likewife, when our circumstances not permitting us, ordinarily, to indulge our appetite, we yot set no bounds to it, when we have an opportunity of gratifying it.

He is the temperate man, whose health directs his appetite-who is best pleased with what best agrees with him who eats, not to gratify his taste, but to preferve his life-who is the fame at every table, as at his own-who, when he feafts, is not cloyed; and fees all the delicacies before him, that luxury can accumulate; yet preferves a due abitinence amidst them.

The rules of temperance not only oblige us to abstain from what now does, or what we are fure foon will, hurt us: we offend against them, when we avoid not whatever has a probability of being hurtful to us.They are, further, tranfgreffed by too great nicety about our food-by much folicitude and eagerness to procure what we most relith-by frequently eating to sati

ety.

We have a letter remaining of an heathen, who was one of the most eminent perfons in an age diftinguished by the great men it produced, in which he expresses how uneasy it made him, to be among those, who placed no small part of their happiness in an elegant table, and who filled themselves twice a day.

In thus defcribing temperance, let me not be understood to cenfure, as a failure therein, all regard to the food that best pleases ns, when it is equally wholesome with other kinds-when its price is neither unfuitable to our circumstances, nor very great-when it may be conveniently procared-when we are not anxious about it when we do not frequently feek after it when we are always moderate in its ufe.

To govern our appetite is necessary; but, in order to this, there is no neceffity, that we should always mortify it that we should, upon every occafion, confider what is leaft agreeable to us.

Life is no more to be passed in a con. fiant felf-denial, than in a round of fenfual enjoyments. We should endeavour, that it may not be, at any time, painful to us to deny ourselves what is improper for us; and, on that as well as other accounts, it is mot fitting that we should frequently practice feif-denial that we should often forego what would delight us. But to do this continually, I cannot suppose required of us; because it doth not seem reasonable to think that it should be our duty wholly

to debar ourselves of that food which our

palate is formed to relish, and which we are fure may be used, without any prejudice to our virtue, or our health.

Thus much may fuflice to inform us, when we incur the guilt of eating intemperately.

The dissuasives from it, that appear of greatest weight, are thefe:

It is the grossest abuse of the gifts of Providence.

It is the vilest debasement of ourselves. Our bodies owe to it the most painful diseases, and, generally, a speedy decay.

It frequently interrupts the use of our nobler faculties, and is fure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them.

The ftraits to which it often reduces us, occafion our falling into crimes, whicht would, otherwise, have been our utter abhorrence. Dean Bolton.

§ 131. On Intemperance in Eating.
SECT. II.

To confider, first, excess in our food as the grossest abuse of the gifts of providence.

The valt variety of creatures, with which God has replenished the earth-the abundant provifion, which he has made for many of them-the care, which he has taken that each species of them should be preferved - the numerous conveniencies they administer to us--the pleasing change of food they afford us the suitable food that we find, among their different kinds, to different climates, to our different ways of life, ages, conflitutions, diftempers, are, certainly, the most awakening call to the highest admiration, and the gratefulleft fenfe, of the divine wisdom and goodness. This sense is properly expressed, by the due application of what is fo gracicufly afforded us-by the application of it to those purposes, for which it was manifeflly intended. But how contrary hereto is his practice, who lives as it were but to eat, and confiders the liberality of providence only as catering for his luxury! What mischief this luxury doth us will be prefently confidered; and, in whatsoever degree it hurts us, we to such a degree abufe our Maker's bounty, which must design our good-which, certainly, is directed to our welfare. Were we, by indulging our appetites, only to make ourselves less fit for any of the offices of life, only to become less capable of discharging any of the duties of our station, it may be made evident, I that, that, in this respect likewise, our use of the Divine beneficence is quite contrary to what it requires. He who has appointed us our business here-who, by our peculiar capacities, has fignified to us our pro per employments, thereby discovers to us how far merely to please ourselves is allowed us; and that, if we do so, to the hindrance of a nobler work, it is oppofing his intention; it is defeating the end of life, by those very gifts, which were bestowed to carry us on more chearfully towards it.

