I could relate what table this demands, 95 Or that complexion; what the various powers Of various foods: But fifty years would roll, And fifty more, before the tale were done. Besides, there often lurks some nameless, strange, Peculiar thing; nor on the skin display’d, 100 Felt in the pulse, nor in the habit seen; Which finds a poison in the food that most The temp’rature affects. There are, whose blood Impetuous rages thro’ the turgid veins, Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind, 105 Than the moist Melon, or pale Cucumber. Of chilly nature others fly the board Supply’d with slaughter, and the vernal pow’rs For cooler, kinder, sustenance implore. Some even the generous nutriment detest 110 Which, in the shell, the sleeping Embryo rears. Some, more unhappy still, repent the gifts Of Pales; soft, delicious and benign: The balmy quintescence of every flower, And every grateful herb that decks the spring; 115 The fost’ring dew of tender sprouting life; The best reflection of declining age; The kind restorative of those who lie Half-dead and panting, from the doubtful strife Of nature struggling in the grasp of death. 120 Try all the bounties of this fertile globe, There is not such a salutary food, As suits with every stomach. But (except, Amid the mingled mass of fish and fowl, And boil’d and bak’d, you hesitate by which 125 You sunk oppress’d, or whether not by all;) Taught by experience soon you may discern What pleases, what offends. Avoid the cates That lull the sicken’d appetite too long; Or heave with feverish flushings all the face, 130 Burn in the palms, and parch the roughning tongue; Or much diminish or too much increase Th’ expence which nature’s wise oeconomy, Without or waste or avarice, maintains. Such cates abjur’d, let prouling hunger loose, 135 And bid the curious palate roam at will; They scarce can err amid the various stores That burst the teeming entrails of the world.