Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 35 



were in the right, when they thought that thefe vicifTitudes produ- 

 ced a great part of the difeafes to which the human body is liable; * 

 and which we, in this country, cannot otherwife efcape, than by 

 living hardily, and expofing ourfelves to the weather, inftead of 

 Shrinking from it, and creeping into holes, fuch as houfes, clofe 

 rooms, and the ftill clofer boxes in which we are carried about, and 

 deprived of the benefit of air even when we go out. Such men 

 fhould take the advice which Dr Armftrong gives them in his Poem, 

 *' The Art of Preferving Health ;" 



If indolence would wifh to live, 



Go yawn and loiter out the long flow year 

 In fairer climes. 



And, even in fome of thefe fairer climes, there are vicifTitudes of 

 weather more violent than any we experience here. In the fouth 

 of France, there come fevere gulls of cold wind from the Alps : In 

 Rome, the winter, though much fhorter, is commonly more fe- 

 vere than in Britain ; and even in the fpring, there come very cold 

 blafts of wind from the Appennines; and I was told, by a gentle- 

 man lately come from Italy, who had gone thither on account of 

 his health, that he could fcarcely bear the cold of Rome, even in the 

 month of April. On the other fide of the Atlantic, there are flill 

 more violent changes of weather. In fome of the fouthern provinces 

 of North America, particularly in South Carolina, as I was told by 

 a very intelligent phyfician, Dodor Garden, who lived there thirty 

 years, the thermometer, in the fpace of 30 hours, has been known 

 to vary from 15 degrees to 74 ; the confequence of which was, 

 that the Europeans, who lived delicately, were very much afre(5led 

 but the wild animals and the Indians not at all. 



E 2 And 



* This Herodotus has told us in the paffage where he gircs an account of the phy- 

 fuking of the Egyptians. 



