Some with high forage, and luxuriant ease,
Indulge the veteran ox; but wiser thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs,
Expect the focks by frugal nature fed ;
A race of purer blood, with exercise
Refin’d and scanty fare: For, old or young,
The Rall'd are never healthy ; nor the cranım'd.
Not all the culinary arts can taine,
To wholesome food, the abominable growth
Of relt and gluttony; the prudent talte
Rejects like banc fuch loathsome lusciousness.
The languid ftomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil :
For more the oily aliments relax
Its fecble tone ; and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
Coily they mix, and fun with Nippery wiles.
The woo'd einbrace
Chuse leaner vianer viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gunny nutriment imbibes :
Chuse sober mcals ; and roule to active life
Your cumbrous clay ; nor on th’infecbling down,
Irresolute, protract the morning hours.
But lei the man whose bones are thinly clad,
With chearful ease and succulent repast
Improve his sender habit. Each extreme
From the blest incan of sanity departs.
Taught by expericnce soon you may discern
What pleases, what offends. Avoid the cates
That lull the sicken'd appetite too long;
Or heavc with fev'rish futhings all the face,
Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue ;
Or much diminish or too much increase
Th’expence, which naiure's wise æconomy,
Without or waite or avarice, maintains.
He justly observes that every creature, except man, is directed by instinct to its proper aliment. This is so true, that their instinct has often been of the utmost consequence to those who have sailed in quest of countries undiscover'd, svhere they never attempt to eat any fruits which the
birds have not fed on. But man, voluptuous man, says our author, feeds with all the commoners of nature, and
Is by superior faculties misled;
Milled from pleasure even in quest of joy.
Sated with nature's boons, what thousands seek,
With dishes tortur'd from their native taste
And mad variety, to spur beyond
Its wiser will the jaded appetite !
Is this for pleasure ? Learn a juster talte ;
And know that temperance is true luxury.
Would you long the sweets of health enjoy
Or husband pleasure; at one impious meal
Exhaust 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, besides, that man,
To change obnoxious, be to change inur'd.
But stay the curious appetite, and taste
With caution fruits you never tried before.
For want of use the kindest aliment
Sometimes offends; while custom tames the rage
Of poison 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 so as to eat too freely after long abstinence.
When hunger calls, obey ; nor often wait
'Till hunger sharpen to corrosive pain :
For the keen appetite will feast beyond
What nature well can bear; and one extreme
Ne'er without danger meets its own reverse.
Too greedily th' exhausted veins absorb
T'he recent chyle, and load enfeebled powers
Oft to th' extinction of the vital flame.
To the pale cities, by the firm-set siege
And fainine humbled, may this verse be borne;
And hear, ye hardiest sons that Allion breeds
Long toss'd and familh'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 sites th' auspicious day;
Such feast 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 stomach always to the same 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 subdues
The cruder clods by Noth or luxury-
Collected, and unloads the wheels of life.
He then speaks of the regimen neceffary to be observed in the several seasons of the year, and recommends in the summer 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
Descending, nature by degrees invites
To glowing luxury. But from the depth
Of winter when th' invigorated year
Emerges; when Favorius Alush'd with love,
Toyful and
every
breeze descends
More warm and wanton on his kindling bride ;
Then shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks ;
And learn, with wise 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 suffic'd
Their dainty sovereign, when the world was young;
Ere yet the barb'rous thirst of blood had seiz'd
The human breat. Each rolling month matures
The food that suits it most; so does each clime.
This passage is, I think, very beautiful, as also is the following introduction to his precepts for drinking water, and the subsequent lines concerning the choice, and proper use of that element.
Now come, ye Naiads, to the fountains lead;
Now let me wander thro' your gelid reign.
I burn to view th' enthusiastic wilds
By mortal else untrod. I hear the din
Of waters thundring o'er the ruin'd cliffs.
With holy reverence I approach the rocks
Whence glide the streams renown'd in ancient long.
Here from the desart down the rumbling steep
First springs the Nile; here bursts the sounding Pe
In angry waves ; Euphrates hence devolves
A mighty flood to water half the East;
And there, in gothic solitude reclin’d,
The chearless Tanais pours his hoary urn.
The tak remains to fing
Your gifts, (so Peon, so the powers of health
Command) to praise your crystal element:
The chief ingredient in heaven's various works ;
Whose 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 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 those worthies from the world of Gods
Return visit their degenerare fons,
How would they scorn the joys of modern time,
With all our art and toil improv'd to pain!
L
Learn temperance, friends; and hear without disdain The choice of water. Thus the * Coan sage Opin'd, and thus the learn'd of ev'ry school. What least of foreign principles partakes Is beft: The lighter then ; whai bears the touch Of fire the least, and sooneft mounts in air ; The most infipid ; the most void of smell. Such the rude mountain from his horrid lides Pours down; such waters in the sandy vale For ever boil, alike of winter frosts And summer's heat fecare.
And this subject of water drinking he concludes wich Some observations, on the proper use of other liquors, which are drawn from nature and experience. His reflection also on the nature of fermented liquors, and their tendency to resist putrefaction, and of consequence to retard digestion, is very just and philosophical.
Nothing like simple element dilutes
The food, or gives the chyle so soon to flow.
But where the stomach, indolently given,
Toys with its duty, animate with wine
Th' infipid stream; tho golden Ceres yields
A more voluptuous, a more sprightly draught ;
Perhaps more active. Wine uamix'd, and all
The gluey foods that from the vex'd abyss
Of fermentation spring ; with spirit fraught,
And furious with intoxicating fire,
Retard concoction, and pre!erve unthawd
Th' embody'd mass. You see what countless years,
Embaln'd in fiery quintescence 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 Thun. The feverith strife,
Rous'd by the rare debauch, subdues, expels
The loit'ring crudities that burthen life ;
And, like a torrent full and rapid, clears
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