Download the full version of the ebook now at ebookgrade.

com

Practical Guide to Linux Commands Editors and

Shell Programming 4th A Mark G. Sobell
Matthew Helmke & Matthew Helmke

https://ebookgrade.com/product/practical-guide-to-
linux-commands-editors-and-shell-programming-4th-
a-mark-g-sobell-matthew-helmke-matthew-helmke/

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookgrade.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Practical Guide to Linux(r) Commands Editors and Shell

Programming 3rd Third Edition A Mark G. Sobell

https://ebookgrade.com/product/practical-guide-to-linuxr-commands-
editors-and-shell-programming-3rd-third-edition-a-mark-g-sobell/

ebookgrade.com

Linux Command Line Beginners Guide to Learn Linux Commands

and Shell Scripting

https://ebookgrade.com/product/linux-command-line-beginners-guide-to-
learn-linux-commands-and-shell-scripting/

ebookgrade.com

Shell Scripting and Advanced Linux Commands

https://ebookgrade.com/product/shell-scripting-and-advanced-linux-
commands/

ebookgrade.com

Linux Basics Linux Guide To Learn Linux Commands And Linux

Coding

https://ebookgrade.com/product/linux-basics-linux-guide-to-learn-
linux-commands-and-linux-coding/

ebookgrade.com
AW Shell Programming in Unix Linux and OS X 4th Edition
0134496000

https://ebookgrade.com/product/aw-shell-programming-in-unix-linux-and-
os-x-4th-edition-0134496000/

ebookgrade.com

Linux Commands Linux For Beginners To Learn Linux Basics

and Linux Command Line

https://ebookgrade.com/product/linux-commands-linux-for-beginners-to-
learn-linux-basics-and-linux-command-line/

ebookgrade.com

Beginner C# Your Practical Guide to Managing Data with

Basic C# Dewey Matthew

https://ebookgrade.com/product/beginner-c-your-practical-guide-to-
managing-data-with-basic-c-dewey-matthew/

ebookgrade.com

Programming for Beginners 2 book in 1 Linux for beginners

SQL for Beginners Matthew Python

https://ebookgrade.com/product/programming-for-beginners-2-book-
in-1-linux-for-beginners-sql-for-beginners-matthew-python/

ebookgrade.com
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Frugal Life:
A Paradox
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The Frugal Life: A Paradox

Author: Ortensio Landi

Author of introduction, etc.: William E. A. Axon

Release date: May 12, 2022 [eBook #68053]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Not known, 1899

Credits: Turgut Dincer and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE

FRUGAL LIFE: A PARADOX ***
 The Frugal Life.
“That a Spare Diet is
better than a splendid
and sumptuous.”
A PARADOX:
By Ortensio Lando, M.D.
1543.
With Introduction
by ....
WILLIAM E. A. AXON.
MANCHESTER.
1899.
 THE PARADOX OF A FRUGAL LIFE.

INTRODUCTION.
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.
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.
 THAT A SPARE DIET IS BETTER
THAN A SPLENDID
AND SUMPTUOUS—A PARADOX.
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, 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 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
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
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.
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.
 FOOTNOTES:
[A] A full account of his life and works has been prepared for the
Royal Society of Literature by the present writer (“Transactions,
1899”). Those who are interested in Nicholas Ferrar should
consult Professor J. E. B. Mayor’s volume devoted to him in
“Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century.”
[B] Cress, or Wild Mint.
 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
The cover image for this eBook was created by the
transcriber and is entered into the public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRUGAL
LIFE: A PARADOX ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions

will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright
in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and without
paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General
Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if
you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the
trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the
Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such
as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and
printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in
the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright
law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially
commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the

free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this
work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase
“Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of
the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or
online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand,
agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual
property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to
abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using
and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for
obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms
of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only

be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by
people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
There are a few things that you can do with most Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the
full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There
are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™
electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and
help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.