tle more, before they were corrupted by luxury and pleasure; and when it came to that once, their business was not to allay hunger, but to provoke it by a thousand inventions and sauces. That which was aliment to a crav ing stomach, is become a burden to a full one. From hence come paleness, trembling; and worse effects from crudities, than famine: a weakness in the joints, the belly stretched, suffusion of choler; the torpor of the nerves, and a palpitation of the heart. To say nothing of megrims, torments of the eyes, and ears; head-ache, gout, scurvy; several sorts of fevers, and putrid ulcers; with other diseases, that are but the punishment of luxury. So long as our bodies were hardened with labor, or trained with exercise, our food was plain and simple; many dishes have made many discases.

It is an ill thing for a man not to know the measure of his stomach, (his own guage,) nor to consider, that men do many things in their drink that they are ashamed of sober; drunkenness being nothing else but a voluntary madness. It emboldens men to do all sorts of mischiefs: it both irritates wickedness and uncovers it; it does not make men vicious, but it shows them to be so: it was in a drunken fit that Alexander slew Clytus. It makes him that is insolent, prouder; him that is cruel, fiercer; it takes away all shame. He that it peevish, breaks out presently into ill words, and blows. The lecher, is without any regard to decency, or scandal. A man's tongue trips, his head turns round; he staggers in his pace. Το say nothing of the crudities and diseases that follow upon this distemper. Consider the public mischiefs it has done. How many warlike nations, and strong cities that have stood invincible to attacks and sieges, has drunkenness overcome? is it not a great honor to drink the company dead? a magnificent virtue to swallow more wine than the rest, and yet at last to be outdone by a cask or hogshead? what shall we say of those men that invert the offices of day and night? as if our eyes were only given us to make use of in the dark. Is it day? "it is time to go to bed." Is it night? "it is time to rise." Is it towards morning?" let us go to supper." When other people lie down, they rise; and lie till the next night to digest the

debauch of the day before. It is an argument of vulgarity, to do as other people do. Luxury steals upon us by degrees; first it shows itself in a more than ordinary care of our bodies; it slips next into the furniture of our houses; and it gets then into the fabric, curiosity, and expense of the house itself. It appears, lastly, in the fantastic excesses of our tables. We change and shuffle our meats; confound our sauces; serve that in first, that uses to be the last; and value our dishes, not for the taste, but for the rarity. Nay, we are so delicious, that we must be told when we are to eat or drink; when we are hungry, or weary; and we cherish some vices as proofs and arguments of our happiness. The most miserable mortals are they that deliver themselves up to their palates, or to their lusts the pleasure is short, and turns presently nauseous, and the end of it is either shame or repentance. It is a brutal entertainment, and unworthy of a man to place his felicity in the service of his senses.

What madness is it for a man to lay out an estate upon a table, or a cabinet; a patrimony upon a pair of pendents, and to inflame the price of curiosities, according to the hazard of either breaking or losing them? to wear garments that will neither defend a woman's body, nor her modesty; so thin, that one would make a conscience of swearing she were not naked? for she hardly shows more in the privacies of her amour, than in public. How long shall we covet, and oppress; enlarge our possessions; and account that too little for one man, which was formerly enough for a nation? and our luxury is as insatiable as our avarice. Where is that lake, that sea, that forest, that spot of land, that is not ransacked to gratify our palate. The very earth is burdened with our buildings; not a river nor a mountain escapes us. Oh that there should be such boundless desires in our little bodies! would not fewer lodgings serve us? we lie but in one, and where we are not, that is not properly ours. What with our hooks, snares, nets, dogs, &c. we are at war with all living creatures; and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap or too common; and all that is to gratify a fantastic palate. Our avarice, our ambition, our lusts, are insatiable; we enlarge our possessions;

swell our families; we rifle sea and land for matter of or nament and luxury. A bull contents himself with one meadow and one forest is enough for a thousand elephants; but the little body of a man devours more than all other living creatures. We do not eat to satisfy hunger, but ambition; we are dead while we are alive, and our houses are so much our tombs, that a man might write our epitaphs upon our very door.

Throw a crust of bread to a dog; he takes it openmouthed, swallows it whole, and presently gapes for more: just so do we with the gifts of fortune; down they go without chewing; and we are immediately ready for another chop. But what has avarice now to do with gold and silver, which are so much out done by curiosites of a far greater value? let us no longer complain, that there was not a heavier load laid upon those precious metals; or that they were not buried deep enough; when we have found out ways by wax and parchments, and by cruel usurous contracts, to undo one another. It is remarkable, that providence has given us all things for our advantage near at hand: but iron, gold and silver, (being both the instruments of blood and slaughter, and the price of it) Nature has hidden in the bowels of the earth.

