THE friendship of Nicholas Ferrar, the head of the remarkable household at Little Gidding, and of the saintly George Herbert, is a pleasant episode of seventeenth century history. One of its results was the appearance at Cambridge in 1634 of a little volume, entitled “Hygiasticon.” This contains a translation, believed to be by Ferrar, of the treatise on dietetics by the learned Jesuit, Leonard Lessius, George Herbert’s version of Luigi Cornaro’s book on Long Life, and “A discourse translated out of Italian that a spare diet is better than a splendid and sumptuous.” This version was made by one whose initials, T.S., have not been deciphered. The name of the original author was equally unknown to bibliographers. It is, in fact, the twenty-fourth of the “Paradossi” printed at Lyons in 1543. This book, although it has no author’s name attached, is known to be the production of Ortensio Lando, sometimes known by his Latin name of Hortensius Tranquillus. He was born at Milan about the end of the fifteenth century, and died at Venice about 1553. He was a graduate in medicine of the University of Bologna, and for years led the life of a wandering scholar, but finally settled at Venice where he died. He was the author of fifty or more books.[A] This seventeenth century version of Lando’s paradox whilst not slavish, makes an excellent presentation of the spirit and aim of the original. In the few places where the English writer has amplified the additional matter is noteworthy. It has, therefore, been thought sufficient to modernise the spelling, modify the arrangement and punctuation, and substitute here and there a modern word for one that sounded less crude in the seventeenth than in the nineteenth century.

[Pg 3]When a scholar, such as Ortensio Lando was, undertakes to defend paradoxes he is not always to be taken too seriously, but in this praise of frugal life and simple diet there is an accent of sincerity that carries conviction.

William E. A. Axon.

I verily believe, however I have titled this opinion, yet it will by no means be allowed for a Paradox by a number of those, whose judgement ought to bear the greatest sway. And, to speak freely, it would seem to me very uncouth, that any man that makes a profession of more understanding than a beast, should open his mouth to the contrary, or make any scruple at all of readily subscribing to the truth and evidence of this position, that a frugal and simple diet is much better than a full and dainty.

Tell me, you that seem to demur on the business, whether a sober and austere diet serves not, without further help, to chase away that racking humour of the gout, which by all other helps that can be used, scarce receives any mitigation at all; but, do what can be done, lies tormenting the body, till it have spent itself. Tell me whether this holy medicine serve not to the driving away of headache, to the cure of dizziness, to the stopping of rheums, to the stay of flukes, to the getting away of loathsome diseases, to the freedom from dishonest belchings, to the prevention of agues, and, in a word, to the clearing and draining of all ill humours whatsoever in the body. Nor do the benefits thereof stay only in the body, but ascend likewise to the perfecting of the soul itself: for how manifest is it, that through a sober and strict diet, the mind and all the faculties thereof become waking, quick, and cheerful, how is the wit sharpened, the understanding solidated, the affections tempered, and, in a word, the whole soul and spirit of a man freed from encumbrances, and made apt and expedite for the apprehension of wisdom, and the embracement of virtue?

The ancient sages, were, I am sure, of this opinion; and Plato in particular made notable remonstrance of it; when upon his coming into Sicily from Athens, he did so bitterly condemn the Syracusian tables, which being furnished with precious and dainty cates, provoking sauces,[Pg 4] and rich wines, sent away their guests twice a day full of good cheer. But what wouldst thou have said, oh, Plato! if thou hadst perhaps lighted upon such as we Christians nowadays are; amongst whom, he that eats but two good meals a day, as we term them, boasts himself, and, is applauded by others for a person of great temperance and singular good diet?

Undoubtly, our extravagance in this matter, having added prologues of breakfasts, interludes of banquets, epilogues of rere-suppers to the comedy would have caused thee to turn thy divine eloquence to the praise of those Syracusion gluttons, which, in respect of our usages and customs, might seem great masters of temperance.

Nay, very Epicurus himself, however, he may thank Tully’s slanders, his name is become in this regard so infamous, yet placed his chief delight this way in no greater dainties than savoury herbs, and fresh cheese.

