24.  A man could not be well guilty of gluttony, if he stuck to these few obvious and easy rules.  In the first case, there would be no variety of tastes to solicit his palate and occasion excess; nor in the second, any artificial provocatives to relieve satiety, and create a false appetite.  Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed on a saying quoted by Sir William Temple:—­The first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humour, and the fourth for my enemies.  But because it is impossible for one who lives in the world to diet himself always in so philosophical a manner, I think every man should have his days of abstinence, according as his constitution will permit.

25.  These are great reliefs to nature, as they qualify her for struggling with hunger and thirst, whenever any distemper or duty of life may put her upon such difficulties; and at the same time give her an opportunity of extricating herself from her oppressions, and recovering the several tones and springs of her distended vessels.  Besides that, abstinence well-timed often kills a sickness in embryo, and destroys the first seeds of an indisposition.

26.  It is observed by two or three ancient authors, that Socrates, notwithstanding he lived in Athens during that great plague, which has made so much noise through all ages, and has been celebrated at different times by such eminent hands; I say, notwithstanding that he lived in the time of this devouring pestilence, he never caught the least infection, which those writers unanimously ascribe to that uninterrupted temperance which he always observed.

27.  And here I cannot but mention an observation which I have often made, upon reading the lives of the philosophers, and comparing them with any series of kings or great men of the same number.  If we consider these ancient sages, a great part of whose philosophy consisted in a temperate and abstemious course of life, one would think the life of a philosopher and the life of a man were of two different dates.  For we find that the generality of these wise men were nearer an hundred than sixty years of age at the time of their respective deaths.

28.  But the most remarkable instance 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 of the same family, attested more than once in conversation, when he resided in England. Cornaro, who was the author of the little treatise I am mentioning, was of an infirm constitution, till about forty, when, by obstinately persisting in an exact course of temperance, he recovered a perfect state of health; insomuch that at fourscore he published his book, which has been translated into English, under the title of, Sure and certain methods of attaining a long and healthy Life.