Page images
PDF
EPUB

the large quantity of perfpirable matter which will, therefore, be detained in, and, confequently, greatly foul the blood-from the dreadful fymptoms, that attend a high degree of the fcurvy; the relief of which by vegetables, by fresh meat, by liquids fitteft to remove the effects of a muriatic caufe, plainly fhews them to be owing to fuch a caufe.

Whatever has the haut-gout may be looked upon as confifting of fuch active particles, as cannot but make our frequent eating of it very dangerous as muft render it much fitter to be used as phyfic, than as food.

From a mixture of meats, each of them wholfome in its kind, a bad chyle may be formed and the rule in phyfic is, that an error in the firft digeftion will not be

mended in the fecond.

A delicate conftitution is, fpeedily, either quite deftroyed, or irrecoverably difordered, when the diet is not exactly adapted to it is not fuch as leaft irritates, as leaft heats, as is moft eafily concocted, as fooneft paffes out of the body, and leaves the feweft impurities behind it there.

The weakness, or the wrong formation, of a part of our frame is, generally, a call to the utmost care about our food; and as our obferving this may extend our life, even under either of thofe circumftances, as far as we could have hoped it would have been prolonged, if we had been without any fuch defect; fo our failure therein may, in a very fhort time, be fatal to us.

The moft fimple aliment will, perhaps, be unable to hinder our feeling, in fome degree, the bad confequences of the dif eafes, or irregularities of our parents: but how far they fhall affect us, depends, very often, in a great meafure, upon ourfelves.

They may neither much contract the term, nor much interrupt the comfort, of life, if we will make hunger our fauce, and, in every meal we cat, regard the dif tempers we inherit; but early, alas! and heavy will our fufferings be, our years few and full of uneafinefs, when, without any fuch regard, our taste is directed by that of the found and athletic-when the folicitations of appetite lead us to forget the reafons we have to refrain it.

In this climate and country, where, for fo many months in the year, the cuticular difcharges are fo fmall-where the air fo often, fo fuddenly, and to fo great a degree, varies its equilibrium, and where our

veffels, therefore, are as frequently, as fuddenly, and as greatly contracted or expanded where fogs fo much abound, and fo much contribute to impair the elafticity of our fibres-to hinder the proper both fecretions and excretions-to deftroy the due texture of the blood, and vitiate our whole habit, it must be obvious, what we have to fear, when our aliment hurts us in the fame way with our air-when the one heightens the diforder, to which we are expofed by the other.

An inattention to the nutriment fit for us, when we feldom ufe any exercise, or, always, very gentle-when our life is fedentary, either from the bufinefs by which we maintain ourfelves, or from our love of eafe, or from our literary purfuits, is perhaps, as fatal to us, as almost any inftance of wrong conduct, with which we can be chargeable. By high feeding and little or no exercife, we are not only expofed to the most dangerous diseases, but we make all difeafes dangerous: we make thofe fo, which would, otherwise, be flight and eafily removed-we do not only fubject ourfelves to the particular maladies, which have their rife wholly from luxury, but we render ourfelves more liable to those, which have no connexion with it. We, then, are among the firft, who are feized with the diftempers, which the conftitution of the air occafions-We are moft apt to receive all thofe of the infectious kind-We take cold whence we might leaft fear it; and find its immediate confequence, a malignant or an inflammatory fever, or fome other difeafe equally to be dreaded.

A writer in phyfic of the first rank afferts, that our diet is the chief caufe of all our difeafes-that other caufes only take effect from the difpofition of our body, and the ftate of its humours.

