and reduced to a mere skeleton; and I am pofitive, that, next to GOD, I am most indebted to temperance, for my recovery. O how great is the evil of intemperance, which could, in a few days bring on me fo fevere an illness, and how glorious are the virtues of temperance, which could thus bear me up, and fnatch me from the jaws of death! Would all men but live regularly and temperately, there would not be a tenth of that fickness which now makes fo many melancholy families, nor any occafion for a tenth part of those naufeous medicines, which they are now obliged to swallow in order to carry off those bad humours with which they have filled their bodies by over eating and drinking. To fay the truth would every one of us but pay a becoming attention to the quantity and quality of what he eats and drinks, and carefully obferve the effects it has upon him, he would foon become his own phyfician; and indeed

the

But

the very best he could poffibly have, for people's conftitutions are as different as their faces; and it is impoffible, in many very important inftances, for the most fkilful physicians to tell a man of obfervation, what would agree with his conftitution fo well as he knows himself. I am willing to allow that a physician may be fometimes neceffary; and in cafes of danger, the fooner the better. for the bare purpofe of preferving ourfelves in good health, there needs no better phyfic than a temperate and regular life. It is a specific and natural medicine, which preserves the man, how tender foever his constitution be, and prolongs his life to a above a hundred years, fpares him the pain of a violent death, fends him quietly out of the world, when the radical moisture is quite spent, and which, in fhort, has all the properties that are fancied to be in potable gold

gold, which a great many perfons have fought after in vain.

BUT alas! moft men fuffer themselves to be feduced by the charms of a voluptuous life. They have not courage enough to deny their appetites; and being over-perfuaded by their inclinations fo far, as to think they cannot give up the gratification of them, without abridging too much of their pleafures, they devise arguments to perfuade themselves, that it is more eligible to live ten years lefs, than to be upon the reftraint, and deprived of whatever may gratify their appetites. Alas! they know not the value of ten years of healthy life, in an age when a man may enjoy the full use of his reafon, and turn all his wisdom and experience to his own, and the advantage of the world. To instance only in the fciences. 'Tis certain that fome of the most valuable books now extant, were written in thofe laft

ten

ten years of their authors lives, which some men pretend to undervalue; let fools and villains undervalue life, the world would lofe nothing by them, die when they will. But it is a lofs indeed, when wife and good men drop into the grave; ten years of life to men of that character, might prove an ineftimable bleffing to their families and country. Is fuch an one a priest only, in a little time he might become a bishop, and by living ten years longer, might render the most important services to the world by his active diffemination of virtue and piety. Is he the aged parent of a family, then though no longer equal to the toils of younger years, yet by his venerable prefence and matured counfels, he may contribute more to the harmony and happiness of his children, than all their labours put together. And fo with all others, whether in church or state, army or navy, who are advanced in years,

though

though not equal to the active exercises of youth, yet in confequence of their fuperior wisdom and experiences, their lives may be of more fervice to their country, than the lives of thousands of citizens. Some, I know, are fo unreasonable as to say that it is impoffible to lead fuch a regular life. To this I anfwer, Galen, that great phyfician, led fuch a life, and advifed others to it as the best phyfic. Plato, Cicero, Ifocrates, and a great many famous men of past and present times, have practifed it, and thereby arrived to an extreme old age.

You will tell me that Plato, as fober a man as he was, yet affirmed, that it is difficult for a man in public life to live fo temperately, being often in the fervice of the state, exposed to the badness of weather, to the fatigues of travelling, and to eat whatever he can meet with. This cannot be denied; but then I maintain, that these things will never haften

a man's