It is true, the stomach craves, and calls upon us, but then a small matter contents it: a little bread and water is sufficient, and all the rest is superfluous. He that lives according to reason, shall never be poor: and he that governs his life by opinion shall never be rich: for Nature is limited, but fancy is boundless. As for meat, clothes, and lodging, a little feeds the body, and as little covers it: so that if mankind would only attend human nature, without gaping at superfluities, a cook would be found as needless as a soldier: for we may have necessaries upon very easy terms; whereas we put ourselves to great pains for excesses. When we are cold, we may cover ourselves with skins of beasts; and against violent heat, we have natural grottos; or with a few osiers, and a little clay, we may defend ourselves against all seasons. Providence has been kinder to us than to leave us to live by our wits, and to stand in need of invention and arts: it is only pride and curiosity that involves us in difficulties: if noth

ing will serve a man but rich clothes and furniture, statues and plate, a numerous train of servants, and the rarities of all nations, it is not fortune's fault, but his own, that he is not satisfied: for his desires are insatiable, and this is not a thirst, but a disease; and if he were master of the whole world, he would be still a beggar. It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition soever we are; and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods if the religion be sincere, no matter for the ornaments it is only luxury and avarice that makes poverty grievous to us; for it is a very small matter that does our business; and when we have provided against cold, hunger and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.

While Nature lay in common, and all her benefits were promiscuously enjoyed, what could be happier than the state of mankind, when people lived without avarice, or envy? what could be richer, than when there was not a poor man to be found in the world. So soon as this impartial bounty of providence came to be restrained, by covetousness; and that particulars appropriated that to themselves. which was intended for all; then did poverty creep into the world when some men by desiring more than came to their share, lost their title to the rest. A loss never to be repaired; for though we may come yet to get much, we once had all. The fruits of the earth were in those days divided among the inhabitants of it, without either want or excess. So long as men contented themselves with their lot, there was no violence; no engrossing, or hiding of those benefits for particular advantages, which were appointed for the community; but had every man much care for his neighbor, as for himself. No arms, or bloodshed; no war but with wild beasts: but under the protection of a wood or a cave, they spent their days without cares, and their nights without groans; their innocence was their security, and their protection. There were as yet, no beds of state, no ornaments of pearl, or embroidery, nor any of those remorses that attend them: but the heavens were their canopy; and the glories of them their spectacle.

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Happy is that man that eats only for hunger, and drinks only for thirst; that stands upon his own legs, and lives

by reason, not by example; and provides for use and necessity, not for ostentation and pomp. Let us curb our appetites, encourage virtue, and rather be beholden to ourselves for riches than to fortune, who when a man draws himself into a narrow compass, has the least mark at him. Let my bed be plain and clean, and my clothes so too: my meat without much expense, or many waiters; and neither a burden to my purse, nor to my body; nor to go out the same way it came in. That which is too little for luxury, is abundantly enough for Na

The end of eating and drinking is satiety; now, what matters it though one eats and drinks more, and another less, so long as the one is not a hungry, nor the other a thirst? Epicurus, who limits pleasure to Nature, as the Stoics do virtue, is undoubtedly in the right.

We cry out, "What law have we transgressed?" As if the letter of the law were the sum of our duty, and piety, humanity, liberty, justice and faith, were things beside our business. No, no, the rule of human duty is of a greater latitude; and we have many obligations upon us, that are not to be found in the statute books. And yet we fall short of the exactness, even of that legal innocence. We have intended one thing, and done another; wherein only the want of success has kept us from being criminals. This very thing, should make us more favorable to delinquents, and to forgive not only ourselves, but the gods too; of whom we seem to have harder thoughts, in taking that to be a particular evil directed to us, that befals us only by the common law of mortality. No man living can absolve himself to his conscience, though to the world, perhaps he may. It is true, that we are also condemned to pains and diseases, and to death too, which is no more than the quitting of the soul's house. But, why should any man complain of bondage, that wheresoever he looks has his way open to liberty? That precipice, that sea, that river, that well, there is freedom at the bottom of each. It hangs upon every crooked bough; and not only a man's throat, or his heart, but every artery in his body opens a passage to it.

To destroy a single man, may be dangerous; but to murder whole nations, is only a more glorious wickedness.