of,
or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.

30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word
of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of
ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by
my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is
sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and
how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such
blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means
by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been
in the constant habit of communicating. When one _gives a dinner to a
company_, it is an extraordinary affair, and is intended, by sensible
men, for purposes other than those of eating and drinking. But, in
_general_, in the every-day life, despicable are those who suffer any
part of their happiness to depend upon what they have to eat or to
drink, provided they have _a sufficiency of wholesome food_; despicable
is the _man_, and worse than despicable the _youth_, that would make any
sacrifice, however small, whether of money or of time, or of anything
else, in order to secure a dinner different from that which he would
have had without such sacrifice. Who, what man, ever performed a greater
quantity of labour than I have performed? What man ever did so much?
Now, in a great measure, I owe my capability to perform this labour to
my disregard of dainties. Being shut up two years in Newgate, with a
fine on my head of a thousand pounds to the king, for having expressed
my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen under a guard of German
bayonets, I ate, during one whole year, one mutton chop every day. Being
once in town, with one son (then a little boy) and a clerk, while my
family was in the country, I had during some weeks nothing but legs of
mutton; first day, leg of mutton boiled or _roasted_; second, _cold_;
third, _hashed_; then, leg of mutton _boiled_; and so on. When I have
been by myself, or nearly so, I have _always_ proceeded thus: given
directions for having _every day the same thing_, or alternately as
above, and every day exactly at the same hour, so as to prevent the
necessity of any _talk_ about the matter. I am certain that, upon an
average, I have not, during my life, spent more than _thirty-five
minutes a day at table_, including all the meals of the day. I like, and
I take care to ha