But I would fain once understand from these gluttons, that seem born only to waste good meat, what the reason may be, that nowadays the store of victuals is so much abated, and the price enhanced of that it was in time of old, when yet the world appears to have been then much fuller of people than it now is? Undoubtedly, that scarcity and dearness under which we labour, can proceed from nothing but our excessive gluttony which devours things faster than Nature can bring them forth. And that plenty and cheapness, which crowned their happy days, was maintained and kept on foot chiefly through the good husbandry of that frugal and simple diet which they used.

S. Jerome, writing of the course of life held by those good fathers that retired themselves into the deserts of Egypt, the better to serve God, tells us, that they were so enamoured of spare and simple diet, that they censured it in themselves for a kind of riot, to feed on anything that was dressed with fire. The same in every point doth Cassian report, in his relations of the holy monks and hermits of his time.

I find in ancient physicians, that the inhabitants of the old world were such strict followers of sobriety, that they kept themselves precisely to bread in the morning; and at night they made their supper of flesh only without addition of sauces, or any first or second courses. And by this means it came to pass, that they lived so long and in continual health without so much as once hearing the names of those many grievous infirmities that nowadays vex mankind.

What think you might be the cause, that the Romans, the Arcadians, and the Portugals passed so many hundred of years, without having any acquaintance at all with physic or physicians? Surely nothing else but their sober spare diet, which when all is done, we are ofttimes constrained[Pg 5] to undergo, and ever indeed directed and advised unto, by those who really practise this divine science of physic, for the recovery and conservation of their patient’s health, and not covetously for their own gain. I read in approved histories, that Ptolemy, upon some occasion or other out-riding his followers in Egypt, was so pressed with hunger, that he was fain to call in at a poor man’s cottage, who brought him a piece of rye-bread; which when he had eaten, he took a solemn oath, that he never in all his life tasted better, nor more pleasing meat: and from that day forward, he set light by all the costly sorts of bread, which he had been formerly accustomed unto.

The Thracian women, that they might bear healthful, strong, and hardy children, ate nothing but milk and nettles, and the greatest dainties that the Lacedemonians had amongst them, was a certain kind of black pottage, that looked no better than melted pitch, and could not by computation stand in above three half-pence a gallon at the most. The Persians, that in their time were the best disciplined people on the earth, ate a little Nasturtium[B] with their bread; and that was all the victuals that this brave nation used, when they made conquest of the world.

Artaxerxes, the brother of Cyrus, being overthrown in battle, was constrained in his flight to sit down with dry figs and barley-bread which upon proof he found so good, as he seriously lamented his misfortune, in having,—through the continual cloying of artificial dainties, wherewith he had been bred up,—been so long time a stranger to that great pleasure and delight, which natural and simple food yields, when it meets with true hunger.

True it is, our stomach is a troublesome creditor, and ofttimes shamelessly exacts more than its due: but undoubtedly, if we were not partial, and corrupted by the allurements of that base content which dainties promise, we might easily quiet the grudgings and murmurings thereof. It’s not the stomach, I wis, which would rest apayed with that which is at hand; but the satisfaction of our capricious fancies, that makes us wear out our selves, and weary all the world besides with uncessant travel in the search of rarities, and in the compounding of new delicacies. If we were but half as wise as we ought to be, there need none of all this ado that we make, about this and that kind of Manchet, Dutch-bread, and French-bread: and I know not what new inventions are brought on foot, to make more business in the world; whereas with much less cost and trouble we might be much better served with that which grows at home, and is to be found ready in every thatched cottage. That which is most our own, and that which we therefore perhaps, fools as we be, most[Pg 6] contemn in this kind,—barley-bread I mean,—is by all the old physicians, warranted for a most sound and healthful food. He that eats daily of it, say they, shall undoubtedly never be troubled with the gout in the feet.

Shew me such a virtue in any of these new inventions, and I’ll yield there were some reason perhaps in making use of them, if they might with ease and quiet be procured. But to buy them at the price of so much pains, time, and hazard as they cost us, undoubtedly too much, although they brought as much benefit as they do prejudice. Consider well, I pray, whether it be not a thing to make a wise man run beside himself, to see such a ransacking of all the elements by fishers and fowlers, and hunters; such a turmoiling of the world by cooks and comfit-makers, and tavern-keepers and a numberless many of such needless occupations; such a hazarding of mens lives on sea and land, by heat and cold, and a thousand other dangers and difficulties; and all forsooth in procuring dainties for the satisfaction of a greedy maw, and senseless stomach, that within a very short while after must of necessity make a banquet of itself to worms.

