Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

That, circled round with the gigantic heap
Of mountains, never felt, nor ever hope
To feel, the genial vigour of the fun!
While on the neighbouring hill the rose inflames
The verdant fpring; in virgin beauty blows
The tender lily, languishingly fweet;
O'er every hedge the wanton woodbine roves,
And autumn ripens in the fummer's ray.
Nor lefs the warmer living tribes demand
The foft'ring fun: whofe energy divine
Dwells not in mortal fire; whofe gen'rous heat
Glows thro' the mass of groffer elements,
And kindles into life the pond'rous spheres.
Chear'd by thy kind invigorating warmth,
We court thy beams, great majefty of day!
If not the foul, the regent of this world,
First-born of heaven, and only lefs than God!

Diet, the fubject of the fecond book would not admit of fo much poetical ornament as the proceeding, yet this is not without its beauties. At the beginning the author speaks of the circulation of the blood, and of its continual wafte, which is fupplyed by fresh aliments reduced by the concoctive powers into chyle, and then into blood; and, before he enters on the rules of diet, makes this. just observation.

Nothing fo foreign but th' athletic hind
Can labour into blood. The hungry meal
Alone he fears, or aliments too thin;
By violent powers too eafily fubdu'd,
Too foon expell'd. His daily labour thaws,
To friendly chyle, the most rebellious mafs
That falt can harden, or the smoke of years;
Nor does his gorge the rancid bacon rue,
Nor that which Čefiria fends, tenacious pafte
Of folid milk.

This is follow'd by fome rules for the choice of food, in which the author obferves that liquid food, vegetables, and young animals, are eafieft of digeftion: But he inveighs against fuch animal food as is made fat by unnatural means.

Some with high forage, and luxuriant cafe,
Indulge the veteran ox; but wifer thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs,
Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed ;
A race of purer blood, with exercise
Refin'd and fcanty fare: For, old or young,
The ftall'd are never healthy; nor the cramm'd.
Not all the culinary arts can tame,

To wholesome food, the abominable growth
Of reft and gluttony; the prudent tafte
Rejects like bane fuch loathfome luscioufnefs.
The languid ftomach curfes even the
pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
For more the oily aliments relax

Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)

Coily they mix, and fhun with flippery wiles.

The woo'd embrace

Chufe leaner vianer viands, ye whose jovial make
Too faft the gummy nutriment imbibes:
Chufe fober meals; and rouse to active life
Your cumbrous clay; nor on th' infeebling down,
Irrefolute, protract the morning hours.

But let the man whose bones are thinly clad,
With chearful eafe and fucculent repast
Improve his flender habit. Each extreme
From the bleft mean of fanity departs.
Taught by experience foon you may difcern
What pleases, what offends. Avoid the cates
That lull the ficken'd appetite too long;

Or heave with fev'rish flushings all the face,

Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue;
Or much diminish or too much increase

Th'
which nature's wife œconomy,
expence,
Without or waste or avarice, maintains.

He juftly observes that every creature, except man, is directed by instinct to its proper aliment This is fo true, that their instinct has often been of the utmost confequence to those who have failed in queft of countries undiscover'd, where they never attempt to eat any fruits which the

fays

birds have not fed on. But man, voluptuous man, our author, feeds with all the commoners of nature, and

Is by fuperior faculties misled;

Mifled from pleasure even in quest of joy.

Sated with nature's boons, what thousands feek,
With dishes tortur'd from their native tafte
And mad variety, to fpur beyond

Its wifer will the jaded appetite!

[ocr errors]

Is this for pleasure? Learn a juster taste
And know that temperance is true luxury.

Would you long the fweets of health enjoy
Or husband pleasure; at one impious meal
Exhauft not half the bounties of the year,
Of every realm. It matters not mean while
How much to morrow differ from to-day;
So far indulge: 'tis fit, befides, that man,
To change obnoxious, be to change inur'd.
But ftay the curious appetite, and tafte
With caution fruits you never tried before.
For want of use the kindeft aliment

Sometimes offends; while custom tames the rage
Of poifon to mild amity with life.

He then points out the mischiefs that attend eating to excefs, even of any aliment, and advises us to obferve the calls of nature, but not fo as to eat too freely after long abftinence.

When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait
'Till hunger Tharpen to corrofive pain:
For the keen appetite will feaft beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse.
Too greedily th' exhaufted veins abforb
The recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers
Oft to th' extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by the firm-fet fiege
And famine humbled, may this verse be borne;
And hear, ye hardieft fons that Albion breeds
Long tofs'd and famifh'd on the wintry main;

The war shook off, or hofpitable shore

Attain'd, with temperance bear the shock of joy ;
Nor crown with festive rites th' aufpicious day;
Such feaft might prove more fatal than the waves,
Than war or famine.

But tho' the extremes of eating, or of fafting, are to be avoided, it is imprudent to confine the ftomach always to the fame exact portion; for, as he observes,

it much avails
Ever with gentle tide to ebb and flow
From this to that: So nature learns to bear
Whatever chance or headlong appetite
May bring. Befides, a meagre day fubdues
The cruder clods by floth or luxury

Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.

He then fpeaks of the regimen neceffary to be obferved in the several seasons of the year, and recommends in the fummer the tender vegetable brood, with the cool moist viands of the dairy; but tells us that

Pale humid winter loves the generous board,
The male more copious, and a warmer fare !
And longs with old wood and old wine to chear
His quaking heart. The seasons which divide
Th' empires of heat and cold, by neither claim'd,
Influenc'd by both, a middle regimen
Impose. Thro' autumn's languishing domain
Defcending, nature by degrees invites
To glowing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when th' invigorated year
Emerges; when Favonius flush'd with love,
Toyful and young, in every breeze defcends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride;
Then fhepherds, then begin to fpare your flocks;
And learn, with wife humanity, to check
The luft of blood. Now pregnant earth commits
A various offspring to th' indulgent sky:
Now bounteous nature feeds with lavish hand
The prone creation; yields what once fuffic'd

Their dainty fovereign, when the world was young;
Ere yet the barb'rous thirst of blood had feiz'd
The human breast. Each rolling month matures
The food that fuits it moft; fo does each clime.

This paffage is, I think, very beautiful, as alfo is the following introduction to his precepts for drinking water, and the fubfequent lines concerning the choice, and proper ufe of that element.

Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander thro' your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthufiaftic wilds

By mortal elfe untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thundring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the ftreams renown'd in ancient fong.
Here from the defart down the rumbling steep
Firft fprings the Nile; here burfts the founding Po
In angry waves; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the Eaft;
And there, in gothic folitude reclin'd,
The chearless Tanais pours his hoary urn.
The task remains to fing

Your gifts, (fo Paon, fo the powers of health
Command) to praise your cryftal element:
The chief ingredient in heaven's various works;
Whofe flexile genius fparkles in the gem,
Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine ;
The vehicle, the fource, of nutriment
And life, to all that vegetate or live.

O comfortable streams! with eager lips
And trembling hand the languid thirsty quaff
New life in you; fresh vigour fills their veins.
No warmer cups the rural ages knew ;
None warmer fought the fires of human kind.
Oh! could thofe worthies from the world of Gods

Return to vifit their degenerate fons,

How would they scorn the joys of modern time,
With all our art and toil improv'd to pain!
L

« ZurückWeiter »