When my palate has a large scope for its innocent choice-when I have at hand what may most agreeably recruit my strength, and what is most effectual to preserve it; how great ingratitude and baseness shew themselves in the excess, which perverts the aim of so much kindness, and makes that to be the cause of my forgetting with what view I was created, which ought to keep me ever mindful of it! As the bounty of Heaven is one of the strongest motives to a reasonable life, how guilty are we if we abuse it to the purposes of a fenfual! Our crime must be highly aggravated, when the more conveniences our Maker has provided for us, we are so much the more unmindful of the task he has enjoined us-when by his granting us what may fatisfy our appetite, we are induced wholly to confult it, and make ourselves flaves to it.

Let intemperance in our food be next confidered, as the shamefullest debasement

of ourselves.

I

reason and appetite are in a conftant oppofition to each other, there is no indulging the latter, without lessening the power of the former: If our appetite is not governed by, it will govern, our reason, and make its most prudent suggestions, its wifeft counsels, to be unheeded and flighted.

The fewer the wants of any being are, we must confider it as so much the more perfect; since thereby it is less dependent, and has less of its happiness without itself. When we raise our thoughts to the Beings above us, we cannot but attribute to the higher orders of them, ftill farther removes from our own weakness and indigence, till we reach God himself, and exempt him from wants of every kind.

Knowing thus what must be ascribed to natures superior to ours, we cannot be ignorant, what is our own best recommendation; by what our nature is raised; wherein its worth is distinguished.

To be without any wants is the Divine prerogative; our praise is, that we add not to the number of those, to which we were appointed that we have none we can avoid that we have none from our own misconduct. In this we attain the utmost degree of perfection within our reach.

On the other hand, when fancy has multiplied our necessities-when we owe I know not how many to ourselves-when our ease is made dependent on delicacies, to which our Maker never fubjected itwhen the cravings of our luxury bear no proportion to those of our natural hunger, what a degenerate race do we become! What do we but fink our rank in the creation.

He whose voraciousness prevents his being fatisfied, till he is loaded to the full of what he is able to bear, who eats to the utmost extent of what he can eat, is a mere brute, and one of the lowest kind of brutes; the generality of them observing a just moderation in their food-when duly relieved seeking no more, and forbearing even what is before them. But below any brute is he, who, by indulging himself, has contracted wants, from which nature exempted him; who must be made hungry by art, must have his food undergo the most unwholfome preparations, before he can be inclined to taste it; only relishing what is ruinous to his health; his life supported by what necessarily shortens it. A part this, which, when acted by him, who has reafon, reflection, forefight given him, wants a name to reprefent it in the full of its deformity. With privileges fo far beyond. yond those of the creatures below us, how great is our baseness, our guilt, if those endowments are so far abused, that they serve us but to find out the means of more grefsly corrupting ourselves!

I cannot quit this head, without remarking it to be no flight argument of the difhonour we incur by gluttony, that nothing is more carefully avoided in all well-bred company, nothing would be thought by fuch more brutal and rude, than the difcovery of any marks of our having eat intemperately of our having exceeded that proportion of food, which is proper for our nourishment.

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

Gideon's hospitality towards the most illustrious of guests thewed itself in killing a kid of the goats; and we read that Jefe looked upon this to be a present, which his prince would not difdain.

Perhaps my reader would rather take a Dear with some of the worthies of profane hiftory, than with those, whom the facred has recorded.

I will be his introducer. He shall be a guest at an entertainment, which was, certainly, designed to be a splendid one; fince it was made by Achilles for three such confierable perions, as Phanix, Ajax, and Liges; perfons, whom he himself repre

sents as being, of all the Grecian chiefs, those whom he most honours.

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

Patroclus o'er the blazing fire
Heaps in a brazen vase three chines entire:
The brazen vase Automedon fustains,
Which flesh of porket, freep, and goat contains:
Acbilles at the genial feaft prefides,
The parts transfixes, and with skill divides.
Mean while Patroclus sweats the fire to raife;
The tent is brighten'd with the rifing blaze.

But who is dressing the fish and fowls ? This feaft, alas! furnishes neither. The poet is so very bad a caterer, that he provides nothing of that kind for his heroes on this occafion; or, on another, even for the luxurious Phaacians. Such samples these of Homer's entertainments, as will gain entire credit to what is faid of them in Plutarch, "that we must rife almost hungry " from them." Symp. Lib. II. Qu. 10.

