but I 'me sure the staffe of health Thou carri'st still before us and our part Is but to follow well and praise thy Art Great Art that doth not only save but cure Preventive too as well as make t' endure Wherefore I shall no more of thee rehearse Who giv'st us Mirth and Physick in a verse And those that will not for thy dose give Fee Let them want verses and their health for me Philogeiton H. I. Dr. L. L. To the honour'd Author upon his Diaetetical Institute WEre the world but one Giant-thing that liv'd And had a soul as the old Sage believ'd But could it eat too for one meal I 'de swear Thou meant'st thy Book its general Bill of fare Great Clerk of Natures kitchin we ne're knew She was so good an House-keeper till now Some Naturalists serv'd up a course or so Garnish'd to boot with their own fictions too But thou in this great Oleo hast coâ—bin'd VVhat e're her want or luxury could find If in her dining-room thou serve so well I' th' drawing-room sure thou must needs excell I. Heath To his Friend the Author WHat is 't is writ It is a noble Diet Oh! for a Souldiers stomack to be quiet And not conceive such Dainties plac'd upon Some Ladies Board then let the Gods look on VVith all their Goddesses and tell me where They met with wholesome diet and such cheare But their immortal diet 's only known And rarely fanci'd to us then were shown By power of Poets wits I would not wish This my good friend present us such a dish VVhat he hath done 't is all substantial good Not only Babes but Lords and Ladies food Such as may make our youth old Nestor's grow And then confess their age to him they owe Yet if our stomacks want a dish to bait on No wit like thine i' th' second Course dear Gayton E. ALDRICH Tribunus militum To his honoured Friend Mr. Edmund Gayton on his Art of Longevity WHy how now fellow Souldier what you write It must be sure to get what you by sight Have lost in troth we had ill luck by th' Sword Those were By-blows thou better art at word And why of Diet prithee when we know All Cavaliers are forc'd to live too low Under the Rule of Lessius small provant Will serve those men o' th' Garâ—ison of Gaunt So oft râ—form'd that 's squeez'd they't brought alass Toth' Mum and Diet of Pythagoras Platonick love we new may justifie Since meats Platonick make sobriety And what i' th' fulness of the Court was Fable Romance all is true from thy spare Table And yet the sheet abounds in services The worst of service only of the eyes He that doth feed on thee Poetick Mun Must change himself to a Camelion For all thy Diet and choice Bill of Fare Is only words and that 's but wind and air FRANCISCUS ASTON Capt Militiae Puerilis A Diaeteticall INSTITUTION CHAP. I. WHilest I intend a wholsome Diet-Rule And write of Meats and Drinks from Physick-Schoole It ought to be presum'd our state is good And that we have to buy our daily Food For what hath he to do to vex his thought How he should eat that hath no victuals bought Wherefore we do amand Duke Humphrey's Guest For their Provision truly is o' th' least A Dog doth fare much better with his bones Than those whose table meat and drink are stones But that great Duke is out of house and home And his grand Palace is a Den become But not so good as is the Lions den Or Foxes holes there 's scraps for many men There is no Ordinary of News and Talk No not so much is left as Weymarks Walk No not so much if you will please to go in Doth th' head remain of Welch Cozen Owen Who for this violence done unto his name Will rise and pay her with an Epigram He was set up with such a peaking Face As if to th' Humphreyans h' had been saying Grace That word doth hint our business doth as well As if I 'd heard the Colledge Buttry-bell Then first we shall rehearse in humble Rimes What time and hour we mount our Belly-chimes For it doth stand with excellent reason To have for meats as other things a Season For so it was ordain'd by our Creator And still perform'd by naturated nature The Earth the Air the Sea would y' have more Than such an able triple Providore With tempestivous delicacies strive To please us in a various nutritive And with successive courses interchanging They have for every time a severall ranging No Aulicus Culman no nor Clerk Shew such a bill of Fare as was i' th' Ark And as by Couples they to Noah came To be preserved they do the very same To us to be destroyed for Master Venter Consumeth all that into it doth enter It is for this luxurious Anthony And puired vice our Cleopatry The ransackt Elements do not afford Enough Provision for the Bed and Boord Would it not prove thy whole Arithmetick To cast in Cyphers what is spent by th' week Friend Noah in this great Metropolis Without the Tavern style of Bread and Cheese What droves of Higlers post in from the Fens With Fowls most Epicaene both Cocks and Hens Of all which company I donâ—t enjoy One Duck and yet related to a Coy But oh the heads we see of greater beards Not Iâ— was