GODD

N° 25. Thursday, March 29.

T

Egrefcitque medendo.

Virg.

HE following Letter will explain it self, and needs no Apology.

SIR,

I

Am one of that fickly Tribe who are commonly known by the Name of Valetudinarians; and do confefs to you, that I first contracted this ill Habit of Body, or rather of Mind, by the Study of Phyfick. I no fooner began to perufe Books of this Nature, but I found my Pulfe was irregular; and scarce ever read the Account of any Disease that I did not fancy my felf afflicted with. Doctor Sydenham's learned • Treatife of Fevers threw me into a lingring Hectick, which hung upon me all the while I was reading that excellent Piece. I then applied my felf to the Study of feveral Authors, who have written upon Pthifical Di ftempers, and by that means fell into a Consumption; till at length, growing very fat, I was in a manner fhamed out of that Imagination. Not long after this I found in my felf all the Symptoms of the Gout, except Pain; but was cured of it by a Treatife upon the Gravel, written by a very Ingenious Author, who (as it is usual for Phyficians to convert one Diftemper into another) eafed me of the Gout by giving me the Stone. I at ⚫ length ftudied my felf into a Complication of Diftempers; but, accidentally taking into my Hand that Ingenious Difcourfe written by Sanctorius, I was refolved to direct my felf by a Scheme of Rules, which I had collected from his Obfervations. The Learned World C are very well acquainted with that Gentleman's Invention; who, for the better carrying on of his Experi$ ments, contrived a certain Mathematical Chair, which was fo Artificially hung upon Springs, that it would weigh

weigh any thing as well as a Pair of Scales. By this means he difcovered how many Ounces of his Food pafs'd by Perfpiration, what quantity of it was turned into Nourishment, and how much went away by the other Channels and Diftributions of Nature.

HAVING provided my felf with this Chair, I used to Study, Eat, Drink, and Sleep in it; infomuch that I may be faid, for these three laft Years, to have lived in a Pair of Scales. I compute my felf, when I am in full Health, to be precifely Two hundred Weight, falling fhort of it about a Pound after a Day's Faft, and exceeding it as much after a very full Meal; fo that it is my continual Employment, to trim the Ballance between these two Volatile Pounds in my Conftitution. In my ordinary Meals I fetch my felf up to two hundred Weight and halfa Pound; and if after having dined I find my 'felf fall fhort of it, I drink juft fo much Small Beer, or eat fuch a quantity of Bread, as is fufficient to make me weight. In my greatest Exceffes I do not tranfgrefs · more than the other half Pound; which, for my Health's 'fake, I do the firft Monday in every Month. As foon as I find my felf duely poifed after Dinner, I walk till I have perfpired five Ounces and four Scruples; ⚫ and when I difcover, by my Chair, that I am fo far reduced, I fall to my Books, and ftudy away three • Ounces more. As for the remaining Parts of the Pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and fup by the Clock, but by my Chair; for when that in• forms me my Pound of Food is exhausted, I conclude my felf to be hungry, and lay in another with all Diligence. In my Days of Abftinence I lose a Pound and an half, and on folemn Fafts am two Pound lighter than on other Days in the Year.

6

I allow my felf one Night with another, a Quarter ⚫ of a Pound of Sleep within a few Grains more or lefss and if upon my rifing I find that I have not confumed my whole quantity, I take out the reft in my Chair. Upon an exact Calculation of what I expended and received the laft Year, which I always regifter in a Book, I find the Medium to be Two hundred Weight, fo that I cannot difcover that I am impaired one Ounce in my Health during a whole Twelve-month.

And

And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great Care to • ballaft my felf equally every Day, and to keep my Body in its proper Poife, fo it is that I find my felf in a fick and languifhing Condition. My Complexion is grown very fallow, my Pulfe low, and my Body Hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to confider me as your Patient, and to give me more certain Rules to walk by than those I have already obferved, and you will very much oblige

&

Your Humble Servant.

