So did Petronius in Tacitus, Heliogabalus in Lampridius.
[1418]———"Noctes vigilibat ad ipsum
Mane, diem totum stertebat?"———
———"He drank the night away
Till rising dawn, then snored out all the day."
Snymdiris the Sybarite never saw the sun rise or set so much as once in twenty years. Verres, against whom Tully so much inveighs, in winter he never was extra tectum vix extra lectum, never almost out of bed, [1419] still wenching and drinking; so did he spend his time, and so do myriads in our days. They have gymnasia bibonum, schools and rendezvous; these centaurs and Lapithae toss pots and bowls as so many balls; invent new tricks, as sausages, anchovies, tobacco, caviar, pickled oysters, herrings, fumados, &c.: innumerable salt meats to increase their appetite, and study how to hurt themselves by taking antidotes [1420]"to carry their drink the better; [1421]and when nought else serves, they will go forth, or be conveyed out, to empty their gorge, that they may return to drink afresh." They make laws, insanas leges, contra bibendi fallacias, and [1422]brag of it when they have done, crowning that man that is soonest gone, as their drunken predecessors have done—[1423]quid ego video? Ps. Cum corona Pseudolum ebrium tuum—. And when they are dead, will have a can of wine with [1424]Maron's old woman to be engraven on their tombs. So they triumph in villainy, and justify their wickedness; with Rabelais, that French Lucian, drunkenness is better for the body than physic, because there be more old drunkards than old physicians. Many such frothy arguments they have, [1425]inviting and encouraging others to do as they do, and love them dearly for it (no glue like to that of good fellowship). So did Alcibiades in Greece; Nero, Bonosus, Heliogabalus in Rome, or Alegabalus rather, as he was styled of old (as [1426]Ignatius proves out of some old coins). So do many great men still, as [1427]Heresbachius observes. When a prince drinks till his eyes stare, like Bitias in the Poet,
[1428]———("ille impiger hausit
Spumantem vino pateram.")
———"a thirsty soul;
He took challenge and embrac'd the bowl;
With pleasure swill'd the gold, nor ceased to draw
Till he the bottom of the brimmer saw."
and comes off clearly, sound trumpets, fife and drums, the spectators will applaud him, "the [1429]bishop himself (if he belie them not) with his chaplain will stand by and do as much," O dignum principe haustum, 'twas done like a prince. "Our Dutchmen invite all comers with a pail and a dish," Velut infundibula integras obbas exhauriunt, et in monstrosis poculis, ipsi monstrosi monstrosius epotant, "making barrels of their bellies." Incredibile dictu, as [1430]one of their own countrymen complains: [1431]Quantum liquoris immodestissima gens capiat, &c. "How they love a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it," hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill him: a most intolerable offence, and not to be forgiven. [1432]"He is a mortal enemy that will not drink with him," as Munster relates of the Saxons. So in Poland, he is the best servitor, and the honestest fellow, saith Alexander Gaguinus, [1433] "that drinketh most healths to the honour of his master, he shall be rewarded as a good servant, and held the bravest fellow that carries his liquor best," when a brewer's horse will bear much more than any sturdy drinker, yet for his noble exploits in this kind, he shall be accounted a most valiant man, for [1434]Tam inter epulas fortis vir esse potest ac in bello, as much valour is to be found in feasting as in fighting, and some of our city captains, and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it. Thus they many times wilfully pervert the good temperature of their bodies, stifle their wits, strangle nature, and degenerate into beasts.
Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over-precise, cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats, times, as that Medicina statica prescribes, just so many ounces at dinner, which Lessius enjoins, so much at supper, not a little more, nor a little less, of such meat, and at such hours, a diet-drink in the morning, cock-broth, China-broth, at dinner, plum-broth, a chicken, a rabbit, rib of a rack of mutton, wing of a capon, the merry-thought of a hen, &c.; to sounder bodies this is too nice and most absurd. Others offend in overmuch fasting: pining adays, saith [1435] Guianerius, and waking anights, as many Moors and Turks in these our times do. "Anchorites, monks, and the rest of that superstitious rank (as the same Guianerius witnesseth, that he hath often seen to have happened in his time) through immoderate fasting, have been frequently mad." Of such men belike Hippocrates speaks, l. Aphor. 5, when as he saith, [1436]"they more offend in too sparing diet, and are worse damnified, than they that feed liberally, and are ready to surfeit."
