leave all things when it is necessary to think of the preservation of your health.' To indulge all pleasing amusements, and avoid all images that give disgust, is, in my opinion, the best mode to attain, or confirm health.2 I am convinced nothing is so conducive to health as travelling, and absolutely necessary to some constitutions.3 Against melancholy Johnson recommended constant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, moderation in eating and drinking, and, especially, to shun drinking at night.4 The power of opium in checking various morbid affections in their earliest stage, even such as have no direct relation to the nervous system, is too much neglected in modern practice. In common catarrh, for instance, twenty or thirty drops of laudanum, or an equivalent dose of some other opiate, given with a warm diluent at bed-time, and followed, in the morning, by whatever laxative may be required, will often arrest altogether a complaint which the later use of purgatives, antimonial and saline medicines, would only tardily remove." The stomach should never be filled to a sense of uneasy repletion: the rate of eating should always be slow enough to allow thorough mastication, and to obviate that uneasiness which follows food hastily Lady M. W. Montague (Letters). 3 Idem. 5 Holland (Medical Notes and Reflections). 2 Idem. 4 Boswell. swallowed there should be no urgent exercise, either of body or mind, after a full meal.' By health I understand as well freedom from bodily distempers as that tranquillity, firmness, and alacrity of mind, which we call good spirits, and which may properly enough be included in our notion of health, as depending commonly upon the same causes, and yielding to the same management, as our bodily constitution.2 Health, in this sense, is the one thing needful; therefore no pains, expense, self-denial, or restraint, to which we subject ourselves for the sake of health, is too much. Whether it require us to relinquish lucrative situations, to abstain from favourite indulgences, to control intemperate passions, or undergo tedious regimens; whatever difficulties it lays us under, a man who pursues his happiness, rationally and resolutely, will be prepared to submit.3 1 Holland (Medical Notes and Reflections). 3 Id. ibid. CHAP. XIV. CHARACTERS. THE man, whom I call deserving the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than himself, whose high purpose is adopted on just principles, and never abandoned while heaven or earth afford means of accomplishing it. He is one who will neither seek an indirect advantage by a specious road, nor take an evil path to secure a real good purpose. Such a man were one for whom a woman's heart should beat constant while he breathes, and break when he dies.1 1 In my apprehension, the man that has a great mind is he that uses his utmost moral diligence to find out what are the best things he can do, and then, without being deterred by dangers or discouraged by difficulties, does resolutely and steadily pursue them, so far as his abilities will serve; and this out of an internal principle of love to God and man, and with a sincere aim to glorify the one and benefit the other.2 Your father so read that the learning, he took in by study, by judgment he digested, and converted into wisdom to benefit his country; to which also 1 Scott (Peveril of the Peak). 2 Boyle. he applied himself with zeal, but such as took no fire, either from faction or ambition. No man better discerned of men, and therefore was he constant in his friendships, because he regarded not the fortune, nor adherence, but the men; with whom also he conversed with an openness of heart that had no other guard than his own integrity, and that nil conscire. To his equals he carried himself equally, and to his inferiors familiarly; but maintaining his respect fully, and only, with the native splendour of his worth. In sum, he was one in whom might plainly be perceived that honour and honesty are but the same thing in the different degrees of persons.' He that hath light within his own clear breast, But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts, C'étoit, par excellence, ce qu'on appelle un galant homme,-noble, sensible, généreux, plein de loyauté, de politesse, et de bonté; et il réunissait ce que les deux caractères de l'Anglois et du François ont de meilleur et de plus aimable.3 Une grande générosité, de la grâce, et de la justesse dans les récompenses, beaucoup de tact, 1 Hobbes (Dedication of his Translation of Thucydides to the Earl of Devonshire, 1629). 2 Comus. 3 Character of Albemarle. (Marmontel, Œuvres posthumes.) le talent de deviner ce qu'il ne sait pas, et une grande connoissance des hommes.1 His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword: Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville was a first-rate figure in this country. With a masculine understanding and a stout and resolute heart, he had an application undissipated and unwearied. If he was ambitious, I will say this for him-his ambition was of a noble and generous strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, pimping, politics of a court, but to win his way to power through the laborious gradations of public service; and to secure himself a well-earned rank in parliament by a thorough knowledge of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all its business.4 I ever looked upon Lord Keppel as one of the greatest and best men of his age; and I loved and cultivated him accordingly. He was much in my heart, and I believe I was in his, to the very last 1 Character of Prince Potemkin. See Lettres, &c. de Prince de Ligne. 2 Two Gentlemen of Verona. 4 Burke. 3 Hamlet. |