a total absence of sleep, without which the
medical men declared he could not recover. His son, who was somewhat
simple, was seated under the table, and cried out, "Sen' for that
preaching man frae Livingstone, for fayther aye sleeps in the kirk." One
of the doctors thought the hint worth attending to, and the experiment
of "getting a minister till him" succeeded, for sleep came on and the
earl recovered.
1792
Come sleep, O sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low!
--_Sir P. Sidney._
1793
Sleep.
Do not omit the heavy offer of it;
It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
It is a comforter.
--_Shakespeare._
1794
Sleep, thou patron of mankind,
Great physician of the mind,
Who dost nor pain nor sorrow know,
Sweetest balm of every woe.
--_Sophocles, born 496 B. C._
1795
Sleep has often been mentioned as the image of death, so like it, that
we should not trust it without prayer.
1796