It much availes likewise to keep good order in our diet, to eat liquid things first, broaths, fish, and such meats as are sooner corrupted in the stomack; harder meats of digestion must come last. Crato would have the supper less than dinner, which Cardan contradict. lib.1. Tract.5. contradict.18. disallowes, and that by the authority of Galen 7. art. curat. cap.6. and for four reasons he will have the supper biggest:

I have read many treatises to this purpose, I know not how it may concern some few sick men, but for my part generally for all, I should subscribe to that custome of the Romans, to make a sparing dinner, and a liberall supper; all their preparation and invitation was still at supper, no mention of dinner. Many reasons I could give, but when all is said pro and con, Cardans rule is best, to keep that we are accustomed unto, though it be naught, and to follow our disposition and appetite in some things is not amiss; to eat sometimes of a dish which is hurtfull, if we have an extraordinary liking to it.

Alexander Severus loved Hares and Apples above all other meats, as Lampridius relates in his life: one Pope Pork, another Peacock, &c. what harme came of it? I conclude, our own experience is the best Physician; that diet which is most propitious to one, is often pernicious to another, such is the variety of palats, humours, and temperatures, let every man observe, and be a law unto himself.

Tiberius in Tacitus did laugh at all such, that after 30. years of age would ask counsell of others concerning matters of diet, I say the same.

These few rules of diet he that keeps, shall surely finde great ease and speedy remedy by it. It is a wonder to relate that prodigious temperance of some Hermites, Anachorites, and fathers of the Church; he that shall but read their lives, written by Hierome, Athanasius, &c. how abstemious Heathens have bin in this kind, those Curii and Fabritii, those old Philosophers, as Pliny records lib.11. Xenephon lib.1. de vit. Socrat. Emperours and Kings, as Nicephorus relates, Eccles. hist. lib.18. cap.8. of Mauritius, Lodovicus Pius, &c. and that admirable example of Lodovicus Cornarus, a Patrician of Venice, cannot but admire them.

This have they done voluntarily, and in health; what shall these private men do that are visited with sickness, and necessarily injoyned to recover, and continue their health? It is a hard thing to observe a strict diet, & qui medicè vivit, miserè vivit, as the saying is, quale hoc ipsum erit vivere, his si privatus fueris? as good be buried, as so much debarred of his appetite; excessit medicina malum, the physick is more troublesome then the disease, so he complained in the Poet, so thou thinkest:

yet he that loves himself, will easily endure this little misery, to avoid a greater inconvenience; è malis minimum, better do this then do worse. And as Tully holds, better be a temperate old man, then a lascivious youth. ’Tis the onely sweet thing, (which he adviseth) so to moderate ourselves, that we may have senectutem in juventute, & in juventute senectutem, Be youthfull in our old age, staid in our youth, discreet and temperate in both.