6 • Mr. Spectator, G IVE me leave to make you a prefent of a character of a man who treats his friend with the fame odd variety which a fantastical female tyrant practises to⚫wards her lover. I have for fome time had a friendfhip with one of thofe mercurial perfons: the rogue I know loves me, yet takes advantage of my fondness for him to use me as he pleases. We are by turns the beft friends and the greateft ftrangers imaginable; fometimes you would think us infeparable; at other ⚫ times he avoids me for a long time, yet neither he C nor I know why. When we meet next by chance, • he is amazed he has not feen me, is impatient for an appointment the fame evening: and when I expect he fhould have kept it, I have known him flip away to another place; where he has fat reading the news, when there is no poft; fmoaking his pipe, which he feldom cares for; and ftaring about him in company with whom he has nothing to do, as if he wondered how he came there. as That I may ftate my cafe to you the more fully, I fhall tranfcribe fome fhort minutes I have taken of him in my almanack fince laft fpring; for you must know *there are certain feafons in the year, according to which, I will not fay our friendship, but the enjoyment of it rifes or falls In March and April he was as various the weather; in May and part of June I found him the fprightliet beft-humoured fellow in the world; in the dog-days he was much upon the indolent; in September very agreeable but very bufy; and fince the glafs fell laft to changeable, he has made three appointments with me, and broke them every one. However I have good hopes of him this winter, efpecially if you will lend me your affiftance to reform him, which will be a great cafe and pleasure to, October 9, SIR, 1711. Your most humble fervant.' T Saturday, N° 195 Saturday, October 13. Νήπιοι, εν ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντὸς, Οὐδ ̓ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε δὲ ἀσφοδέλῳ μεγ ̓ ὄνειας. Hef. Oper. & Dier. lib. 1. ver. 40. Fools, not to know that half exceeds the whole, TH Here is a ftory in the Arabian Nights Tales of a king who had long languished under an ill habit of body, and had taken abundance of remedies to no purpofe. At length, fays the fable, a phyfician cured him by the following method: he took an hollow ball of wood, and filled it with feveral drugs; after which he clofed it up fo artificially that nothing appeared. He likewife took a mall, and after having hoflowed the handle and that part which ftrikes the ball, he inclofed in them feveral drugs after the fame manner as in the ball itself. He then ordered the fultan, who was his patient, to exercise himself early in the morning with thefe rightly prepared inftruments, until fuch time as he fhould fweat: when, as the ftory goes, the virtue of the medicaments perfpiring through the wood, had fo good an influence on the fultan's conftitution, that they cured him of an indifpofition which all the compofitions. he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove. This eastern allegory is finely contrived to fhew us how beneficial bodily labour is to health, and that exercife is the moft effectual phyfic. I have defcribed in my hundred and fifteenth paper, from the general ftructure and mechanifm of an human body, how abfolutely neceffary exercife is for its prefervation: I fhall in this place recommend another great prefervative of health, which in many cafes produces the fame effects as exercife, and may in fome measure fupply its place, where opportunities of exercise are wanting. The prefervative I am speaking of is temperance, which has thofe particular advantages above all other means of health, that it may be practifed by all ranks and conditions, at any feafon, or in any place. It is a kind of regimen into which every man may put himself, without interruption to bufinefs, expence of money, or lofs of time. If exercife throws off all fuperfluities, temperance prevents them; if exercise clears the veffels, temperance neither fatiates nor overftrains them; if exercise raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour; if exercise diffipates a growing diftemper, temperance ftarves it. Phyfic, for the most part, is nothing else but the fubftitute of exercife and temperance. Medicines are indeed abfolutely neceffary in acute diftempers, that cannot wait the flow operations of these two great inftruments of health; but did men live in an habitual course of exercise and temperance, there would be but little occafion for them. Accordingly we find that those parts of the world art the most healthy, where they fubfift by the chace; and that men lived longest when their lives were employed in hunting, and when they had little food befides what they caught. Bliftering, cupping, bleeding, are feldom of use but to the idle and intemperate; as all thofe inward applications which are fo much in practice among us, are for the moft part nothing elfe but expedients to make luxury confiftent with health. The apothecary is perpetually employed in countermining the cook and the vintner. It is faid of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feaft, he