rary to the
uniting of the parts just mentioned, causing rather a dissolution; for
to it, above all other things, Nature has given a dissolving faculty.
Therefore the fig-tree sends forth a hot and sharp spirit, which cuts
and boils the flesh of the bird. The very same thing may be effected
by placing the flesh upon a heap of corn, or near nitre; the heat will
produce the same that the fig-tree did. Now it may be made manifest that
wheat is naturally hot, in that wine, put into a hogshead and placed
among wheat, is presently consumed.

BOOK VII.

The Romans, Sossius Senecio, remember a pretty saying of a
pleasant man and good companion, who supping alone said that he had
eaten to-day, but not supped; as if a supper always wanted company and
agreement to make it palatable and pleasing. Evenus said that fire was
the sweetest of all sauces in the world. And Homer calls salt [Greek
omitted], divine; and most call it [Greek omitted], graces, because,
mixed with most part of our food, it makes it palatable and agreeable to
the taste. Now indeed the best and most divine sauce that can be at an
entertainment or a supper is a familiar and pleasant friend; not because
he eats and drinks with a man, but because he participates of and
communicates discourse, especially if the talk be profitable, pertinent,
and instructive. For commonly loose talk over a glass of wine raiseth
passions and spoils company, and therefore it is fit that we should be
as critical in examining what discourses as what friends are fit to be
admitted to a supper; not following either the saying or opinion of
the Spartans, who, when they entertained any young man or a stranger in
their public halls, showed him the door, with these words, "No discourse
goes out this way." What we use to talk of may be freely disclosed
to everybody, because we have nothing in our discourses that tends to
looseness, debauchery, debasing of ourselves, or back-biting others.
Judge by the examples, of which this seventh book contains ten.

QUESTION I. AGAINST THOSE WHO FIND FAULT WITH PLATO FOR SAYING THAT
DRINK PASSETH THROUGH THE LUNGS.

NICIAS, PLUTARCH, PROTOGENES, FLORUS.

At a summer entertainment, one of the company pronounced that common
verse,

Now drench thy lungs with wine, the Dog appears.

And Nicias of Nicopolis, a physician, presently subjoined: It is no
wonder that Alcaeus, a poet, should be ignorant of that of which Plato
the philosopher was.