Some with high forage, and luxuriant ease, 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 fall'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 taste Rejects like bane fuch loathfome lusciousness. 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 fast the gummy nutriment imbibes : Chufe fober meals; and roule to active life Your cumbrous clay; nor on th' infecbling down, Irrefolute, protract the morning hours.
But let the man whose bones are thinly clad, With chearful eafe and fucculent repaft Improve his flender habit. Each extreme From the bleft mean of fanity departs.
Taught by experience foon you may difcern What pleafes, what offends. Avoid the cates That lull the ficken'd appetite too long;
Or heave with fev'rish fluthings all the face,
Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue; Or much diminish or too much increase Th' expence, which nature's wife œconomy, Without or walte or avarice, maintains.
He justly obferves that every creature, except man, is directed by inftinct to its proper aliment. This is so true, that their inftinet has often been of the utmost consequence to those who have failed in queft of countries undiscover'd, where they never attempt to eat any fruits which the
birds have not fed on. But man, voluptuous man, fays our author, feeds with all the commoners of nature, and
Is by fuperior faculties misled;
Misled from pleasure even in queft of joy.
Sated with nature's boons, what thousands feek, With dishes tortur'd from their native taste And mad variety, to fpur beyond Its wifer will the jaded appetite!
Is this for pleasure? Learn a jufter talte; And know that temperance is true luxury.
Would you long the sweets 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 cuftom tames the rage Of poifon to mild amity with life.
He then points out the mischiefs that attend eating to excels, even of any aliment, and advises us to observe the calls of nature, but not fo as to eat too freely after long abftinence.
When hunger calls, obey; nor often wait 'Till hunger fharpen 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' exhausted veins absorb 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 fhook off, or hospitable shore
Attain'd, with temperance bear the fhock 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 speaks 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 feasons 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 flufh'd with love, Toyful and young, in every breeze defcends More warm and wanton on his kindling bride; Then shepherds, 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 breaft. Each rolling month matures The food that fuits it moft; so 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 fung. 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 crystal element: The chief ingredient in heaven's various works; Whofe flexile genius sparkles in the gem, Grows firm in oak, and fugitive in wine; The vehicle, the source, of nutriment And life, to all that vegetate or live.
O comfortable streams! with eager lips And trembling hand the languid thirty 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 fcorn the joys of modern time, With all our art and toil improv'd to pain!
Learn temperance, friends; and hear without difdain The choice of water. Thus the * Coan fage Opin'd, and thus the learn'd of ev'ry school. What leaft of foreign principles partakes
Is beft: The lighteft then; what bears the touch Of fire the leaft, and fooneft mounts in air; The most infipid; the most void of smell. Such the rude mountain from his horrid fides Pours down; fuch waters in the fandy vale For ever boil, alike of winter frosts And fummer's heat fecure.
And this fubject of water-drinking he concludes with some observations, on the proper use of other liquors, which are drawn from nature and experience. His reflection alfo on the nature of fermented liquors, and their tendency to refift putrefaction, and of confequence to retard digeftion, is very juft and philofophical.
Nothing like fimple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle fo foon to flow. But where the ftomach, indolently given, Toys with its duty, animate with wine Th' infipid ftream; tho' golden Ceres yields A more voluptuous, a more fprightly draught; Perhaps more active. Wine unmix'd, and all The gluey floods that from the vex'd abyss Of fermentation fpring; with fpirit fraught, And furious with intoxicating fire,
Retard concoction, and preferve unthaw'd
Th' embody'd mafs. You see what countless years, Embalm'd in fiery quintefcence of wine,
The puny wonders of the reptile world, Maintain their texture, and unchang'd remain.
Mean time, I would not always dread the bowl, Nor every trespass shun. The feverish ftrife, Rous'd by the rare debauch, fubdues, expels The loit'ring crudities that burthen life ; And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears
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