Should the blind bard be confidered as

a stroller-keeping low company, and therefore, in the feasts 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 guests, as he lived in an age, when good eating was understoodconversed with people of rank-knew what dishes they liked, and would therefore not fail to place such before them?

You shall then be the guest of the Roman poet-Do you chuse beef, or muttonwould you be helped to pork, or do you prefer goat's-flesh? You have no ftomach for fuch fort of diet. He has nothing elfe for you, unless Polyphemus will spare 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 stags, which are dressed as foon as killed; or unless 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 Æneas and his companions a most splendid 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 coarse fare already mentioned.

As the luxury of mankind increased, their lives shortened: The half of Abra ham's age became regarded as a stretch, far beyond the customary period. So in profane history we find, that when the arts of luxury were unknown in Rome, its seven 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, whose precepts and practice most recommended temperance in diet, were eminent instances of the benefit accruing from it, in the health preferved, and long life attained by it.

Gorgias lived 107 years.

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

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

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

Diogenes, when he died, was about 90. Plato reach'd his 81st year; and his follower Xenocrates his eighty-fourth.

Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Lacedamonians, who, when they obeyed his laws, were not less diftinguished by their abite mioufhefs than by their fortitude, lived to 85; and their King Agefilaus took pay of Tachos at 80; afterwards affifted Nettane. bos; and, having established him in his kingdom, died, in his return to Sparta at 84.

Cato, the Cenfor, is introduced by Tully reprefenting himself as, when in his 84th year, able to aflift in the fenate to fpeak in the affembly of the people, and to give his friends and dependents the afsistance, which they might want from him.

Lucian introduces his account of longlived perfons, with the obfervation, that it might be of ufe, as shewing 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 difcovery of a new world has confirmed the

observations furnished by the old; that in those 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 excessive heats or colds." Atl. Geog. vol. v. p. 711. "Some of them lived to 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, says Morgues, told me, he was three hundred years old; and his father, whom he then shewed me alive, was fifty years older than himself." PURCHAS, vol. v. p. 961.

And if we now fearch after particular instances of persons 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 sauce, and to whom a wholesome 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 fifter, Hefter Jager, of the same place, died in 1713, in the 107th year of her age. They had both of them relief from the township of Bierley nigh fifty years. Abridgement of Phil. Trans. 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 cheeie, milk, coarfe bread, small beer, and whey.

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

Dr. M. Lifter, having mentioned several old perfons of Craven in Yorkshire, saysThe food of all this mountainous country is exceeding coarse. Abr. of Phil. Trans. by LOWTHORP. vol. iii. p. 307, &c.

Buchanan speaks of a titherman in his own time, who married at 100, went out in his little fishing boat in the roughest weather at 140, and at last did not die of any painful distemper, but merely worn out by age. Rer. Scot. Hifi. lib. i. ad fin. Platarch mentions our countrymen as,

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

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

to fo

Human life, indeed, being exposed many thousand accidents, its end being haitened by such a prodigious diversity of means, there is no care we can take of ourselves, in any one respect, that will be our effectual preservative; but, allowing for casualties and difference in constitutions, 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 these rules are carefully

followed.

And if we attend to our structure, it muft thence be evident that it cannot be otherwife. Dean Bolton.

§133. On Intemperance in Eating.

SECT. IV.

The human body may be confidered as composed 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 these vessels and this fluid are.

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

By the ftomach being frequently loaded, that fulness of the vessels ensues, by which the fibres are weakened the circulation becomes languid-perspiration is lessened -obitructions are formed the humours become viscid and foon putrid.

In the progress to this last state, different diseases take place, according to the general ftrength or weakness of the folids, or according to the debility of fome particular gar; according to the conftitution of the ar; according to our reft or motion; acwording 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 stomach; but, likewife, when our meals bear not a just proportion to our labour or exercife.

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

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

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

And thus, tho' we were never to touch a dish, which had its relish from any the leaft unwholsome ingredient; tho' our diet were the plainest, and nothing came ever before us, that had any other elegance than from the feafor, 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 speedily destroy ourselves by our intemperance with roaft and boiled meat, as with fricafsces and ragouts.

The quality of our aliment may be mifchievous to us, either as universally prejudicial to the human conflitution, or as unsuitable 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 difeases or vices of our parents.

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

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

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