The relations of a rich German ecclesiastic, carrying him to drink the waters for the recovery of his health, and passing by the house of a famous quack, he inquired what was the reverend gentleman’s distemper? They told him a total debility, loss of appetite, and a great decay in his senses. The empiric, after viewing his enormous chin, and bodily bulk, guessed rightly at the cause of his distemper, and proposed, for a certain sum, to bring him home, on a day fixed, perfectly cured. The patient was put into his hands, and the doctor treated him in the following manner:--He furnished him every day with half a pound of excellent dry biscuit; to moisten this, he allowed him three pints of very good spring water; and he suffered him to sleep but a few hours out of the twenty-four. When he had brought him within the just proportion of a man, he obliged him to ring a bell, or work in the garden, with a rolling-stone, an hour before breakfast, and four hours in the afternoon. At the stated day the doctor produced him, perfectly restored. Nice eating destroys the health, let it be ever so moderate; for the stomach, as every man’s experience must inform him, finds greater difficulty in digesting rich dishes than meats plainly dressed. To a sound man sauces are needless; to one who is diseased, they nourish not him, but his distemper; and the intemperance of his taste betrays him into the hands of death, which could not, perhaps, have mastered his constitution. Lewis Cornaro brought himself into a wretched condition, while a young man, by indulging his taste; yet, when he had once taken a resolution of restraining it, nature did that which physic could not; it restored him to perfect health of body, and serenity of mind, both of which he enjoyed to extreme old age. * * * * * ~Books.~ READING ALOUD. BY MARGARET DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 1671.