the

They who defcribe the golden age, or age of innocence, and near a thoufand years of life, reprefent the customary food of it, as the plaineft and moft fimple.

Whether animal food was at all used before the flood, is queftioned: we certainly find, long after it, that Lot's making a feaft is defcribed by his baking unleavened bread.

Abraham entertained thofe, whom he confidered of fuch eminence, as that, to use the words of fcripture, "he ran to "meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the ground;" Abraham's entertainment, I fay, of perfons thus honoured by him, was only with a calf, with cakes of meal, with butter and milk.

Gideon's hofpitality towards the moft illuftrious of guests fhewed itself in killing a kid of the goats; and we read that Fefe looked upon this to be a prefent, which his prince would not difdain..

Perhaps my reader would rather take a meal with fome of the worthies of profane hiftory, than with thofe, whom the facred has recorded.

I will be his introducer. He fhall be a gueft at an entertainment, which was, certainly, defigned to be a fplendid one; fince it was made by Achilles for three fuch confiderable perfons, as Phenix, Ajax, and Ulyes; perfons, whom he himself repre

fents as being, of all the Grecian chiefs, thofe whom he most honours.

He will eafily be believed herein; for this declaration is fcarce fooner out of his mouth, than he and his friends, Patroclus and Automedon, feverally employ themfelves in making up the fire-chopping the meat, and putting it into the pot-Or, if Mr. Pope be allowed to defcribe their tasks on this occafion,

-Patroclus o'er the blazing fire

Heaps in a brazen vase three chincs entire :

The brazen vafe Automedon fuftains, Which flesh of porket, sheep, and goat contains: Achilles at the genial feaft prefides, The parts transfixes, and with skill divides. Mean while Patroclus fweats the fire to raise; The tent is brighten'd with the rising blaze. But who is dreffing the fish and fowls? This feaft, alas! furnishes neither. The poet is fo very bad a caterer, that he provides nothing of that kind for his heroes on this occafion; or, on another, even for the luxurious Phæacians. Such famples thefe of Homer's entertainments, as will gain entire credit to what is faid of them in Plutarch, "that we must rise almost hungry "from them.", Symp. Lib. II. Qu. 10.

Should the blind bard be confidered as a ftroller-keeping low company, and therefore, in the feafts he makes for the great, likely more to regard the quantity of the food which he provides for them, than the kind of it: would you rather be one of Virgil's guefts, as he lived in an age, when good eating was understoodconverfed with people of rank-knew what dishes they liked, and would therefore not fail to place fuch before them?

You fhall then be the guest of the Roman poet-1 -Do you chufe beef, or muttonwould you be helped to pork, or do you prefer goat's-flefh? You have no ftomach for fuch fort of diet. He has nothing else for you, unless Polyphemus will fpare you a leg or an arm of one of the poor Greeks he is eating; or unless you will join the halfdrowned crew, and take a bit of the ftags, which are dreffed as foon as killed; or unlefs you are a great lover of bread and apples, and in order to fatisfy your hunger, will, in the language of Afcanius, eat your table.

Dido, indeed, gives Eneas and his companions a moft fplendid entertainment, as far as numerous attendants conftitute one; but the poet mentions nothing, that the heroes had to eat, except bread; whatever elfe was got for them he includes in the general term Dapes; which, in other parts

of the Eneid, is applied to all the coarfe fare already mentioned.

As the luxury of mankind increafed, their lives shortened: The half of Abraham's age became regarded as a ftretch, far beyond the customary period. So in profane history we find, that when the arts of luxury were unknown in Rome, its feven kings reigned a longer term, than, afterwards, upon the prevalency of those arts, was completed by its first twenty empe

rors.

Such perfons, indeed, among the ancients, whofe precepts and practice molt recommended temperance in diet, were eminent inftances of the benefit accruing from it, in the health preferved, and long life attained by it.

Gorgias lived 107 years.

Hippocrates reached, according to fome writers, his 104th year, according to others his 109th.

1

Pythagoras, of whom it was obferved, that he was never known to eat to fatiety, lived to near 100 years; if Jamblichus may be credited. D. Laertius fays, that according to moft writers he was, when he loft his life, in his 90th year. Out of his school came Empedocles, who lived, as fome fay, to 109; and Xenophilus, who lived to above 105.

Zeno lived to 98: his difciple and fucceffor Cleanthes to 99.

Diogenes, when he died, was about 90. Plato reach'd his 81ft year; and his follower Xenocrates his 84th.

Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Lacedemonians, who, when they obeyed his laws, were not lefs diftinguished by their abfte mioufnefs than by their fortitude, lived to 85; and their King Agefilaus took pay of Tachos at 80; afterwards aflitted Nectanebos; and, having established him in his kingdom, died, in his return to Sparta at 84.