There is, I am perfuaded, much truth in this affertion. For, as in countries, where the inhabitants greatly indulge themselves, few die of old age; fo where a ftrict temperance is obferved, few die but of old age. We find, likewife, perfons, as Socrates for inftance, who, by their regular living, have preferved themfelves from the infection of a

difeafe, that has made the cruelleft havock around them. We perceive, alfo, the reflorers of health ufually attempting its recovery by fome or other discharge, by draining the body in fome way or other. And if evacuation is the cure of our diforders, we may juftly think, that repletion is their mott

general

general caufe. But if this may admit of a difpute, which, I think, it hardly can do; yet is it on all hands agreed that there are feveral diftempers, to which few are fubject but for want of felf-denial in themfelves, or their ancestors-that moft of thefe diftempers are of the painfullest fort, and that fome of them are fuch as we for years lament, without the least hope of recovery, and under an abfolute certainty, that the longer they continue upon us the more grievously they will diftrefs us; the acuteness of our fufferings from them will be conftantly increafing. Dean Bolton.

134. On Intemperance in Eating.

SECT. V.

Let me, alfo, confider intemperance in what we eat, as frequently interrupting the ufe of our nobler faculties; and fure, at length, greatly to enfeeble them. How long is it, before we are really our felves, after our stomach has received its full load! Under it, our fenfes are dulled, our memory clouded, heavinefs and ftupidity poffefs us: fome beurs muft pafs, before our vivacity returns, before reafon can again act with its full vigour. The man is not feen to advantage, his real abilities are not to be difcovered, till the effects of his gluttony are removed, till his conftitution has thrown off the weight that oppreffed it.

The hours preceding a plentiful meal, or thofe, which fucceed its entire digeftion, are, we all find, fuch, in which we are fitteft to tranfact our affairs, in which all the acts of the understanding are best exerted.

How fmall a part of his time is therefore, the luxurious man himself! What between the length of his repafts-the space during which he is, as it were, ftupified by his excefs in them-the many hours of fleep that he wants to refresh, and of exercise to ftrengthen him; within how fmall a compaís is that portion of his life brought, in which his rational powers are fitly difplayed!

In the vigour of youth, in the full ftrength of manhood, an uncontrouled gratication of appetite allows only fhort intervals of clear apprehenfion, of clofe attention, and the free use of our judgment: bat if, either through an uncommonly firm conftitution, or by fpending all thofe hours in exercife, which are not paffed at our tables or in our beds, we are enabled, not withstanding fuch gratification, to reach a more advanced age; what a melancholy

fpectacle do we then frequently afford! our memory, our wit, our fense almost wholly deftroyed-their remains fcarce allowing a conjecture to be formed thence, what they have been-the ruins of the man hardly furnishing a trace of his former ornaments.

Moft of thofe difeafes, which luxury brings upon our bodies are, indeed, a gradual impairing of our intellectual faculties: the mind fhares the diforder of its companion, acts as that permits, difcovers a greater or lefs capacity, according to the other's more or lefs perfect state. And as the body, when dead, is totally unfit to be acted upon by the foul; fo the nearer it is brought to death by our gluttony, the more we increase its unfitnefs to difplay, by how noble a principle it it actuated-what the extent of thofe abilities is, which the bounty of our infinitely good and powerful Creator has afforded us.

It only remains that I confider, how ruinous the excefs I am cenfuring is to our fortune; and to what a mean dependence, to what vile dishoneft practices, it often reduces us.

There are few eftates, that can bear the expence, into which what is called an elegant table will draw us. It is not only the price of what is fet before us, that we are here to regard, but the wafte that the minifters to our luxury occafion-their rapine -the example they set to all, who are concerned in our affairs, and the difqualification, under which we put ourselves to look into them.

He who is determined to please his palate at any price, infects not only those about him with his extravagant turn; but gives them opportunities of defrauding him, which are feldom neglected. His houfe is the refort of the worst of mankind; for fuch they always are, whom a wellspread table affembles; and who, by applauding the profuseness that feeds them, by extolling, as proofs of a refined underftanding, what are the fureft marks of a weak one, or rather of the total want of one, hurry on the ruin, that was, otherwife, with too much speed advancing.

