He would often repeat in the company of young people, the following anecdote which he had picked up some where or other in his extensive reading. "A wealthy citizen of Athens, who had nearly ruined his constitution by gluttony and sloth, was advised by Hippocrates to visit a certain medicinal spring in Sparta; not that Hippocrates believed that spring to be better than some nearer home; but exercise was the object--" "_Visit the springs of Sparta_," said the great physician. As the young debauchee, pale and bloated, travelled among the simple and hardy Spartans, he called one day at the house of a countryman on the road to get something to eat. A young woman was just serving up dinner--a nice barn-door fowl boiled with a piece of fat bacon. "You have got rather a plain dinner there madam," growled the Athenian. "_Yes, sir_," replied the young woman blushing, "_but my husband will be here directly, and he always brings the sauce with him_." Presently the young husband stepped in, and after welcoming his guest, invited him to dinner. "I can't dream of dining, sir, _without sauce_," said the Athenian, "and your wife promised you would bring it." "_O, sir, my wife is a wit_," cried the Spartan; "_she only meant the good appetite which I always bring with me from the barn, where I have been threshing_." And here I beg leave to wind up this chapter with the following beautiful lines from Dryden, which I trust my young reader will commit to memory. They may save him many a sick stomach and headache, besides many a good dollar in doctor's fees. "The first physicians by debauch were made; Excess began and sloth sustains the trade. By chace, our long liv'd fathers earn'd their bread; Toil strung their nerves and purified their blood: But we, their sons, a pamper'd race of men, Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten. Better hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught. The wise for health on exercise depend; God never made his works for man to mend." CHAPTER V. Ben continued with his father, assisting him in his humble toils, till his twelfth year; and had he possessed a mind less active might have remained a candle-maker all the days of his life. But born to diffuse a light beyond that of tallow or spermaceti, he could never reconcile himself to this inferior employment, and in spite of his wishes to conceal it from his father, discontent would still lower on his brow, and the half-suppressed sigh steal in secret from his bosom.