Cato, the Cenfor, is introduced by Tully representing himself as, when in his 84th year, able to affift in the fenate-to speak in the affembly of the people, and to give his friends and dependents the affiftance, which they might want from him.

Lucian introduces his account of longlived perfons, with the observation, that it might be of use, as fhewing that they, who took the most care of their bodies and minds, lived the longest, and enjoyed the

best health.

To come nearer to our own times: the discovery of a new world has confirmed the

obfervations furnished by the old; that in thofe countries, where the greatest fimplicity of diet has been used, the greatest length of life has been attained.

Of the ancient inhabitants of Virginia we are told, "That their chief dish was maiz, and that they drank only water: That their diseases were few, and chiefly proceeded from exceffive heats or colds." "Atl. Geog. vol. v. p. 711. upwards of 200 years." PURCHAS, Vol. v. p. 946. "The fobriety of the ancient inhabitants of Florida lengthen'd their lives in fuch fort, that one of their kings, fays Morgues, told me, he was three hundred years old; and his father, whom he then fhewed me alive, was fifty years older than himself." PURCHAS, vol. v. p. 951.

"Some of them lived to

And if we now fearch after particular inflances of perfons reaching to extreme old age, it is certain that we must not refort for them to courts and palaces; to the dwellings of the great or the wealthy; but to the cells of the religious, or to cottages; to the habitations of fuch, whose hunger is their fauce, and to whom a wholefome meal is a fufficiently delicate

one.

Martha Waterhouse, of the township of North Bierley in Yorkshire, died about the year 1711, in the 104th year of her age: her maiden fifler, Hafler Jager, of the fame place, died in 1713, in the 107th year of her age. They had both of them relief from the township of Bierky nigh fifty years. Abridgement of Phil. Tranf. by JONES, vol. ii. p. 2. p. 115.

Dr. Harvey in his anatomical account of T. Parr, who died in the 153d year of his age, fays-that, if he had not changed his diet and air, he might, perhaps, have lived a good while longer. His diet was old cheele, milk, coarfe bread, fmall beer, and whey.

Dr. T. Robinfon fays of H. Jenkins the fisherman, who lived 169 years, that his diet was coarfe and four.

Dr. M. Lifter, having mentioned feveral old perfons of Craven in Yorkshire, faysThe food of all this mountainous country is exceeding coarse. Abr. of Phil. Tranf. by LowTHORP, vol. iii. p. 307, c.

Buchanan fpeaks of a fisherman in his own time, who married at 100, went out in his little fishing boat in the roughest weather at 140, and at laft did not die of any painful diftemper, but merely worn out by age. Rer. Scot. Hift. lib. i. ad fin.

Plutarch mentions our countrymen as,

in his time, growing old at 120. To account for this, as he does, from their climate, feems less rational than to afcribe it to their way of living, as related by Diodorus Siculus, who tell us that their diet was fimple, and that they were utter ftrangers to the delicate fare of the wealthy.

In our feveral neighbourhoods we all of us fee, that they who leaft confult their appetite, who leaft give way to its wantonnefs or voracioufnefs, attain, generally, to years far exceeding theirs, who deny themselves nothing they can relish, and conveniently procure.

Human life, indeed, being expofed to fo many thousand accidents, its end being haftened by such a prodigious diverfity of means, there is no care we can take of ourfelves, in any one refpect, that will be our effectual prefervative; but, allowing for cafualties and difference in conftitutions, we every where perceive, that the age of those, who neglect the rules of temperance, is of a much shorter date than theirs, by whom thefe rules are carefully followed.

And if we attend to our ftructure, it must thence be evident that it cannot be otherwise.

Dean Bolton.

§ 133. On Intemperance in Eating.

SECT. IV.

The human body may be confidered as compofed of a great variety of tubes, in which their proper fluid is in a perpetual motion. Our health is according to the condition, in which thefe veffels and this fluid are.

The ruptured, or too relaxed, or too rigid state of the one; and the redundancy or deficiency, the refolved or vifcid, the acefcent or the putrefcent ftate of the other, is a diforder in our frame. Whether our excefs be in the quantity or quality of aliment, we must fuffer by it, in fome or other of these ways.

By the ftomach being frequently loaded, that fulness of the veffels enfues, by which the fibres are weakened-the circulation becomes languid-perfpiration is leffened -obftructions are formed-the humours become vifcid and foon putrid.

In the progrefs to this laft ftate, different diseases take place, according to the general ftrength or weakness of the folids, or according to the debility of fome particular organ; according to the conflitution of the air; according to our reft or motion; according to the warmth in which we keep, or

the cold, to which we expose ourselves, &c.

Excess may be in the quantity of our food, not only when we eat so as to burthen the ftomach; but, likewife, when our meals bear not a juft proportion to our labour or exercise.

We are tempted to exceed in the quantity of our food, by the feasoning of it, or by the variety of it.