But fmall is their number, whom it concerns to be told, how a large fortune may be reduced: how the making any must be hindered, is the argument, in which the generality are interested. This hindrance is the fure, the undeniable confequence of giving way to our appetite. I have already obferved, what hurt our very capacity often receives from it to what a degree

[blocks in formation]

our intellect is at length impaired by it: I may, further, truly reprefent it as always indifpofing us to that diligence, to that application, without which no fcience is to be mailered, no art learned, no business well conducted, no valuable accomplishment, of any kind, obtained,

Let us have our fupport, and feek the increafe of our store, from our traffick, or from our labour; it is plain, that he who indulges himself lefs than we do, as he needs lefs to maintain him than we do, fo he can fell, or can work, cheaper, and muft, therefore, make thofe advantages, which we are not to expect; muft by his leffer gains be, at length, enriched, while we, with our larger, thall be in a conftant poverty.

A ftill worse effect of our luxurious turn I reckon those mean and bafe practices, to which it tempts us. When the plain meal, that our fcanty circumstances, after a liberal and expenfive education, furnish, cannot content us; and we must either live at another's table, or provide a chargeable entertainment at our own; we defcend to the vilef flattery, the most fervile complaifance; every generous fentiment is extinguished in us; we foon become fully convinced, that he, who will often eat at another's coft, must be fubject to another's humours, muft countenance him in his follies and comply with him in his vices.

Let his favour at length exempt us from fo dishonourable an attendance, by furnishing us with the means of having plenty at home: yet what is plenty to the luxurious? His wantonnefs increafes with his income; and, always ncedy, he is always dependent. Hence no fenfe of his birth or education, of honour or confcience, is any check upon him; he is the mean drudge, the abandoned tool of his feeder, of whoever will be at the charge of gratifying his palate,

So, if our trade be our maintenance, as no fair gains can anfwer the expence, which what is called good eating eccafions, we are foon led to indirect artifices, to fraudu lent dealing, to the molt tricking and knavish practices.

In a word, neither our health nor life, neither our credit nor fortune, neither our virtue nor understanding, have any fecurity but from our temperance. The greateit blefings, which are here enjoyed by us, have it for their fource.

Hence it is that we have the fullest use of our faculties, and the longest. Hence it is, that we fear not to be poor, and are fure to be independent.

Hence difeafe and pain are removed from us, our decay advances infenfibly, and the approaches of death are as gentle as thofe of fleep.

Hence it is we free ourselves from all

temptations to a bafe or ungenerous action.

Hence it is that our paffions are calmed, our lufts fubdued, the purity of our hearts preferved, and a virtuous conduct throughout made easy to us.

When it is made fo-when by the ease, which we find in the practice of virtue, we become confirmed therein-render it habitual to us; we have then that qualification for happiness in a future ftate, which, as the best title to it, affords us the best grounds to expect it. Dean Bolton.

§ 135. On Intemperance in Drinking.
SECT. I.

The arguments against drunkenness, which the common reafon of mankind fuggefts, are these

us:

The contemptible figure which it gives

The hindrance it is to any confidence being reposed in us, fo far as our fecrecy is concerned:

The dangerous advantage, which it affords the crafty and the knavifh over us: The bad effects, which it hath on our health:

The prejudice, which our minds receive from it:

Its difpofing us to many crimes, and preparing us for the greatest:

The contemptible figure, which drunkennefs gives us, is no weak argument for avoiding it.

Every reader has found the Spartans mentioned, as inculcating fobriety on their children, by expofing to their notice the behaviour of their flaves in a drunken fit. They thought, that were they to apply wholly to the reafon of the youths, it might be to little purpofe: as the force of the arguments, which they ufed, might not be fufficiently apprehended, or the impreffion thereof might be foon effaced: but when they made them frequently eye-witnefes of all the madnefs and abfurdities, and at length the perfect fenfelelnefs, which the immoderate draught occafioned;

the

!

the idea of the vile change would be fo fixed in the minds of its beholders, as to render them utterly averfe from its caufe.

