rd some one make this complaint, and
fixed it upon us, being by custom deprived of the means of perceiving it
at home. All heat that comes from the fire weakens and dulls me. Evenus
said that fire was the best condiment of life: I rather choose any other
way of making myself warm.

We are afraid to drink our wines, when toward the bottom of the cask; in
Portugal those fumes are reputed delicious, and it is the beverage of
princes. In short, every nation has many customs and usages that are not
only unknown to other nations, but savage and miraculous in their sight.
What should we do with those people who admit of no evidence that is not
in print, who believe not men if they are not in a book, nor truth if it
be not of competent age? we dignify our fopperies when we commit them to
the press: 'tis of a great deal more weight to say, "I have read such a
thing," than if you only say, "I have heard such a thing." But I, who no
more disbelieve a man's mouth than his pen, and who know that men write
as indiscreetly as they speak, and who look upon this age as one that is
past, as soon quote a friend as Aulus Gelliusor Macrobius; and what I
have seen, as what they have written. And, as 'tis held of virtue, that
it is not greater for having continued longer, so do I hold of truth,
that for being older it is none the wiser. I often say, that it is mere
folly that makes us run after foreign and scholastic examples; their
fertility is the same now that it was in the time of Homer and Plato.
But is it not that we seek more honour from the quotation, than from the
truth of the matter in hand? As if it were more to the purpose to borrow
our proofs from the shops of Vascosan or Plantin, than from what is to be
seen in our own village; or else, indeed, that we have not the wit to
cull out and make useful what we see before us, and to judge of it
clearly enough to draw it into example: for if we say that we want
authority to give faith to our testimony, we speak from the purpose;
forasmuch as, in my opinion, of the most ordinary, common, and known
things, could we but find out their light, the greatest miracles of
nature might be formed, and the most wonderful examples, especially upon
the subject of human actions.

Now, upon this subject, setting aside the examples I have gathered from
books, and what Aristotle says of Andron the Argian, that he travelled
over the arid sands of Lybia without drinking: a gentleman, who has very
w