The ftimulus of fauce ferves but to excite a falfe appetite-to make us eat much more than we should do, if our diet were quite fimple.

The effect is the fame, when our meal is compofed of feveral kinds of food: their different taftes are so many inducements to excefs, as they are fo many provocations to eat beyond what will fatisfy our natural wants.

And thus, tho' we were never to touch a dith, which had its relish from any the leaft unwholesome ingredient; tho' our diet were the plaineft, and nothing came ever before us, that had any other elegance than from the season, in which it was brought to our table, or the place in which it appeared there; we yet might greatly hurt ourselves: we might be as intemperate, and as fpeedily destroy ourselves by our intemperance with roaft and boiled meat, as with fricaffees and ragouts.

The quality of our aliment may be mifchicvous to us, either as univerfally prejudicial to the human conftitution, or as unfuitable to our own;-unfuitable to the weakness of our whole frame, or to fome defect in the formation of a part of it, or to that taint we have in us, from the difeafes or vices of our parents.

We may be greatly prejudiced by the kind of our food, in many other ways; and we, ordinarily, are fo, by not regarding what agrees with the climate, in which we are-what with the country we inhabitwhat with the manner of life we lead.

From the great heat that fpices occafion, and from the length of time they continue it, we may truly fay, that their copious and daily ufe in food must be injurious to all conftitutions.

So for falted meats, the hurt that may be feared from them, when they are our conftant meals, is eafily collected, from the irritation they muft caufe in their paffage thro' the body-from the injury, that must hence enfue to its finer membranes-from the numerous acrid particles, that must hereby be lodged in the pores of the skin, the obftru&ions which this must produce, and

the large quantity of perfpirable matter which will, therefore, be detained in, and, confequently, greatly foul the blood from the dreadful fymptoms, that attend a high degree of the fcurvy; the relief of which by vegetables, by fresh meat, by liquids fittest to remove the effects of a muriatic caufe, plainly fhews them to be owing to fuch a caufe.

Whatever has the haut-gout may be looked upon as confifting of fuch active particles, as cannot but make our frequent eating of it very dangerousas muft render it much fitter to be used as phyfic, than as food.

From a mixture of meats, each of them wholesome in its kind, a bad chyle may be formed and the rule in phyfic is, that an error in the firft digeftion will not be mended in the fecond.

A delicate conftitution is, fpeedily, either quite deftroyed, or irrecoverably difordered, when the diet is not exactly adapted to it is not fuch as leaft irritates, as leaft heats, as is moft eafily concocted, as fooneft paffes out of the body, and leaves the feweft impurities behind it there.

The weakness, or the wrong formation, of a part of our frame is, generally, a call to the utmost care about our food; and as our obferving this may extend our life, even under cither of thofe circumftances, as far as we could have hoped it would have been prolonged, if we had been without any fuch defect; fo our failure therein may, in a very fhort time, be fatal to us, The moft fimple aliment will, perhaps, be unable to hinder our feeling, in fome degree, the bad confequences of the dif cafes, or irregularities' of our parents: but how far they fhall affect us, depends, very often, in a great meafure, upon ourfelves.

They may neither much contract the term, nor much interrupt the comfort, of life, if we will make hunger our fauce, and, in every meal we eat, regard the diftempers we inherit; but early, alas! and heavy will our fufferings be, our years few and full of uneafinefs, when, without any fuch regard, our tafte is directed by that of the found and athletic-when the folicitations of appetite lead us to forget the reaions we have to reftrain it.

In this climate and country, where, for fo many months in the year, the cuticular discharges are fo fmall--where the air fo often, fo fuddenly, and to fo great a devaries its equilibrium, and where our

gree,

veffels, therefore, are as frequently, as fuddenly, and as greatly contracted or expanded-where fogs fo much abound, and fo much contribute to impair the elasticity of our fibres-to hinder the proper both fecretions and excretions-to destroy the due texture of the blood, and vitiate our whole habit, it must be obvious, what we have to fear, when our aliment hurts us in the fame way with our air-when the one heightens the diforder, to which we are expofed by the other.

An inattention to the nutriment fit for us, when we feldom use any exercise, or, always, very gentle when our life is fedentary, either from the bufinefs by which we maintain ourselves, or from our love of eafe, or from our literary purfuits, is perhaps, as fatal to us, as almost any inftance of wrong conduct, with which we can be chargeable. By high feeding and little or no exercife, we are not only expofed to the most dangerous diseases, but we make all difeafes dangerous: we make those fo, which would, otherwife, be flight and eafily removed-we do not only fubject ourfelves to the particular maladies, which have their rife wholly from luxury, but we render ourselves more liable to thofe, which have no connexion with it. We, then, are among the firft, who are feized with the diftempers, which the conftitution of the air occafions-We are molt apt to receive all thofe of the infectious kind-We take cold whence we might least fear it; and find its immediate confequence, a malignant or an inflammatory fever, or some other difeafe equally to be dreaded.