SUBSECT. III.—Custom of Diet, Delight, Appetite, Necessity, how they cause or hinder.
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception; to this, therefore, which hath been hitherto said, (for I shall otherwise put most men out of commons,) and those inconveniences which proceed from the substance of meats, an intemperate or unseasonable use of them, custom somewhat detracts and qualifies, according to that of Hippocrates, 2 Aphoris. 50. [1437] "Such things as we have been long accustomed to, though they be evil in their own nature, yet they are less offensive." Otherwise it might well be objected that it were a mere [1438]tyranny to live after those strict rules of physic; for custom [1439]doth alter nature itself, and to such as are used to them it makes bad meats wholesome, and unseasonable times to cause no disorder. Cider and perry are windy drinks, so are all fruits windy in themselves, cold most part, yet in some shires of [1440]England, Normandy in France, Guipuscoa in Spain, 'tis their common drink, and they are no whit offended with it. In Spain, Italy, and Africa, they live most on roots, raw herbs, camel's [1441]milk, and it agrees well with them: which to a stranger will cause much grievance. In Wales, lacticiniis vescuntur, as Humphrey Llwyd confesseth, a Cambro-Briton himself, in his elegant epistle to Abraham Ortelius, they live most on white meats: in Holland on fish, roots, [1442]butter; and so at this day in Greece, as [1443]Bellonius observes, they had much rather feed on fish than flesh. With us, Maxima pars victus in carne consistit, we feed on flesh most part, saith [1444]Polydore Virgil, as all northern countries do; and it would be very offensive to us to live after their diet, or they to live after ours. We drink beer, they wine; they use oil, we butter; we in the north are [1445]great eaters; they most sparing in those hotter countries; and yet they and we following our own customs are well pleased. An Ethiopian of old seeing an European eat bread, wondered, quomodo stercoribus vescentes viverimus, how we could eat such kind of meats: so much differed his countrymen from ours in diet, that as mine [1446]author infers, si quis illorum victum apud nos aemulari vellet; if any man should so feed with us, it would be all one to nourish, as Cicuta, Aconitum, or Hellebore itself. At this day in China the common people live in a manner altogether on roots and herbs, and to the wealthiest, horse, ass, mule, dogs, cat-flesh, is as delightsome as the rest, so [1447]Mat. Riccius the Jesuit relates, who lived many years amongst them. The Tartars eat raw meat, and most commonly [1448]horse-flesh, drink milk and blood, as the nomades of old. Et lac concretum cum sanguine potat equino. They scoff at our Europeans for eating bread, which they call tops of weeds, and horse meat, not fit for men; and yet Scaliger accounts them a sound and witty nation, living a hundred years; even in the civilest country of them they do thus, as Benedict the Jesuit observed in his travels, from the great Mogul's Court by land to Pekin, which Riccius contends to be the same with Cambulu in Cataia. In Scandia their bread is usually dried fish, and so likewise in the Shetland Isles; and their other fare, as in Iceland, saith [1449]Dithmarus Bleskenius, butter, cheese, and fish; their drink water, their lodging on the ground. In America in many places their bread is roots, their meat palmettos, pinas, potatoes, &c., and such fruits. There be of them too that familiarly drink [1450]salt seawater all their lives, eat [1451]raw meat, grass, and that with delight. With some, fish, serpents, spiders: and in divers places they [1452]eat man's flesh, raw and roasted, even the Emperor [1453]Montezuma himself. In some coasts, again, [1454]one tree yields them cocoanuts, meat and drink, fire, fuel, apparel; with his leaves, oil, vinegar, cover for houses, &c., and yet these men going naked, feeding coarse, live commonly a hundred years, are seldom or never sick; all which diet our physicians