so fair when Iove afeard That Iuno did suspect her self cornute Had turn'd his delicate Lady to a Brute Nor when himself was pleas'd a Bull to lowe Could he our two late Fausen Beeves out-show The wayes on every rode are all blockt up With the whole family of those that Tup Who all like other innocents come Unto these Shambles to receive their doom St. Lukes is past and Rumford rode doth whine As if that Circe were alive with Swine ' Piggs have their Tide too and there is a Fare ' For those who in their lives most filthy are How many Babies on S. Margrets Hill If all that name to her continue still Lie pil'd in Tray as they were wont in Trough And yet as if there were not Pigg enough Old Bartholmew with Purgatory Fire Destroyes the Babe of many a doubtfull Sire Nor doth the Sea deny his vast supplies In greater Fishes and the lesser Fries As to our cost the street o' th' name can tell How cheap soe're the Fish the dressing's fell The very King of Fish his season knows And in vast shoals his just obedience shews So all the rest of that blew Monarchy Follow their leader all resolv'd to die How do the painted Mack'rell load our Shallops And lest they smell do put the winds to th' gallop Lord what a din the Sluts at Billingsgate Do make about the tother cast of Sprats And open more their monstrous mouths in vain Than do their Oysters against tide or rain Nor may we pass the place where Chimney-sweep Doth now instead o' th' Cross his
THE Art of Longevity OR A Diaeteticall INSTITUTION Written by Edmund Gayton Bachelor in PHYSICK of St. John Bapt. Coll. OXFORD LONDON Printed for the Author 1659. TO THE Most Vertuous Accomplisht Ingenious LADY THE LADY ELIZABETH ROUS The meriting Wife of the most Munificent IOHN ROVS Esq Of Henham Hall in Suffolk SINGULAR MADAM UNto none more properly doth the Dedication of this Book belong then to your excelling Self who being by Birth first then Accomplishments then Marriage the unenvied Paragon of two great Counties that of Norfolk by your Originals this of Suffolk by your Nuptials in honour to those Counties that are proud of you and the rest that contend for you should be continued to as much duration as the Art of Physick is able to contrive It ought to be the labour of a Colledge of Physitians not of one pitifull Pretender to advance the preservation of such a person which if lost the following age must faintly hope to re-example In the want therefore or failings of Physical Counsels be your own Lessius be to your self a Cornara since it hath so providentially faln out all other outward embellishments being abundantly bestowed upon you that you need not spend any time to adorn or trick up your self but only to express your thankfulness to the gracious Opificer of so rare a piece employ some hours as is your practise that your Countrey Family and Friends may be happy in the long possession of you For really your own Practise Madam will out-do all my Precepts your Gardens and Parks out-vie the Physick-Gardens your Closet is as considerable as the Countess of Kent's with her Powder in it At Henham-Hall the Seat of your Noble Husbands Ancestors what is wanting to Satiety yet your Deer out-live the ages of their Neighbour-commoners and their Parks too 't is possible to find a Stag as ancient as that of Caesar's nor is this done by the diet of your Keeper or your keeping your Deer from being your Diet but by a successive spending of your Park not destroying it by letting us eat Venison but not to such excess as if your Guests were to feed themselves into Elkes Your Deer fall as our Colledge-copices should do at so many years growth that so the succeeding scholars may have wood of their own not expect Coals from New-castle Your Table is Mezentian in this respect for alive Deer look in at your windows and see their dead Brother in a Coffin So rare is your Cookery it makes slaughter amiable and the Heard desire to be wounded that they may be so dress'd I have seen your Table furnished with more Dishes then my Book hath Chapters in it and yet the Temperance did exceed the Dishes so that if ever Abstinence was paramount and in its Zenith it was at Henham where Self-deniall so much spoke of was truly visible even in the fulness of the Creature and your Guests din'd Philosophically at a City Feast This is true Temperance Madam to refraine where there is variety of temptation to excess to stint the stomack in full view of the game of Luxury otherwise it is Penance not Abstinence and the Mind and Appetite not commanded but a string tied about the throat which is Cormorant sobriety for which the Fowl wishes him hang'd that throtled him Having thus commended Madam your Diet 't is not with any Stratagem to get Applause to my own which is too course for your Palate and scarce fit for your Servants But as you sometimes are pleased to leave the Rarities of your own Table and Caresse in a Cottage where the Earthen Platter the Barley Pudding