young rabbits are by all approved. Milk, and all that milk produces, as butter, cheese, curds, with the exception only of asses milk and whey, increase melancholy. Of fowl, peacock, pigeon, and all the fenny tribe, as ducks, geese, swans, hearnes, cranes, coots, didappers, water-hens, teal, curleus, and sheldrakes are forbidden; for though they are fine in feathers, and pleasant to the palate, although, like hypocrites, they have gay outsides, and seducing tastes, they are treacherous to the health, and deceitfully dangerous. Of fishes, the whole species are condemned, especially tench, lamprey, craw-fish, and such as breed in muddy waters. The Carthusian friars, therefore, who live mostly upon fish, are more subject to melancholy than any other religious order; and Forestus exemplifies it with an instance of one Buscodnese, a Carthusian friar, in high health, and of a ruddy complexion, who, by eating chiefly, and perhaps enormously, of this aquatic food, soon lost the roses from his cheeks, and became at length sallow, lean, and melancholy. Of herbs, gourds, cucumbers, cole-worts, melons, and especially cabbage, are disallowed; for they uniformly send up heavy vapours to the brain; and Horace calls those suppers, which consist of herbs, canas sine sanguine. Of roots, parsnips and potatoes are highly approved; but onions, garlick, scallions, carrots, and radishes, are flatulent, and dangerous. Of fruits, grapes, figs, and apples, are to be preferred; but every thing farrinaceous, as peas, beans, and all manner of pulse, are absolutely forbid; and that

which Pythagoras so earnestly recommended to his scholars of old, A fabis abstinete, may be for ever applied to melancholy persons. Spices cause hot and head melancholy, and are for that cause forbidden by our physicians to such as are inclined to this malady; and to these may be added all things that are sharp, sour, luscious, or over sweet; as oil, vinegar, verjuice, mustard, salt, and salted meats; for they are great procurers of this disease; and therefore the Egyptian priests abstained from salt, even so much as in their bread, in order, says Codronchus, that their souls might be free from perturbations. Wine is frequently the sole cause of this disease, especially if it be immoderately used; and Guianerius relates a story of two Dutchmen, whom he entertained in his own house, who drank so much wine, that in the short space of a month, they both became so melancholy, that the one could do nothing but sing, and the other sigh, A cup of generous wine, however, to those whose minds are still or motionless, is, in my opinion, excellent physic. Cyder and perry are both cold and windy drinks, and for that cause to be avoided. Beer, if it be over new, or over stale, if it be over strong, or not sod, if it smell of the cask, or be sour, is most unwholesome: but this drink, by being better brewed in England than in Germany, and mixed with the hop, which rarefies it, renders it more subtle, and gives it a specific virtue against melancholy; it is less exceptionable here than it is about Dantzick, Spruce, Hamburgh, Leipsic, and other parts of

E

Germany, where they use that thick black Bohemian beer, which an old poet calls Stygia monstrum conforme paludi; a monstrous drink, like the river Styx; for

"As nothing goes in so thick,

And nothing comes out so thin,
It must follow of course,
That nothing can be worse,

As the dregs are all left within*.'

All impure, thick, and ill-coloured waters should be particularly avoided; for, according to Galen, they produce agues, dropsies, pleurisies, and all the splenetic and melancholy passions; and it is well known that water has a powerful operation and effect; for the waters of Astracan breed worms in those who taste them; the waters of the river Axius, now called Verduri, the fairest river in Macedonia, make the cattle who drink of them black; as those of the Aleacman, now called Peleca, another stream in Thessaly, turn cattle most part white; and Bodine supposes the stuttering of some families in Aquatania, about Labden, to proceed from the same cause. To this catalogue of noxious simples we may add an infinite number of compounds, artificial made dishes, of which our cooks afford us as great a variety, as tailors do fashions in our apparel. "Simple diet," says Plinyt, " is best ;

Dum bibitur, nil clarius est dum mingitur, unde
Constat, quod multas fæces in corpore linquat."

† Lib. ii. c. 52. See also Avicen, 31, dec. 2. c. "Nihil

for many dishes bring many diseases; and rich sauces are worse than even heaping several meats upon each other."

But there is not so much harm proceeding from the substance and quality of the food itself, as from the intemperate and unseasonable use of it. Plures crapula quảm gladius. The omnivorantia et homicida gula, the all-devouring and murderous gut, destroys greater numbers than the sword. Gluttony, indeed, is the source of all our infirmities, and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural heat of the body destroyed by intemperate diet. Pernitiosa sentina est abdomen insaturabile: an insatiable stomach is a pernicious sink. Mercurialis eloquently insists, that gluttony is a peculiar cause of this disease; and his opinion is confirmed not only by Hippocrates, Solinander, Crato, and other writers upon this subject, but by the common observation and experience of mankind*. The more

deterius quam si tempus justo longius comedendo protrahatur et varia ciborum genera conjungantur; inde morborum scaturigo, quæ ex repugnantia humorum oritur."

* Milton, when he introduces the angel Michael giving directions to our first parents, by what means they might pursue health, says, there is,

"If thou well observe

The rule of not too much, by temperance taught
In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,

"Till many years over thy head return :

impurely bodies are fed, the more the system will be corrupted; and yet, notwithstanding all the destruction which follows from gluttony and inebriety, see how we luxuriate and rage in all the wantonness of this destructive vice. Quam portentosa cana: what prodigious suppers! Qui dum invitant ad cœnam, efferunt ad sepulchrum ; what Fagos, Epicures, Apetios, Heliogables, our times afford! Lucullus' ghost still walks, and every man desires to sup in Apollo: Æsop's costly dish is ordinarily served up :

This is a common vice, though all things here
Are sold, and sold unconscionably dear.

;

The dearest cates are ever thought the best and it is no extraordinary thing for an epicure to spend thirty pounds upon a single dish, and as many thousand crowns upon a single dinner. Mully Hamet, king of Fez and Morocco, gave

So may'st thou live, 'till, like ripe fruit, thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease

Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd; in death mature."

So also, in describing to him the various modes by which man would injure health, and extinguish life :—

Of death, many are the ways that lead

To his grim cave; all dismal; yet to sense
More terrible at the entrance than within.
Some, as thou sawest, by violent stroke shall die;
By fire, blood, famine; by intemperance more,
In meats and drinks, which on the earth shall bring
Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew

Before thee shall appear.