What an endless maze of error, what an intolerable hell of torments and afflictions hath this wicked gluttony brought the world unto. And yet, wretched men that we are, we have no mind to get out of it, but like silly animals led by the chaps, go on all day long, digging our graves with our teeth, till at last we bring the earth over our heads much before we otherwise need to have done. And yet there was a certain odd fellow once in the world, I would there were not too many of the same mind nowadays! Philoxenus by name, that seriously wished he might have a swallow as long and as large as the cranes, the better to enjoy the full relish of his licorish morsels. Long after him, I read of another of the same fraternity, Apicius, I trow, that set all his happiness in good cheer: but little credit, I am sure, he hath got by the means; no more than Maximinus, for all he was an Emperor, by his using every meal to stuff into his paunch thirty pounds of flesh, beside bread and wine to boot. But Geta deserves, in my opinion, the monarchy of gluttons, as he had of the Romans. His feasts went alway according to the letters of the alphabet, as when P’s turn came, he would have plovers, and partridges, and peacocks, and the like; and so in all the rest, his table was always furnished with meats whose names began with one and the same letter.

But what do I raking up this carrion? Let them rot in their corruption and lie more covered over with infamy than with earth. Only, to give the world notice who have been the great masters of this worthy science of filling the stomach and following good cheer, I have been enforced to make this remembrance of some of their goodly opinions and pranks. Which let who so will be their partner in: for my part, I[Pg 7] solemnly avow, that I find no greater misery than to victual the camp, as the proverb is, cramming in lustily over night, and to be bound next morning to rise early and to go about serious business.

Oh what a piece of purgatory is it, to feel within a man’s self those qualms, those gripings, those swimmings, and those flashing heats that follow upon over-eating! And what a shame, if our foreheads were not of brass, and our friends before whom we act them, infected with the same disease, would it be to stand yawning, stretching, and perbreaking the crudities of the former day’s surfeit!

On the contrary, what a happiness do I prove, when after a sober pittance I find sound and quiet sleep all night long, and at peep of day get up as fresh as the morning itself, full of vigour and activity both in mind and body, for all manner of affairs! Let who will take his pleasure in the fulness of delicates; I desire my part may be in this happy enjoyment of my self, although it should be with the abatement of much more content than any dainties can afford.

When I was last at Messina, my lord Antonio Doria, told me that he was acquainted in Spain with an old man who had lived above a hundred years. One day having invited him home and entertained him sumptuously, as his lordship’s manner is, the good old man instead of thanks told him, “My lord, had I been accustomed to these kind of meals in my youth, I had never come to this age which you see, nor been able to preserve that health and strength both of mind and body, which you make shew so much to admire in me.”

See now! here’s a proof even in our age, that the length and happiness of men’s lives in the old world was chiefly caused by the means of blessed temperance. But what need more words in a matter as evident as the sun at noonday, to all but those whose brains are sunk down into the quagmire of their stomachs? I’ll make an end with that which cannot be denied, nor deluded, nor resisted; so plain is the truth, and so great is the authority of the argument; and this it is: Peruse all histories of whatever times and people, and you shall always find the haters of a sober life and spare diet to have been sworn enemies against goodness and virtue: witness Claudius, Caligula, Heliogabalus, Clodius the tragedian, Vitellius, Verus, Tiberius, and the like. And on the contrary, the friends and followers of sobriety and frugality to have been men of divine spirits, and most heroical performances for the benefit of mankind; such as were Augustus, Alexander Severus, Paulus Æmilius, Epaminondas, Socrates, and all the rest who are registered for excellent in the lists of princes, soldiers and philosophers.

[Pg 8]A spare diet then is better than a splendid and sumptuous, let the Sardanapaluses of our age prattle what they list. Nature, and reason, and experience, and the example of all virtuous persons prove it to be so. He that goes about to persuade me otherwise shall lose his labour, though he had his tongue and brain furnished with all the sophistry and eloquence that ever Greece and Italy could jointly have afforded.