And soon the tender vegetable mass

Relents; and soon the young

of those that tread

The steadfast earth, or cleave the green abyss,
Or pathless sky. And if the steer must fall,
In youth and sanguine vigour let him die;
Nor stay till rigid age or heavy ails
Absolve him ill requited from the yoke.
Some with high forage and luxuriant ease
Indulge the veteran ox; but wiser thou,
From the bald mountain or the barren downs,
Expect the flocks by frugal nature fed;
A race of purer blood, with exercise
Refined and scanty fare: for, old or young,
The stall'd are never healthy; nor the cramm'd.
Not all the culinary arts can tame,

To wholesome food, the' abominable growth
Of rest and gluttony; the prudent taste
Rejects, like bane, such loathsome lusciousness.
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil :

For more the oily aliments relax

Its feeble tone; and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate with all it meets)
Coyly they mix, and shun with slippery wiles
The woo'd embrace. The' irresoluble oil,
So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o'erflows: what tumults hence,
What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gummy nutriment imbibes:
Choose sober meals; and rouse to active life
Your cumbrous clay; nor on the' enfeebling down,
Irresolute, protract the morning hours.

But let the man whose bones are thinly clad,

With cheerful ease and succulent repast
Improve his habit if he can; for each
Extreme departs from perfect sanity.

I could relate what table this demands
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,
Felt in the pulse, nor in the habit seen;
Which finds a poison in the food that most
The temperature affects. There are, whose blood
Impetuous rages through the turgid veins,
Who better bear the fiery fruits of Ind
Than the moist melon, or pale cucumber.
Of chilly nature others fly the board
Supplied with slaughter, and the vernal powers,
For cooler, kinder sustenance, implore.
Some e'en the generous nutriment detest
Which, in the shell, the sleeping embryo rears.
Some, more unhappy still, repent the gifts
Of Pales; soft, delicious, and benign:
The balmy quintessence of every flower,
And every grateful herb that decks the spring;
The fostering dew of tender sprouting life;
The best refection 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.
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 baked, you hesitate by which

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,, Burn in the palms, and parch the roughening tongue;

Or much diminish or too much increase

The' expense which Nature's wise economy,
Without or waste or avarice, maintains.
Such cates abjured, let prowling hunger loose,
And bid the curious palate roam at will;
They scarce can err amid the various stores
That burst the teeming entrails of the world.
Led by sagacious taste, the ruthless king
Of beasts on blood and slaughter only lives;
The tiger, form'd alike to cruel meals,
Would at the manger starve: of milder seeds
The generous horse to herbage and to grain
Confines his wish; though fabling Greece resound
The Thracian steeds, with human carnage wild.
Prompted by instinct's never erring power,
Each creature knows its proper aliment;
But man, the' inhabitant of every clime,
With all the commoners of nature feeds.
Directed, bounded by this power within,
Their cravings are well aim'd: voluptuous man
Is by superior faculties misled;

Misled from pleasure e'en in quest of joy.

Sated with nature's boons, what thousands seek, With dishes tortured from their native taste, And mad variety, to spur beyond

Its wiser will the jaded appetite!

Is this for pleasure? Learn a juster taste;

And know, that temperance is true luxury.
Or is it pride? Pursue some nobler aim:
Dismiss your parasites, who praise for hire;
And earn the fair esteem of honest men, [yours,
Whose praise is fame. Form'd of such clay as
The sick, the needy, shiver at your gates;
E'en modest want may bless your hand unseen,
Though hush'd in patient wretchedness at home.
Is there no virgin, graced with every charm
But that which binds the mercenary vow?
No youth of genius, whose neglected bloom
Unfoster'd sickens in the barren shade;
No worthy man, by fortune's random blows,
Or by a heart too generous and humane,
Constrain'd to leave his happy natal seat,
And sigh for wants more bitter than his own?
There are, while human miseries abound,
A thousand ways to waste superfluous wealth
Without one fool or flatterer at your board,
Without one hour of sickness or disgust.

But other ills the' ambiguous feast pursue,
Besides provoking the lascivious taste.

Such various foods, though harmless each alone,
Each other violate; and oft we see

What strife is brew'd, and what pernicious bane,
From combinations of innoxious things.
The' unbounded taste I mean not to confine
To hermit's diet needlessly severe.

But would you long the sweets of health enjoy,
Or husband pleasure; at one impious meal
Exhaust not half the bounties of the year,
Of every realm. It matters not meanwhile
How much to-morrow differ from to-day;
So far indulge: 'tis fit, besides, that man,

To change obnoxious, be to change inured.
But stay the curious appetite, and taste
With caution fruits you never tried before.
For want of use the kindest aliment

Sometimes offends; while custom tames the rage
Of poison to mild amity with life.

So Heaven has form'd us to the general taste
Of all its gifts; so custom has improved
This bent of nature; that few simple foods,
Of all that earth or air or ocean yield,
But by excess offend. Beyond the sense
Of light refection, at the genial board
Indulge not often; nor protract the feast
To dull satiety; till soft and slow

A drowsy death creeps on, the expansive soul
Oppress'd, and smother'd the celestial fire.
The stomach, urged beyond its active tone,
Hardly to nutrimental chyle subdues
The softest food: unfinish'd and depraved,
The chyle, in all its future wanderings, owns
Its turbid fountain; not by purer streams
So to be clear'd, but foulness will remain.
To sparkling wine what ferment can exalt
The' unripen'd grape? Or what mechanic skill
From the crude ore can spin the ductile gold?
Gross riot treasures up a wealthy fund
Of plagues: but more immedicable ills
Attend the lean extreme. For physic knows
How to disburden the too tumid veins,
E'en how to ripen the half-labour'd blood;
But to unlock the elemental tubes,
Collapsed and shrunk with long inanity,
And with balsamic nutriment repair
The dried and worn-out habit, were to bid