to have lived in a Pair of Scales.  I compute my self, when I am in full Health, to be precisely Two Hundred Weight, falling short of it about a Pound after a Day’s Fast, and exceeding it as much after a very full Meal; so that it is my continual Employment, to trim the Ballance between these two Volatile Pounds in my Constitution.  In my ordinary Meals I fetch my self up to two Hundred Weight and [a half pound [3]]; and if after having dined I find my self fall short of it, I drink just so much Small Beer, or eat such a quantity of Bread, as is sufficient to make me weight.  In my greatest Excesses I do not transgress more than the other half Pound; which, for my Healths sake, I do the first Monday in every Month.  As soon as I find my self duly poised after Dinner, I walk till I have perspired five Ounces and four Scruples; and when I discover, by my Chair, that I am so far reduced, I fall to my Books, and Study away three Ounces more.  As for the remaining Parts of the Pound, I keep no account of them.  I do not dine and sup by the Clock, but by my Chair, for when that informs me my Pound of Food is exhausted I conclude my self to be hungry, and lay in another with all Diligence.  In my Days of Abstinence I lose a Pound and an half, and on solemn Fasts am two Pound lighter than on other Days in the Year.

I allow my self, one Night with another, a Quarter of a Pound of Sleep within a few Grains more or less; and if upon my rising I find that I have not consumed my whole quantity, I take out the rest in my Chair.  Upon an exact Calculation of what I expended and received the last Year, which I always register in a Book, I find the Medium to be two hundred weight, so that I cannot discover that I am impaired one Ounce in my Health during a whole Twelvemonth.  And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great care to ballast my self equally every Day, and to keep my Body in its proper Poise, so it is that I find my self in a sick and languishing Condition.  My Complexion is grown very sallow, my Pulse low, and my Body Hydropical.  Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to consider me as your Patient, and to give me more certain Rules to walk by than those I have already observed, and you will very much oblige

  Your Humble Servant.’

This Letter puts me in mind of an Italian Epitaph written on the Monument of a Valetudinarian; ’Stavo ben, ma per star Meglio, sto qui’:  Which it is impossible to translate. [4] The Fear of Death often proves mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which infallibly destroy them.  This is a Reflection made by some Historians, upon observing that there are many more thousands killed in a Flight than in a Battel, and may be applied to those Multitudes of Imaginary Sick Persons that break their Constitutions by Physick, and throw themselves into the Arms of Death, by endeavouring to escape it.  This Method is not only dangerous, but below the Practice