LEWISTORNAIIO. 
326 
times, without the knowledge of his physicians indeed, although 
much to his own uneasiness and detriment. Driven in the mean 
time by necessity, and exerting resolutely all the powers of his under- 
standing, he grew at last confirmed in a settled and uninterrupted 
course of temperance, by virtue of wdiich, all his disorders had left 
him in less than a year, and he had been a firm and healthy man from 
that time to his giving this account. 
To shew what a security a life of temperance is against the ill effects 
of hurts and disasters, he relates an accident which befell him when he 
was very old. One day being overturned in his chariot, he was drag- 
ged by the horses a considerable way upon the ground. His head, 
his arms, his whole body, were very much bruised, and one of his 
ankles was put out of joint. He was carried home, and the physici- 
ans, seeing how much he was injured, concluded it was impossible he 
should live three days ; but, by bleeding and evacuating medicines, he 
presently recovered his health and strength. Some sensualists, as it 
appears, had objected to his manner of living; and in order to evince 
the reasonableness of their own, had urged, that it was not worth 
while to mortify one’s appetite at such a rate, for the sake of being 
old ; since all that was life, after the age of sixty-five, could not pro- 
perly be called “vita viva, sed vita mortua ;” not a living life, but a 
dead life. “Now,” says he, “ to shew these gentlemen how much 
they are mistaken, I will briefly run over the satisfactions and plea- 
sures which I myself now enjoy in this eighty-third year of my age. 
In the first place, I am always well, and so active withal, that I can 
with ease mount a horse upon a flat, and walk to the tops of high 
mountains. In the next place, I am always cheerful, pleasant, per- 
fectly contented, and free from all perturbation, and every uneasy 
thought. I have none of that fastidium vitae, that satiety of life, so 
often to be met with in persons of my age. I frequently converse 
with men of parts and learning, and spend much of my time in read- 
ing and writing. These things I do, just as opportunity serves, or my 
humour invites me, and all in my own house here at Padua, which, I 
may say, is as commodious and elegant a seat as any perhaps this age 
can shew, built by me according to the exact proportions of archi- 
tecture, and so contrived as to be an equal shelter against heat and 
cold. I enjoy at proper intervals my gardens, of which I have many, 
whose borders are refreshed with streams of running w ater. 1 spend 
some months in the year at those Euganean hills, where I have an- 
other commodious house, with gardens and fountains ; and I visit also 
a seat I have in the valley, which abounds in beauties, from the many 
structures, w'oods, and rivulets that encompass it. I frequently make 
excursions to some of the neighbouring cities, for the sake of seeing 
my friends, and conversing with the adepts in all arts and sciences ;; 
architects; painters, statuaries, musicians, and even husbandmen. I 
contemplate their works, compare them with the ancients, and am 
always learning something which it is agreeable to know. I take a 
view of palaces, gardens, antiquities, public buildings, temples, forti- 
fications ; and nothing escapes me, which can afford the least amuse- 
ment to a rational mind. Nor are these pleasures at all blunted by 
the usual imperfections of great age, for I enjoy all my senses in per- 
