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should eat and drink in such a manner, not as those dogs do, that` shall not eat of the childrens' bread. And, as we should be careful to wash the heart from all defilement, that which cometh out of us may not defile us, or others; so what we eat and drink should be in a sanctified manner, to a holy use. If this divinity be too strict, all I will say is, the glory of that distinction, which grace makes between us and heathens and infidels, is too great for us."

The main arguments of the book are very pleasantly condensed in the following conclusions, which are both amusing, and give a very good idea of the nature of the author's general style and reasoning, neither of which are of the vulgar sort.

"Hence, I conclude two things.

"1. That no man is fit to drink a health, but he that, at the time, is fit to pray to the Holy God, the God of Heaven, by Jesus Christ.

"2. No man is fit to pray, or to drink a health, but he that is truly serious, and considers what he doth.

"The reason of both is plain, because drinking a health, in the most innocent notion of it, doth intimate, or is attended with a prayer, or a good wish to them they drink to; and that prayer is, or should be, to the merciful God only, for one of the greatest outward mercies that mankind can desire or enjoy.

"If any man say, this carries the notion too high, for no man designs to interest or concern God at all in a health. (Truly it may be so, that it is furthest from the heart of many.) But how can you drink a health, and not interest God in it? for if you wish well to the person whose health is drunk, and wish him so great a mercy as health is, in its lowest signification, you must wish it of God, for none can give or continue it but he; and if you do not seriously and heartily wish it of God, you do but delude, or mock, or hypocritically compliment your friend, whose welfare you pretend solemnly to wish; you wish him health, but do not intend therein to pray to God to give it. Here is now a trial of the great love of healthers! But if you do heartily desire that mercy from God, how can you do it and not be serious? and make it a piece of your devotion? It is seriously to be prayed for, or not at all, for you ought not to dissemble in the matter. If it be a serious good wish or prayer, then, Procùl hinc, procùl ite profani, sancta sanctis. Healths are only to be drunk by holy and serious persons: and I think they will hardly be brought to it upon the premises, and what is yet to follow.

them.

"First; either you must join drink and prayer, or separate

“1. If you join drink and prayer, whether mental or oral, in a health, then, by whose institution do you drink and pray? by God's ? or by man's? by what man, or what kind of men? Doth prayer sanctify that cup? or doth the cup pollute the prayer? or do you seem to pray for the drink's sake, and drink for your own pleasure, or another's health? I grant, and I wish it were more common, that we

may pray and praise God as we drink : but, then, by what authority, or institution, do I drink that cup, to that end that it may be to the health of another person? or what kind of sign is it that I wish the health of another, when I drink? or what efficacy hath any drinking upon another's constitution? If it had any virtue at all to give, restore, or continue health, either naturally, or by institution, I would advise all physicians and apothecaries to forbear it, because it hinders them; and to advise against it, or to use it as the last remedy, when they have had as many fees as they desire, before they try it : but they know it hath no virtue to that end, but rather the contrary, as sometimes they find it to their profit. What help doth their drinking afford to their prayer? What, is it like water to a mill? Drink turns about the wheel of their affections to make them more ardent in their requests for health? Or, is it because they cannot wish well to others, but when they are pleasing their own sense and appetite? or, then their devotions are as violent as raptures, when they are transported, and in an elevation: what a kind of carnal fanaticism is this?

“ 2. Or, though you do join drink and prayer, yet their virtue is distinct and separate; prayer goes one way, and drink another. Indeed, I think they are better parted than joined; and, lest God be dishonoured by such kind of prayers, as the generality dishonour him and themselves, by such kind of drinking; it were plain dealing for them to speak the naked truth, and say, when they drink, Here is to myself : or, Here is to my own health, and drink no more than will consist with their health, and promote it, and not hinder their holy and fervent prayer for themselves and others. Moderate drinking doth promote their own, but can never promote another's, much less doth immoderate save either, but endanger one at least. When you pray, pray so that God may mercifully hear you; and when you drink, drink so that God may mercifully bless you. But away with these profane, uninstituted, carnal sacraments, lest the sin of drinking cry louder than your prayers. We have often seen how drinking hath drowned prayer, and carried away all sense of God and duty before it."

Our extracts have, however, we fear, extended to a length disproportionate to the importance of the book; we must, therefore, conclude, with the following very ingenious attempts at apologue on drinking, and the disgrace of drunkenness.

“'Tis the greatest disgrace a man can put upon himself or others. Why shall it not be reputed to be as great a dishonour to be laid by the heels by this sin, as to be put in the stocks, or a prison? Suppose a company of rude and impudent servants should combine to abuse their master, a person of noble birth, and great honour: to that end they should wheedle and gull him into a pleasant humour, make him very merry; and when they have levelled him down to a familiarity, they take his place, and play the master; they then put out one candle, and, anon, another, and then come the grooms and footmen. and paw upon him, and at last lay him under the table, or in a meaner

