sing is,
that I had already lived fifty years, in spite of a most powerful
and mortal enemy, which I can by no means conquer, because it is
natural, or an occult quality implanted in my body by nature; and
this is, that every year, from the beginning of July till the end
of August, I cannot drink any wine of whatever kind or country; for,
besides being during these two months quite disgustful to my palate,
it disagrees with my stomach. Thus losing my milk, for wine is,
indeed, the milk of old age; and having nothing to drink, for no
change or preparation of waters can have the virtue of wine, nor of
course do me any good; having nothing, I say, to drink, and my
stomach being therefore disordered, I can eat but very little; and
this spare diet, with the want of wine, reduces me, by the middle of
August, extremely low; nor is the strongest capon broth, or any other
remedy, of service to me; so that I am ready, through mere weakness,
to sink into the grave. Hence they inferred, that were not the new
wine, for I always take care to have some ready by the beginning of
September, to come in so soon, I should be a dead man. But what
surprized them still more was, that this new wine should have power
sufficient to restore me, in two or three days, to that degree of
health and strength, of which the old wine had robbed me; a fact,
they themselves have been eye-witnesses of, within these few days;
and which a man must see to believe it; insomuch that they could not
help crying out; "Many of us, who are physicians, have visited him
annually for several years past; and ten years ago, judged it
impossible for him to live a year or two longer, considering what a
mortal enemy he carried about him, and his advanced age; yet we do
not find him so weak at present as he used to be." This
singularity, and the many other blessings they see me enjoy, obliged
them to confess, that the joining of such a number of favours was,
with regard to me, a special grace conferred on me, at my birth, by
nature, or by the stars; and to prove this to be a good conclusion,
which it really is not (because not grounded on strong and
sufficient reasons, but merely on their own opinions) they found
themselves under a necessity to display their eloquence, and to say
a great many fine things. Certain it is, my lord, that eloquence,
in men of bright parts, has great power; so great, as to induce
people to believe things which have neither actual nor possible