And may we not justly conclude it to be from hence, that the offspring of the perfons who are accustomed thus to difguife themfelves, often prove remarkably fober? They avoid, in their riper years, their parent's crime, from the deteftation of it, which they contracted in their earlier. As to most other vices, their debafing circumftances are not fully known to us, till we have attained a maturity of age, nor can be then, till they have been duly attended to: but in our very childhood, at our first beholding the effects of drunkenness, we are struck with astonishment, that a reasonable being should be thus changed-should be induced to make himself fuch an object of contempt and fcorn. And, indeed, we muft have the man in the utmost contempt, whom we hear and fee in his progrefs to excefs; at first, teazing you with his contentiousness or impertinence-mistaking your meaning, and hardly knowing his own-then, faultering in his fpeechunable to get through an entire fentenceEis hard trembling-his eyes fwimminghis legs too feeble to fupport him; till, at length, you only know the human creature by his fhape.

I cannot but add, that were one of any fenfe to have a just notion of all the filly things he fays or does, of the wretched appearance, which he makes in a drunken fit, he could not want a more powerful argument against repeating his crime.

But as none of us are inclined to think ill of ourselves, we none of us will know, how far our vices expofe us; we allow them excufes, which they meet not with from any but ourselves.

This is the cafe of all; it is particularly fo with the drunken; many of whom their fhame would undoubtedly reform, could they be brought to conceive, how much they did to be ashamed of.

Nor is it improbable, that it is this very confideration, how much drunkennefs contributes to make a man the contempt of his wife-his children-his fervants-of ail his fober beholders, which has been the caufe, that it has never been the reigning vice among a people of any refinement of manners. No, it has only prevailed among the rude and favage, among thofe of groffer understandings, and lefs delicacy of fentiment. Crimes, as there are in all men, there must be in all nations; but the more

civilized have perceived drunkenness to be fuch an offence against common decency, fuch an abandoning one's felf to the ridicule and fcoffs of the meaneft, that, in whatever elfe they might tranfgrefs, they would not do it in this particular; but leave a vice of fuch a nature to the wild and uncultivated-to the stupid and undistinguishing part of mankind-to thofe, who had no notion of propriety of character, and decency of conduct. How late this vice became the reproach of our countrymen, we find in Mr. Camden's Annals. Under the year 1581, he has this obfervation"The English, who hitherto had, of all the "northern nations, fhewn themselves the "leaft addicted to immoderate drinking, "and been commended for their fobriety, "first learned, in these wars in the Ne"therlands, to fwallow a large quantity " of intoxicating liquor, and to deftroy "of "their own health, by drinking that of "others."

Some trace of our antient regard to fobriety, we may feem fill to retain, in our ufe of the term fot! which carries with it as great reproach among us, as Ombages did among the Greeks.

There is a fhort ftory, in Rerefby's Memoirs, very proper to be mentioned under this head.

The Lord Chancellor (Jefferies) had now like to have died of a fit of the ftone; which he virtuously brought upon himself, by a furious debauch of wine, at Mr. Alderman Duncomb's; where he, the Lord Treasurer, and others, drank themselves into that height of frenzy, that, among friends, it was whifpered, they had ftripped into their fhirts; and that, had not an accident prevented them, they had got upon a fign-poft, to drink the King's health; which was the fubject of much derifion, to fay no worse.

Dean Bolton.

§ 136. On Intemperance in Drinking.
SECT II.

A fecond objection to drunkenness is, that it hinders any confidence being repofed in us, fo far as our fecrecy is concerned.

Who can trust the man, that is not mafter of himself? Wine, as it leffens our caution, fo it prompts us to speak our thoughts without referve: when it has fufficiently inflamed us, all the fuggeftions of prudence pafs for the apprehenfions of cowardice; we are regardless of confequences; our forefight is gone, and our fear with it.

