40 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book!. 



more conftantly at war than Sparta, and though it fufFered much 

 greater lofTes in feveral battles, had fent out, before it was 400 years 

 old, 30 colonies. 



Thefe are the different manners of the three greateft nations of 

 antiquity, which I have learned from the fludy of antient hiftory ; 

 the greateft benefit whereof is, in my opinion, the knowledge of 

 dntient arts and manners. How different our manner of living is 

 from that of any of thofe nations, it is needlefs to obferve. But it is 

 a matter of moft ferious confideration, whether our prefent life might 

 not be reformed by the example of one or other, or all, of thofe na- 

 tions. It is a queftion of fuch importance, that, in my apprehen- 

 fion, upon the right determination of it depends the very exiftence of 

 the nation for any confiderable time, and particularly of the beft men 

 among us, I mean the antient families of nobility and gentry, who, 

 if they continue to die out as faft as they have done for the laft three 

 centuries, muft, in not many years, be utterly extinguifhed, or, what 

 I think worfe, reprefented by poor contemptible animals, that are a 

 difgrace to title and birth. 



And firft, as to the Egyptian manner of living, if v/e will not 

 take exercife, and live cleanly, (as Shake fpeare very well expreffes 

 it), we ought to purge and evacuate in different ways ; and, even 

 with exercife, we fliould, like race horfes, be the better for phyfic 

 fometimes, to work off the fuperfluities of our diet. 



The 



-a portion to their daughters, who tarried it to their hufbmds. In that way tlie 

 jiumber of their land-holders, and confcquently of their militia, was greatly diminifhed; 

 and, as by the fame means their wealth was incrcafed, it may be reckoned one of the 

 chief caufcs of the ruin of their ftate. It is chielly by female fucceflion, that the num- 

 ber of" land-holders in Britain has been fo much diminiflaed, and confequently eftates 

 increafed, within thefe three or four laft centuries. » 



