ot be well guilty of gluttony, if he stuck to these few
obvious and easy rules. In the first case, there would be no variety of
tastes to solicit his palate and occasion excess; nor in the second, any
artificial provocatives to relieve satiety, and create a false appetite.
Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed on a saying
quoted by Sir _William Temple:--The first glass for myself, the second
for my friends, the third for good humour, and the fourth for my
enemies_. But because it is impossible for one who lives in the world to
diet himself always in so philosophical a manner, I think every man
should have his days of abstinence, according as his constitution will
permit.

25. These are great reliefs to nature, as they qualify her for
struggling with hunger and thirst, whenever any distemper or duty of
life may put her upon such difficulties; and at the same time give her
an opportunity of extricating herself from her oppressions, and
recovering the several tones and springs of her distended vessels.
Besides that, abstinence well-timed often kills a sickness in embryo,
and destroys the first seeds of an indisposition.

26. It is observed by two or three ancient authors, that _Socrates_,
notwithstanding he lived in _Athens_ during that great plague, which
has made so much noise through all ages, and has been celebrated at
different times by such eminent hands; I say, notwithstanding that he
lived in the time of this devouring pestilence, he never caught the
least infection, which those writers unanimously ascribe to that
uninterrupted temperance which he always observed.

27. And here I cannot but mention an observation which I have often
made, upon reading the lives of the philosophers, and comparing them
with any series of kings or great men of the same number. If we consider
these ancient sages, a great part of whose philosophy consisted in a
temperate and abstemious course of life, one would think the life of a
philosopher and the life of a man were of two different dates. For we
find that the generality of these wise men were nearer an hundred than
sixty years of age at the time of their respective deaths.

28. But the most remarkable instance of the efficacy of temperance
towards the procuring of long life, is what we meet with in a little
book published by _Lewis Cornaro_, the _Venetian_; which I the rather
mention, because it is of undoubted credit, as the late _Venetian_
ambassador, who