pepons, and drinking the water distill'd from the pulp. Thus milk-water is a fine liquid. Nevertheless those who have been used to live well, must not be so cynical as to confine themselves wholly to this watery course. Wine too is a blessing of Providence, appropriate to the necessary cares of human life. All the difficulty consists in being innocently merry and wise: so to adjust the quantity that shall give mirth to the heart, and no fewell to the gout. That if it comes unfought for, by means of our oyls we may meet it, not without a cheerful countenance, as a sickness easily to be subdu'd, as now, an earnest of health and long life. Immoderate drinking of wine, Galen deservedly reckons one source of the gout, L. VI. aph. comm. 20. Hippocrates too, III de temp. 2. and L. VI. aphor. 28. Avicen XXII. 3. tract 2. c. 7. cum multi aliis. Thus speaks Bacchus himself in Eubulus a poet, Athen. Deipn. II
Τρεῖς γὰρ μόνους κρατῆρας ἐγκεραννύω
τοῖς ευφρονούσι. τὸν μὲν ὑγείας ἕνα,
ὃν πρῶτον ἐκπίνουσι; τὸν δε δεύτερον,
Ἔρωτος, ἡδονῆς τε: τὸν τρίτον δ' ὕπνου.
Three cups only I give to the wife. The first for health, the second for pleasure and friendship; the third for sleep. Wines
growing
