Subsect. 2. Quantity of dyet a cause.

There is not so much harm proceeding from the substance it self of meat, and quality of it, in ill dressing and preparing, as there is from the quantity, disorder of time and place, unseasonable use of it, intemperance, overmuch, or overlittle taking of it. A true saying it is, Plures crapula quam gladius, This gluttony kills more then the sword, this omnivorantia & homicida gula, this al-devouring and murdering gut.

And that of Pliny is truer, Simple Dyet is the best, heaping up of several meats, is pernicious, and sawces worse, many dishes bring many diseases. Avicen cryes out, That nothing is worse then to feed on many dishes, or to protract the time of meats longer then ordinary; from thence proceed our infirmities, and ’tis the fountain of all diseases, which arise out of the repugnancy of gross humors.

Thence, saith, Fernelius, come cruelties, wind, oppilations, Cacochymia, Plethora, Cachexia, Bradiopepsia, Hinc subitæ mortes, atque intestata senectus, sudden death, &c. and what not.

As a Lamp is choaked with a multitude of Oyl, or a little fire with overmuch wood quite extinguished; so is the natural heat with immoderate eating, strangled in the Body. Pernitiosa sentina est abdomen insaturabile: One saith, An insatiable paunch is a pernicious sink, and the fountain of all diseases, both of Body and Minde.

Mercurialis will have it a peculiar cause of this private disease; Solenander, consil. 5. sect. 3. illustrates this of Mercurialis, with an example of one so melancholy, ab intempestivis commessationibus, unseasonable feasting. Crato confirms as much, in that often cited Counsel, 21. lib. 2. putting superfluous eating for a main cause.

But what need I seek farther for proofs? Hear Hippocrates himself, Lib. 2. Aphorif. 10. Impure bodies the more they are nourished, the more they are hurt, for the nourishment is putrified with vicious humors.

And yet for all this harm, which apparently follows surfetting and drunkenness, see how we luxuriate and rage in this kinde, read what Johannes Stuckius hath written lately of this subject, in his great Volumn De Antiquorum Conviviis, and of our present age; Quam portentosæ cænæ, prodigious suppers, Qui dum invitant ad cænam, efferunt ad sepulchrum, what Fagos, Epicures, Apetios, Heliogables our times afford? Lucullus ghost walks still, and every man desires to sup in Apollo: Æsops costly dish is ordinarily served up.

—Magis illa juvant, quæ pluris emuntur.—

The dearest Cates are best, and ’tis an ordinary thing to bestow twenty or thirty pound on a dish, some thousand Crowns upon a dinner: Mully-Hamet, King of Fez and Morocco, spent three pound on the sawce of a Capon: It is nothing in our times, we scorn all that is cheap.

We loathe the very light (some of us, as Seneca notes) because it comes free, and we are offended with the Suns heat, and those cool blasts, because we buy them not. This air we breathe is so common, we care not for it: nothing pleaseth but what is dear.

And if we be witty in any thing, it is ad gulam: If we study at all, it is erudito luxu, to please the palat, and to satisfie the gut. A Cook of old was a base knave (as Livy complains) but now a great man in request: Cookery is become an art, a noble science: Cooks are Gentlemen: Venter Deus:

They wear their brains in their bellies, and their guts in their heads; as Agrippa taxed some parasites of his time, rushing on their own destruction, as if a man should run upon the point of a sword, usque dum rumpantur comedunt: All day, all night, let the Physitian say what he will, imminent danger, and feral diseases are now ready to seize upon them, that will eat till they vomit, Edunt ut vomant, vomunt ut edant, saith Seneca;

which Dion relates of Vitellius, Solo transitu ciborum nutriri judicatus: His meat did pass through, and away: or till they burst again. Strage animantium ventrem onerant, and rake over all the world as so many slaves, belly-gods, and land-serpents, Et totus orbis ventri nimis angustus, the whole world cannot satisfie their appetite. Sea, Land, Rivers, Lakes, &c. may not give content to their raging guts.

To make up the mess, what immoderate drinking in every place? Senem potum pota trahebat anus, how they flock to the Tavern: as if they were fruges consumere nati, born to no other end but to eat and drink, like Ofellius Bibulus, that famous Roman parasite, Qui dum vixit, aut bibit aut minxit; as so many Casks to hold wine, yea worse then a Cask, that marrs wines, and it self is not marred by it, yet these are brave men.

Silenus Ebrius was no braver. Et quæ fuerunt vitia, mores sunt: tis now the fashion of our times, an honour: Nunc verò res ista eò rediit (as Chrysost. serm. 30. in 5. Ephes. Comments) Ut effeminatæ ridendæque ignaviæ loco habeatur, nolle inebriari; tis now come to that pass, that hee is no Gentleman, a very milk-sop, a clown, of no bringing up, that will not drink, fit for no company;

he is your onely gallant that playes it off finest, no disparagement now to stagger in the streets, reel, rave, &c. but much to his fame and renown; as in like case Epidicus told Thesprio his fellow servant, in the Poet. Ædipol facinus improbum, one urged, the other replied, At jam alii fecere idem, erit illi illa res honori, ’tis now no fault, there be so many brave examples to bear one out;

’tis a credit to have a strong brain, and carry his liquor well: The sole contention who can drink most, and fox his fellow soonest. ’Tis the summum bonum of our Tradesmen, their felicity, life and soul, Tanta dulcedine affectant, saith Pliny, lib. 14. cap. 12. Ut magna pars non aliud vitæ præmium intelligat, their chief comfort, to be merry together in an Alehouse or Tavern, as our modern Muscovites do in their Mede-Inns, and Turks in their Coffa-houses, which much resemble our Taverns;

they will labor hard all day long to be drunk at night, and spend totius anni labores, as S. Ambrose addes, in a tipling feast; convert day into night, as Seneca taxeth some in his times, Pervertunt officia noctis & lucis; when we rise, they commonly go to bed, like our Antipodes,