Addison,[74] avowedly more or less inspired by Cornaro, after condemning the prevailing gluttony says, “For my part, when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dyspepsias, fevers and lethargies, and other distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes.” He delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one dish--herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of the third. Man alone falls upon everything that comes in his way. “Not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or mushroom escapes him.” Hence he advises that we make our whole repast out of one dish and that we avoid all artificial provocatives, which create false appetites. He advises, too, that since this rule is so hard, “every man should have his days of abstinence according as his constitution will permit. These are great reliefs to nature as they qualify her for struggling with hunger and thirst and give her an opportunity of extricating herself from her oppressions. Besides that, abstinence will oftentimes kill a sickness in embryo and destroy the first seeds of an indisposition.” He then quotes the temperateness of Socrates, which enabled him to survive the great plague. He finds that many ancient sages and later philosophers developed a regimen so unique that “one would think the life of a philosopher and the life of a man were of two different dates.” Robert Burton[75] thinks old age inherently melancholy, for “being cold and dry and of the same quality as melancholy it must needs come in.” It is full of ache, sorrow, grief, and most other faults, and these traits are most developed in old women and best illustrated by witches. The children of old men are rarely of good temperament and are especially liable to depression. He expatiates most fully upon the tragedy of old men and young wives, and gives many long incidents of jealousy and unfaithfulness of women who, although carefully guarded, have made old husbands cuckold. This is often worse in dotards, who become effeminate, cannot endure absence from their wives, etc. On this theme he elaborates for many pages, with scores of incidents from literature and history.