THIS Letter puts me in mind of an Italian Epitaph written on the Monument of Valetudinarian; Stavo ben, ma per ftar Meglio, fto qui: Which it is impoffible to tranflate. The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and fets People on Methods to fave their Lives, which infallibly deftroy them. This is a Reflection made by fome Hiftorians, upon obferving that there are many more thoufands killed in a Flight than in a Battel; and may be applied to thofe Multitudes of imaginary Sick Perfons that break their Conftitutions by Phyfick, and throw themfelves into the Arms of Death, by endeavouring to escape it. This Method is not only dangerous, but below the Practice of a Reasonable Creature. To confult the Prefervation of Life, as the only End of it, To make our Health our Bufinefs, To engage in no Action that is not part of a Regimen, or courfe of Phyfick; are Purpofes fo abject, fo mean, fo unworthy human Nature, that a generous Soul would rather die than fubmit to them. Befides, that a continual Anxiety for Life vitiates all the Relishes of it, and cafts a Gloom over the whole Face of Nature; as it is impoffible we fhould take Delight in any thing that we are every Moment afraid of lofing.

I do not mean, by what I have here faid, that I think any one to blame for taking due Care of their Health.' On the contrary, as Cheerfulnefs of Mind, and Capacity for Business, are in a great measure the Effects of a welltemper'd Conftitution, a Man cannot be at too much Pains to cultivate and preferve it. But this Care, which we are prompted to, not only by common Senfe, but by Duty and Inftinct, fhould never engage us in groundlefa Fears, melancholy Apprehenfions, and imaginary Diftem

Distempers, which are natural to every Man who is more anxious to Live than How to live. In short, the Preservation of Life should be only a fecondary Con cern, and the Direction of it our Principal. If we have this Frame of Mind, we fhall take the best Means to preferve Life, without being over-follicitous about the Event; and shall arrive at that Point of Felicity which Martial has mentioned as the Perfection of Happiness, of neither fearing nor wifhing for Death.

IN answer to the Gentleman, who tempers his Health by Ounces and by Scruples, and inftead of complying with those natural Sollicitations of Hunger and Thirst, Drowsiness or Love of Exercife, governs himself by the Prefcriptions of his Chair, I fhall tell him a fhort Fable. Jupiter, fays the Mythologist, to reward the Piety of a certain Countryman, promised to give him whatever he would ask. The Countryman defired that he might have the Management of the Weather in his own Eftate: He obtained his Requeft, and immediate ly diftributed Rain, Snow, and Sunshine among his fe veral Fields, as he thought the nature of the Soil required. At the end of the Year, when he expected to fee a more than ordinary Crop, his Harveft fell infinitely fhort of that of his Neighbours: Upon which (lays the Fable) he defired Jupiter to take the Weather again into his own Hands, or that otherwife he fhould utter ly ruin himself.

Pallida mors aquo pulfat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres, O beate Sexti.

Vita fumma brevis fpem nos vetat inchoare longam.
Fam te premet nox, fabulaque manes,

Et domus exilis Plutonia

W

Hor.'

HEN I am in a ferious Humour, I very often walk by my felf in Westminster Abby; where the Gloominefs of the Place, and the Ufe to which it is applied, with the Solemnity of the Building, and

E. 4

the

N° 26. the Condition of the People who lye in it, are apt to fill the Mind with a kind of Melancholy, or ratherThoughtfulness, that is not difagreeable. I Yesterday paffed a whole Afternoon in the Church-yard, the Cloysters, and the Church, amufing my felf with the Tomb-ftones and Infcriptions that I met with in thofe feveral Regions of the Dead. Moft of them recorded nothing elfe of the buried Perfon, but that he was born upon one Day and died upon another: The whole Hiftory of his Life being comprehended in those two Circumftances, that are common to all Mankind. I could not but look upon thefe Regifters of Existence, whether of Brass or Marble, as a kind of Satyr upon the departed Perfons; who had left no other Memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of feveral Perfons mentioned in the Battels of Heroic Poems, who have founding Names given them, for no other Reafon but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the Head.

Γλαύκον τε Μεδόν α τε Θερσιλοχίν τε.

Glaucumque, Medontaque, Therfilochumque.

Hom.

Vir.

The Life of thefe Men is finely defcribed in Holy Writ by the Path of an Arrow, which is immediately closed up and loft.

UPON my going into the Church, I entertained my felf with the digging of a Grave; and faw in every Shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the Fragment of a Bone or Skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering Earth that fome time or other had a Place in the Compofition of an human Body. Upon this I began to confider with my felf what innumerable Multitudes of People lay confused together under the Pavement of that ancient Cathedral; how Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the fame common Mafs; how Beauty, Strength, and Youth, with Old-age, Weaknefs and Deformity, lay undistinguish'd in the fame promifcuous Heap of Matter.

AFTER