Chap. 11. A N TI K N T M E T A P H Y S I C S, 95. 



caught and brought to England, delighted in no food fo much as 

 raw herbage, as I was told by an old woman, formerly mentioned*, 

 who faid fhe faw him feed upon the raw leaves of cabbage. Pytha- 

 goras, I fhould think, mufl: have believed that raw vegetables were 

 the natural, and therefore the beft food of Man, when he ufed 

 them fo much himfelf, as Diogenes Laertius, in his Life, informs 

 us. And we learn from a French Dodtor, whofe obfervations on 

 the fcurvy are publifhed in the Philofophical Tranfadlions 'f, that, 

 in an hofpital at Mofcow,-he cured the fcurvy by raw vegetables, 

 when he could not cure it by vegetables boiled or roafted J. 



If 



* See Page 64. 



f Vol. 68. Part 2. page 661. 



X There appears to me to have been a tradition preferved among the Greeks, of their 

 anceflors having lived upon vegetables, particularly upon the afphodel and mallows. This 

 r infer from a pafTage in Hefiod, where, fpeaking of the advantages of a fober diet, he 

 fays, 



Opera et Dies, Verf. 40. 



from which lines it is evident to me, that, even in his time, the poorer fort of people 

 muft have lived chiefly upon thefe two herbs ; and I have no doubt that he be- 

 lieved that the happy in his golden age lived in the fame manner. And, accordingly, 

 Homer makes the heroes in his Elyfium live in meadows of afphodel; (OdyfT. xi. Verf. 

 537.) The mallows is a plant well known, called in Latin Malva, and has been much 

 ufed for food by feveral nations, particularly the Romans, at leaft, by fuch of them as 

 lived fimply and frugally. Accordingly, Horace defcribing his diet to be of that kind, 

 fays, 



Me pafcvmt olivae, 



Me cichorea levefque malvae.' 



Lib. i. Ode 31. 



The 