the Fool and the plain Countrey Houswife are both Meat and Sport and delight and nourish beyond the wisdome of multiplied Cookery So let it fare best Lady with this slender treatment of your Servant which is not a Present but a Debt of a long Promise and not in that kind paid that it was promised I did intend you a Grace some Divine Poems but present you with all manner of Diet for fear being without Grace it might be supposed all of Oysters or Melons The Book is a Hieroglyphick salt not that with the head of Mortification on it which is melancholy or a Charing-cross-trencher salt which is impious but this is a pillar of Salt or rather of Temperance which is healthful and at least in wish Festivous the Motto as it may be translated Poets should alwayes write To profit and delight And calls to mind the ancient frugality of our predecessors which were wise valiant and abstemious three habits much advanced if not begot by Diaetetick Rules To the moderate observance whereof in the pursuance of your Honoured Husbands and your Ladiships and Families health this Rythmicall Tract invites you untill I can face to face and vivâ voce wish your double healths as a Physitian ought to do in your celebrious Goblet at Henham-Hall Till then and ever I am MADAM Your most gratefull Servant Edmund Gayton TO THE Candid LADY-READERS Madams THis Book entitled The Art of Longevity or A Dieteticall Institute may very well seem unnecessary and superfluous after so many Tracts of the same subject by the long-liv'd Lessius Cornarus and others who have ingrossed all that can be said and left Posterity nothing but to practise But as i◠Divinity that of the Times called Preaching repetition is not uncommendable so in Physick a round Recapitulation or trimme Compendium and Abridgement may help the memory though not the understanding wherefore the succinct and ingenious Salernitan Precepts fasten more then Hypocrates profounder Aphorisms or Galens Comments upon its Auditors and Sandersons Verses are oftner and easier remembred then their rugged Prose Feet and Rythm sweetning the sowreness of the moral letter Verses indeed have the fate to be both slighted and condemned and yet like other faults retained And though Poetry and Oratory both if lookt upon in the art and respect are but the lowest of endowments yet as their subjects may be they both raise them and themselves I confess my Subject is above my Dress and I have deprest the Argument by the mould I cast it in yet a plain Suit by the Fancies may be made conspicuous and attract more for the mode then the stuff So here serious Mattter in a phantastical or light Dress may one with another perchance finde a liking sometimes applause I know Ladies that you are all of a neat extraction choice and sifted earth and so resolve to keep your selves being by self-affection principled to a spare Diet whereby your own mirrours reflect you pleasing and lovely to your selves and admirable to others Wherefore in all Physical practise there are no such observant Patients as your selves whether the business concern your health or your ornament your being or your well-being Now a book of Diet presented to you is like to be of most happy events who if you are told the quality of your food will not erre in the
quantity The first of these is my care at present the second is your constant use for neither to your noble sex nor any of the nobler will I prescribe any measure in meat though there ought to be one in all things the Beasts themselves even all but Horses Dogs and Swine have attained to such a natural stint Rare is the temperance of the Elephants Apes Birds as may be read in Aelians Varia Historia nay Dogs themselves a voracious animal though they will eat to surfeit cure themselves by abstinence and Swine-physick is grown into a Proverb If your Ladyships enquire at what demensum or exactness I live my self with a Medice ostende teipsum that is shew me thy Diet by thy Practise I answer Madams Truly I finde it the best rule as to my particular to keep no â—ule at all for the Times have been more then Lessius to me and brought me to less then twelve ounces in two dayes which is a most slender proportion they have taken care that I shall never have the worst of surfeits that of bread yet sometimes I offend in poculentis in the excess oftner in esculentis in the defect in Fastings often in Prayers less yet still in some enough Religion for a Physitian And beside the Coloquintida of the Times in frequent mornings doses of the leaves of Wormwood Scurvy-grass and Water-cresses which makes me look at the present Mastigation like Vespatian Clodius or John Whisâ—ler the sometime good-facâ—d Recorder of Oxford as if I were going to sacrifice to the Lady Cloacina Such severe Discipline is not fit for your tender Architecture that may ruine Plaister of Paris which will scarce smooth the rougher Lime and Sand. In short I know it is a Latine Proverb Misere vivit