" pers, and by that means fell into a confumption; until at length, growing very fat, I was in a manner fhamed out of that imagination. Not long after this I found in myself all the fymptoms of the gout, except pain; but was cured of it by a Treatife upon the Gravel, written by a very ingenious author, who (as is ufual for phyficians to 6 convert one diftemper into another) eafed me of the gout by giving me the ftone. I at length ftu ⚫ died myself into a complication of diftempers; but, • accidentally taking into my hand that ingenious discourse written by Sanctorius, I was refolved to direct myself by a scheme of rules, which I had • collected from his obfervations. The learned world ' are very well acquainted with that gentleman's invention; who, for the better carrying on of his ex•periments, contrived a certain mathematical chair, which was fo artificially hung upon fprings, that it ⚫ would weigh any thing as well as a pair of scales. By this means he difcovered how many ounces of his food paffed 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 myfelf with this chair, I used to ftudy, eat, drink, and fleep in it; infomuch that I may be faid, for thefe three laft years, to • have lived in a pair of fcales. I compute myself, when I am in full health, to be precisely 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 balance between these two volatile pounds in my conftitution. In my ordinary meals I fetch myself up to two hundred weight • and half a pound; and, if after having dined I find myself fall fhort of it, I drink juft so much fmall-beer, or eat fuch a quantity of bread, as is fufficient to make me weight. In my great ( ef eft 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 myself duly poifed after dinner, I walk un'til 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 informs me my pound of food is * exhaufted, I conclude myfelf to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of ab • ftinence I lose a pound and an half, and on folemn • fafts am two pounds lighter than on other days in the year. I allow myself, one night with another, a quarter of a pound of fleep, within a few grains more or lefs; 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 last year,, which I always register in a book, I find the me*dium to be two hundred weight; fo 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 ballaft myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poife, fo it is that I find myself in a fick and languishing 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 fervant." This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph, written on the monument of a Valetudinarian: Sta 20 vo 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 battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary fick perfons that break their conftitutions by phyfic, and throw themselves into the arms of death by endeavouring to efcape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To confult the preservation of life, as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or courfe of phyfic; are purposes so abject, fo mean, fo unworthy human nature, that a generous foul would rather die than submit 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 losing. 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 cheerfulness of mind, and capacity for bufinefs, are, in a great measure, the effects of a well-tempered 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 fenfe, but by duty and instinct, should never engage us in groundless fears, melancholy apprehenfions, and imaginary diftempers, which are natural to every man who is more anxious to live than how to live. In fhort, the prefervation of life fhould be only a fecondary concern, and the direction of it our principle. If we have this frame of mind, we shall take the best means to preserve life, without being over folicitous about the event; and fhall arrive at that point of of felicity which Martial has mentioned as the perfection of happiness, of neither fearing nor wishing for death. In answer to the gentleman who tempers his health by ounces and by fcruples, and, instead of complying with those natural folicitations of hunger and thirst, drowfinefs, 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, promifed 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 immediately diftributed rain, fnow, and funfhine among his feveral fields, as he thought the nature of the foil required. At the end of the year, when he expected to fee a more than ordinary crop, his harvest fell infinitely fhort of that of his neighbours upon which (fays the fable) he defired Jupiter to take the weather again into his own hands, or that otherwife he fhould utterly ruin himself. C VOL. I. K FRIDAY, No. 26. FRIDAY, MARCH 30. Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas Vita fumma brevis fpem nos vetat inchoare longam, Et domus exilis Plutonia. HOR. Od. iv. 1. 1. ver. 13. With equal foot, rich friend, impartial fate CREECH. WHEN I am in a ferious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominefs of the place, and the ufe to which it is applied, with the folemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not difagreeable. I yesterday paffed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloifters, and the church, amufing myfelf with the tomb-ftones and infcriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most 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 thofe two circumftances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brafs or marble, as a kind of fatire 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 battles |