Here

Here then the artful perfon properly introducing the fubject, urging us to enter upon it-and, after that, praifing, or blaming, or contradicting, or queftioning us, is foon able to draw from us whatever information he defires to obtain.

Our difcretion never outlafts our fobriety. Failings which it most concerns us to conceal, and which, when we are ourselves, we do most industriously conceal, we ufually publish, when we have drank to excefs. The man is then clearly feen, with all the ill nature and bad qualities, from which his behaviour, in his cooler hours, had induced his most intimate friends to believe him wholly free. We must be loft to reflection, to thought, when we can thus far throw off our difguife. And what is it, but our thought and reflection, that can engage our fecrecy in any inftance that can ever be a proper check upon our difcourfe—that enables us to diftinguish what we may speak, and on what we ought to be filent? Do we ceafe to be in a condition to hide the deformities in ourselves, which we moft wish to have concealed? On what point, then, is it likely that we should be referved? Whofe fecrets can he keep, who fo foully betrays his own ?

It may, thirdly, be alledged against drunkenness, that it gives the crafty and knavish the most dangerous advantage

over us.

This vice puts us into the very circumftances, in which every one would with us to be, who had a view to impofe upon us, to over-reach us, or in any way to gain his ends of us. When the repeated draught has difordered us, it is then, that only by complying with our humour, and joining, to appearance, in our madness, we may be deluded into measures the most prejudicial to us, into fuch as are our own and our families utter undoing. It is then that our purfe is wholly at the mercy of our company; we fpend-we give-we lend-we lofe. What unhappy marriages have been then concluded! What ruinous conveyances have been then made! How fecure foever we may apprehend ourselves from impofitions of fo very pernicious a nature; yet more or fewer we must have to fear from drunkennefs, as the opportunities, which it gives, will conftantly be watched by all, who have any defign upon us and if we are known frequently to diforder ourfelves, all in our neighbourhood, or among cur acquaintance, who are of any ferioufnefs and decency, will be fure to

avoid us, and leave us wholly to those, who find their account in affociating with us; who, while they can make us their property, will be, as often as we please, our companions.

A fourth argument against drunkenness is its bad effects upon our health. Every act of it is a fever for a time: and whence have we more reafon to apprehend one of a longer continuance, and of the worft confequence? Our blood thus fired, none can be fure, when the diforder raised in it will be quieted, whether its inflammatory ftate will admit of a remedy: in feveral thoufands it has been found incapable of any; and what has fo frequently happened to others, may juftly be confidered as likely to befal us. By the fame abfurd reliance on a good conftitution, through which they were deceived, we may be fo likewise.

But fuppofing the mere fever fit wearing off with the drunken one; how fatal would it prove to be then feized with a diftemper of the infectious kind, that was at all malignant! This has often been the cafe; and when it has been fo, the applications of the moft fkilful have been entirely vain.

Let our intemperance have nothing inftantly to dread; for how fhort a space can it be in fuch fecurity? The young debauchee foon experiences the iffue of his mifconduct-foon finds his food difrelished, his ftomach weakened, his ftrength decayed, his body wafted. In the flower of his youth, he often feels all the infirmities of extreme old age; and when not yet in the middle of human life, is got to the end of his own.

If we have attained to manhood, to our full vigour, before we run into the excess, from which I am diffuading; we may, indeed, poffibly be many years in breaking a good conftitution: but then, if a sudden ftroke difpatch us not; if we are not cut off without the leaft leisure given us to implore the mercy of heaven; to how much uneafinefs are we, generally, refervedwhat a variety of painful distempers threaten us! All of them there is very little probability we thould efcape; and under which foever of them we may labour, we fhall experience its cure hopeless, and its feverity the faddeft leffon, how dear the purchase was of our former mirth.

There are, I grant, inftances, where a long-continued intemperance has not prevented the attainment of a very advanced age, free from diforders of every kind. But then it is to be confidered how rare

thefe

« PreviousContinue »