place. Thus, the divine reason is abused by the senses, and the inferiors being little better, or rather, in that, worse than brutes, make sport with their master. Again, imagine a noble person to have many graceful and useful servants under him, and if they be not true and officious to him, it is his fault, and not theirs; and this noble person being out of humour, he turns one out of his place, and then another, until he have left him none to help him: would it not be a very ignoble action? Would he not, when come to himself, repent, and do so no more? Is it not like this, when the noble reason and affections are depraved by lust, do serve his senses, and the members of his body, even those that were born with him, bred with him from the very cradle, went to school with him, lay in the same bed with him, and are as dear to him, when he is himself, as his very eyes, hands, and feet; but he doth cast them off, by the insinuation of wine; the eyes fail, the hands shake, the legs wave like reeds: Neque pes, neque mens satis officium faciunt. And though they are next day taken home again, yet, for ought he knew, they were quite gone, never to be seen till the resurrection. It is a high offence to our glorious Creator; it perverts the end of our redemption; it unmans the man, and is a contempt of death, the grave, and hell itself. If men had any reverence for their God, Creator, Saviour, Sanctifier; if any honour to their own nature; if any sense of mortality, and of the reference this mortal life hath to eternal life, they would never leave it thus, throw away their time thus. How curious are men of their own pictures, of their childrens' faces and shapes, of the monuments of their ancestors! how enraged at the violation of their daughters! And will you, with your own hands, by the ungrateful abuse of plenty, deprive, defile, swill, and prostitute yourselves: What, if you were stript by your own servants, of your own clothes, and they should put on you their liveries or frocks? would you brook it? Yet, a gentleman is a gentleman in the meanest garb; but you are not men, when you undress, or put off sobriety. In a word, it is a great sin and what if the Lord find you so doing?"

Such is the treatise on the evil of health drinking, a book pregnant with a kind of instruction which the author never intended to convey, on the evil of attributing an imaginary importance to trifling and innocent actions, and of burthening a tender conscience with scruples and doubts, concerning the little devices of society, that serve no other end, and do no farther mischief, if it be mischief, than that of smoothing the intercourse of life, and by the interposition of a pliable and fluent body, as of oil, prevent the hinges of society from grating too harshly.

ART. IX.-The Touchstone of Complexions. From the Latine of Leuine Lemnie. Englished by Thomas Newton. Imprinted at London, in Fleete Streete, by T. Marsh.

1576.

Anno

This is a curious little octavo black-lettered volume, which has accidentally worked its way into our possession; and having found it to contain much matter that is both useful and interesting, we have determined to introduce, for the gratification of our readers, a few extracts. We may conclude, from what we gather in its pages, that the author of the original in "Latine was a Swiss; and, that the work was written many years before "Thomas Newtonus, Cestreshyrius," favoured us with its translation. Its style, as will be seen, bears ample evidence of its having emanated from the olden school: it is sometimes diffuse, and vague, and abounds in expletives; sometimes terse and powerful. The mere subject is not deficient in skilful arrangement: but very little attention appears to have been paid to the order of the subject-matter, parts of which are frequently and needlessly repeated. This is a fault that would become a source of great irksomeness to readers of the present century, most of whom have had their minds so well exercised by the more general diffusion of information, as to view errors even less palpable somewhat hypercritically. The author, however, has been a man of no mean capacity. It is evident, that he has not merely been capable of laborious research, and of bringing the result of his labours to bear upon any given point which it might be his object to illustrate; there are passages also evidencing the nicest discrimination; others, which, for their originality, and boldness of conception, are fully entitled to be ranked as the offspring of genius. Amongst much that is new, there is also much which, from its self-evidence, must have been common-place at any time, and under any circumstances: but, anomalous as it may appear, even this excites its interest; and it does so for no other reason, probably, than because we see our most ordinary ideas and sensations arrayed in the costume of their primitive or earlier days. Another of the characteristics of this work, which it possesses in common with most of the black-letter tribe, is a manifest proneness to enforce every position by pressing into service all dogmas of the ancient writings that are capable either directly or indirectly of bearing on the point in question; and whether what they would so make evident is in itself worthy, or whether it derives importance from the adventitious aid only which it thus obtains, appears to have been matter of no

consideration. A redundancy of quoted wise saws, epigrams, proverbs, and axioms, always has a tendency to stifle discussion: it seems to exact of us, that we shall unhesitatingly subscribe to pre-conceived notions which custom appears to have arbitrarily set as the boundary of reason. This was the-we might almost say, avowed-object of the two great minds from which the Essay on Man emanated. And, perhaps, never were more powerful means combined for the purpose of effecting so prejudicial a result. Neither the philosophy of the one, however, nor the extraordinary epigrammatic terseness of the other, has been able to reconcile differences still dependant on reason, which will, though for awhile diverted, ever return to its legitimate source-discussion.

We proceed to our business of extracting; without troubling our readers with criticism on the detail of a book which can be in the possession of but a very few.

The text of this work appears to be "nosce teipsum," or "Learn what thy shoulders carry may;

And what they cannot well up-stay."

Its object is, the preservation of health. It is not a treatise on distinct diseases: but it lays down a system, by which a disposition to generate disorder may be, at least pro tem., avoided. Its plan is simple: beautiful, if we suppose it capable of being reduced to anything like general practice: but useful at all events. After it has shewn, in an excellent chapter, the primary necessity for having a healthy mind, on the principle of Pope's quoted line-from Juvenal's tenth satire, we believe" virtue alone is happiness below," it proceeds to point out as the three elements of vitality-humour, heat, spirit.

"Humour or vital moisture is the nourishment and matter of natural heat, whereupon it worketh, and by the benefit thereof is maintained and preserved. With this humour or vital moisture is natural heat fed and nourished, and from the same receiveth continual maintenance, and from it participateth vital power, whereby all creatures live, are nourished, increased, preserved, and procreated. Spirit is the seat and carrier of heat, by whose help and ministery, it is conveyed and sent by the conduites and passages of the arteries, to every several part of the body."

From the preponderance of one of these simple principles is deduced the crasis or temperament of our natures; and it is explained how we shall ascertain whether we be disposed to hot, cold, dry, or moist. In order, however, that none shall fail to acquire this personal knowledge, and, that the human soul

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