took him up in the ftreet and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into imminent danger, had he not prevented him. What would that philofopher have faid, had he been prefent at the gluttony of a modern meal? Would not he have thought the mafter of a family mad, and have begged his fervants to tie down his hands, had he feen him devour fowl, fish and flesh; fwallow oil and vinegar, wines and fpices throw down fallads of twenty different herbs, fauces of an hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of numberlefs fweets and flavours? What unnatural motions and counterferments must fuch a medley of intemperance perance produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a fashionable table fet out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I fee gouts and dropfies, fevers and lethar gies, with other innumerable diftempers, lying in am bufcade among the dishes. Nature delights in the moft plain and fimple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this fpecies, fifh of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon every thing that comes in his way, not the smallest fruit or excrefcence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom can efcape him. It is impoffible to lay down any determinate rule for temperance, because what is luxury in one may be temperance in another; but there are few that have lived any time in the world, who are not judges of their own conftitutions, fo far as to know what kinds and what proportions of food do beft agree with them. Were I to confider my readers as my patients, and to prefcribe fuch a kind of temperance as is accommodated to all perfons, and fuch as is particularly fuitable to our climate and way of living, I would copy the following rules of a very eminent phyfician. Make your whole repaft out of one difh. If you indulge in a fecond, avoid drinking any thing ftrong, until you have finished your meal; at the fame time abstain from all fauces, or at least fuch as are not the most plain and fimple. A man could not be well guilty of gluttony, if he stuck to thefe few obvious and eafy rules. In the first cafe, there would be no variety of taftes to. folicit his palate and occafion excefs; nor in the fecond, any artificial provocatives to relieve fatiety, and create a falfe appetite. Were I to prefcribe a rule for drinking, it fhould be formed upon a faying quoted by Sir William Temple; "the firft glafs for myfelf, the fecond for my "friends, the third for good-humour, and the fourth for mine enemies." But because it is impoffible for one who lives in the world to diet himfelf always in fo philofophical a manner, I think every man fhould have his days of abftinence, according as his conftitution will permit. Thefe are great reliefs to nature, as they qualify her for struggling with hunger and thirft, whenever any diftemper or duty of life may put her upon fuch difficulties; and at the fame time give her an opportunity of extricating herfelf from E. 5 her her oppreffions, and recovering the feveral tones and .fprings of her diftended veffels. Befides that abstinence well timed often kills a fickness in embryo, and destroys the first feeds of an indifpofition. It is obferved by two or three ancient authors, that Socrates, notwithstanding he lived in Athens during that great plague, which has made fo much noife through all ages, and has been celebrated at different times by fuch eminent hands; I fay, notwithstanding that he lived in the time of this devouring peftilence, he never caught the leaft infection, which thefe writers unanimoufly afcribe to that uninterrupted temperance which he always obferved. And here I cannot but mention an obfervation which I have often made, upon reading the lives of the philofophers, and comparing them with any feries of kings or great men of the fame number. If we confider thefe ancient fages, a great part of whofe philofophy confifted in a temperate and abftemious courfe of life, one would think the life of a philofopher and the life of a man were of two different dates. For we find that the generality of thefe wife men were nearer an hundred than fixty years of age at the time of their refpective deaths. But the most remarkable inftance 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 was cf the fame family, attested more than once in converfation, when he refided in England. Cornaro, who was the author of the little treatise I am mentioning, was of an infirm conftitution, until about forty, when by obftinately perfifting in an exact courfe of temperance, he recovered a perfect state of health; infomuch that at fourfcore he published his book, which has been tranflated into English under the title of "Sure and certain methods of attaining a long and healthy life." He lived to give a third and fourth edition of it, and after having paffed his hundredth year, died without pain or agony, and like one who falls alleep. The treatise I mention has been taken notice of by feveral eminent authors, and is written with fuch a fpirit of chearfulness, religion, and good fenfe, as are the natural concomi tants |