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
O’er books consumed the midnight oil.
In country or in town, at Barn Elms, in Bolt-court, or at Kensington, he
wrote his Registers early in the morning: these, it must be admitted,
had force enough; for he said truly, “Though I never attempt to put
forth that sort of stuff which the intense people on the other side of
the Channel call _eloquence_, I bring out strings of very interesting
facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer them down so
closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a lasting
impression.” This he owed, doubtless, to his industry, early rising, and
methodical habits.
Daniel Webster, the famous American statesman, unlike most men of his
day, usually went to bed by nine o’clock, and rose very early in the
morning. General Lynian had heard Webster say, that while in Washington,
there were periods when he shaved and dressed himself for six months
together by candlelight. The morning was his time for study, writing,
thinking, and all kinds of mental labour: from the moment when the first
streak of dawn was seen in the east, till nine or ten o’clock in the
forenoon, scarcely a moment was lost; and it was then that his work was
principally done. Persons who occasionally called upon him as early as
ten in the morning, and found him ready to converse with them, wondered
when he did his work; for they knew that he did work, yet they rarely,
if ever, found him, like other men of business, engaged. The truth was,
that when their day’s work began, his ended; and while they were
indulging in their morning dreams, Webster was up, looking “quite
through the deeds of men.” This habit, followed from his youth, enabled
him to make those remarkable acquisitions of knowledge on all subjects,
and afforded him so much leisure to devote to his friends.
The college-life of Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, presents
us with some of the beneficial results of the habit of early rising. The
people of England were not a little surprised, at first, to hear that
the Queen and the royal Consort were seen walking together at a very
early hour on the morning of the very day after their marriage. But,
while at Bonn, Prince Albert was particularly distinguished from the
other students of the same rank for the salutary habit of getting up
early, one which he had uniformly persevered in from his boyhood:
therefore, it is very natural that he should have adhered to it after he
had come of age, whether in England or in any other country, and be
likely to do so all the days of his life. At Bonn, the prince generally
rose about half-past five o’clock in the morning, and never prolonged
his repose after six. From that hour up to seven in the evening, he
assiduously devoted his whole time to his studies, with the exception of
an interval of three hours, which he allowed himself for dinner and
recreation. At seven he usually went out, and paid visits to those
individuals or families who were honoured with his acquaintance.[22]
To these instances of the remarkable labours which have been
accomplished by rising early, it can scarcely be considered necessary to
add any thing to enforce the benefits to be derived from the practice.
Nevertheless, something has been said on the other side. An able
essayist has urged that most people who get up unusually early find that
there is nothing to do when they are dressed. There are comparatively
few mornings in the year when it is pleasant to take an hour’s walk
before breakfast in the country. Then, if the early riser stays within
doors, the sitting-rooms are not ready for his reception. Among the
physical inconveniences, this writer shows that the early riser, if not
tormented with a consequent headache, is often troubled with a feeling
of sleepiness and heaviness through the latter part of the day; and, as
far as time goes, he is apt to lose afterwards much more, while he in
some way or other compensates himself for his activity, than he gained
by the extra hour we are supposing him to have had early in the morning.
Then, the moral effect on the early riser, it is said, is to cause in
him an exuberant feeling of conscious goodness: he has performed a feat
which raises him, by his moral self-approval, above ordinary people, who
merely come down to breakfast. There is some truth in all this, which,
however, we think to be the exception rather than the rule; for if early
rising be the general practice in a house, these minor inconveniences
will soon disappear. The above writer is inclined to allow that the
objections to early rising may too exclusively rest on exceptional
cases. He admits, with great fairness, in favour of the practice, that
“if the spare hour can be turned to serious profit, so much the better.
Coming at the beginning of the day, it finds the mind tranquil,
sanguine, and fresh. The time it gives is likely to be free from
interruptions; and the good effect of the study will tell more
powerfully than when it has, as it were, the whole day in its grasp,
than if it were merely slipt in among the other thoughts and occupations
of busier hours. Health, too, is said to profit by early rising; and so
many people have stated this as a fact, that it may perhaps be taken for
granted.”[23]
---------------------
Footnote 21:
See _School-days of Eminent Men_, by the Author of the present volume.
Second edition, 1862.
Footnote 22:
_History of the University of Bonn._
Footnote 23:
_Saturday Review_, March 26, 1859.
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