qui vivit Medice that is Madams They are most miserable Fools That alwayes live by Physick-rules And so Misere vivit qui immodice vivit They 'r slaves unto their apâ—etite Which golden moderation slight In a word of exhortation then Ladies be neither Hermits nor Carthuâ—ians Caâ—uchins nor Monâ—â—nists that is not of too severe a Regulation yet a Nunnes diet for your sex and the Collegiâ—t for ours will make you Mother-Pyrrha's for Age Penelopes for Beauty Cassandra's for Wisdome In short it will keep your Spirits active your Skins cleare your Limbs vigorous your soules and bodies apt for all Divine and Natural actions whereby you may be as you wish your selves and I too cordially both belov'd of God and men And thus I humbly submit these Conceits following to your Ladyships view under correction unto which especially from such hands I were unkind to my self if I should not most willingly lye down and subscribe my self LADIES Your most Obedient and Corrigible Servant EDMUND GAYTON Upon his Friend Mr. Edmund Gayton's Book of Diet. WIt without wine mirth without any meat Then let the dead that neither drink nor eaâ— Read thee for me I am not so dâ—vâ—ne That I can live and neither sup nor dine For though man liveth not By bread alone Yet there is no man ever liv'd with none Devouring Wood of Kent who at one bait Could eat as much as Noah's World of Eight Being dead may be thy guest for thou dost give Something so near to nothing none can live Thou hast forgot how freely thou did'st laugh Being told thou had'st eat up thy Beadles staffe Yet would'st perswade us temperance O no Live by thy Book if thou 'dst have me do so Experiment thy self first dine one week With bread two ounces just and ana Leek Sup with the learned Worm that eats thy book And let thy Readers see how thou would'st look Printing thy bare-bone picture on thy sheet And then consider whether it be meet All mankind to perswade to starve themselves Because thou hast no victuals on thy shelves As the long Graces that in fashion be Suit with thy minute meal so both with me Thuâ— for the glutâ—on and good fellow now Thy Friend speaks truth and freely doth allow Thy temperate prescâ—iptions for our life Is lesse in danger of the ** Sword then ** Knife And would we keep thy Rules for no one can Say that he cannot if he be a man Dâ—ctors as do Divines might change their trade The Sexton burn hiâ— Maâ—tock and his Spade The elder World might die first you and I Might live till we were chang'd and so ne're die Nominibus multis notus sine nomine prodis Optime amicoâ—um non te sed memet honoras At quoâ—am proprios titulos perdure negasti Hos cape Vir auri es virtutum dignior hâ—res To Mr. Gayton on his Art of LONGEVITY FOr Surfeits some pay dear even all their wealth Others farre dearer their more precious health Yet heavier punishment we see or â—ead Poor Copenhagen feels it from the Swede Whose Sword with Famine sharper then its edge Now sadly gives the Danish Healths a Pledge Could now one cure this feasting evil give Sick appetite the great Restorative Teach us to feed like Burgers yet to rise Like Doctors lesse mercy and more wise To such a Galeâ— Cities that abound In Riches noble Penâ—â—ons might proâ—ound I wish they would facetious Gayton then Should'st thou have Fees due to thy learned Pen That from th' Arabians hath to us transferr'd The Secret that preseâ—ves that long-liv'd Bird Which thou prescrib'd not in hard words that make The Bill as nauseous as the Drugs we take ' So clearly and so well thy Book is writ That we have here choice Diet and choice Wit Robert Stapylton Knight To his quondam Fellow Oxonian EDMUND GAYTON THese Dietetick Laws thou dost here give Do teach us how but make thy self to live And so they shall industrious Mun till time Do once restore thee unto Prose from Rime Sometimes in Latine verse in English now You do God bless it drive Poetick plough Whence are these Institutes and whence these Rules Not from th' Apothecary Shops or Schools Thou talk'st Arabian Authors but thy pains Speak lowdly thou hast no Library but brains Longevity thou giv'st us from Iove's Bower And temperance from Friar Bacon's * Tower who 'd think a Man should fall so mightily Who had his Rudiments of Warr so high Who 'd think that thou a Centry in the air Should'st e're come down to teach us grosser Fare A Paracâ—lâ—â—an then without disgrace I 'le call thee instructed by the Prince o th' Place Bred in the Air and VVarr what Powders may Not come from thee my Lady Kents give way Both Monk and Souldier owns thee for I know Both Presses thou dost stoutly undergo And now to please the Ladies thou hast brought Not things farre fetch'd nor yet too dearly bought Thou mak'st their Kitchin-Gardens give them more Then Aegypt and both th' Indies did before Thus common things not vulgar are made nice And cheapness sometimes may enhanse the price What thou hast done with staffe of place and wealth We know not