A writer in phyfic of the first rank afferts, that our diet is the chief caufe of all our difeafes-that other causes only take effect from the difpofition of our body, and the state of its humours.

There is, I am perfuaded, much truth in this affertion. For, as in countries, where the inhabitants greatly indulge themselves, few die of old age; fo where a ftrict temperance is obferved, few die but of old age. We find, likewife, perfons, as Socrates for inftance, who, by their regular living, have preferved themselves from the infection of a difeafe, that has made the cruelleft havock around them. We perceive, alfo, the reftorers of health ufually attempting its recovery by fome or other difcharge, by draining the body in fome way or other. And if evacuation is the cure of our disorders, we may justly think, that repletion is their most

general

general caufe. But if this may admit of a difpute, which, I think, it hardly can do; yet is it on all hands agreed that there are several diftempers, to which few are fubject but for want of felf-denial in themselves, or their ancestors-that moft of thefe diftempers are of the painfulleft fort, and that fome of them are fuch as we for years lament, without the leaft hope of recovery, and under an abfolute certainty, that the longer they continue upon us the more grievously they will diftrefs us; the acuteness of our fufferings from them will be conftantly increafing.

Dean Bolton.

$134. On Intemperance in Eating.

SECT. V.

Let me, alfo, confider intemperance in what we eat, as frequently interrupting the ufe of our nobler faculties; and fure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them. How long is it before we are really ourselves, after our ftomach has received its full load! Under it, our fenfes are dulled, our memory clouded, heavinefs and ftupidity poffefs us: fome hours must pafs, before our vivacity returns, before reason can again act with its full vigour. The man is not feen to advantage, his real abilities are not to be difcovered, till the effects of his gluttony are removed, till his conftitution has thrown off the weight that oppreffed it.

The hours preceding a plentiful meal, or thofe, which fuccced its entire digeftion, are, we all find, fuch, in which we are fitteft to tranfact our affairs, in which all the acts of the understanding are beft exerted.

How fmall a part of his time is therefore, the luxurious man himself! What between the length of his repafts-the fpace during which he is, as it were, ftupified by his excefs in them-the many hours of fleep that he wants to refresh, and of exercife to ftrengthen him; within how fmall a compafs is that portion of his life brought, in which his rational powers are fitly difplayed!

In the vigour of youth, in the full ftrength of manhood, an uncontrouled gratification of appetite allows only fhort intervals of clear apprehenfion, of close attention, and the free ufe of our judgment; but if, either through an uncommonly firm conftitution, or by fpending all thofe hours in exercife, which are not paffed at our tables or in our beds, we are enabled, notwithstanding fuch gratification, to reach a more advanced age; what a melancholy

fpectacle do we then frequently afford! our memory, our wit, our fenfe almost wholly deftroyed-their remains fcarce allowing a conjecture to be formed thence, what they have been-the ruins of the man hardly furnishing a trace of his former ornaments.

Moft of those difeafes, which luxury brings upon our bodies are, indeed, a gradual impairing of our intellectual faculties: the mind fhares the diforder of its companion, acts as that permits, difcovers a greater or lefs capacity, according to the other's more or lefs perfect state. And as the body, when dead, is totally unfit to be acted upon by the foul; fo the nearer it is brought to death by our gluttony, the more we increase its unfitnefs to difplay, by how noble a principle it is actuated-what the extent of these abilities is, which the bounty of our infinitely good and powerful Creator has afforded us.

It only remains that I confider, how ruinous the excefs I am cenfuring is to our fortune; and to what a mean dependence, to what vile difhoneft practices, it often reduces us.

There are few cftates, that can bear the expence, into which what is called an elegant table will draw us. It is not only the price of what is fet before us, that we are here to regard, but the wafte that the minifters to our luxury occafion-their rapine

the example they fet to all, who are concerned in our affairs, and the difqualification, under which we put ourselves to look into them.

He who is determined to please his palate at any price, infects not only thofe about him with his extravagant turn; but gives them opportunities of defrauding him, which are feldom neglected. His houfe is the refort of the worst of mankind; for fuch they always are, whom a wellspread table affembles; and who, by applauding the profufeness that feeds them, by extolling, as proofs of a refined underftanding, what are the fureft marks of a weak one, or rather of the total want of one, hurry on the ruin, that was, otherwise, with too much speed advancing.

But fmall is their number, whom it concerns to be told, how a large fortune may be reduced: how the making any must he hindered, is the argument, in which the generality are interested. This hindrance is the fure, the undeniable confequence of giving way to our appetite. I have alrea dy obferved, what hurt our very capacity often receives from it to what a degree

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our