dmiration and respect, than the _power_ of it. These,
however, were the sentiments of Natura, others perhaps may judge
differently.

But whatever may be the deficiencies of Germany in matters of genius,
wit, judgment, and manners, there is none in good eating, and good
wine; and though their fashion of cookery is not altogether so polite,
nor so agreeable to the palates of others as their own, yet it must be
confessed, that in their way, they are very great epicures; but though
they generally eat voraciously, they drink yet more; and so nimbly do
they send the glass about, that a stranger finds it no small
difficulty to maintain his sobriety among them.

Natura's too great compliance with their intreaties in this point, had
like to have proved fatal to him:--the strength of the wines, and
drinking them in a much larger quantity than he had been accustomed
to, so inflamed his blood, that he soon fell into a violent fever,
which for some days gave those that attended him, little hopes of his
recovery; but by the skill of his physician, joined to his youth, and
the goodness of his constitution, the force of the distemper at last
abated, yet could not be so intirely eradicated, as not to leave a
certain pressure and debility upon the nerves, by some called a fever
on the spirits, which seemed to threaten either an atrophy or
consumption; his complexion grew pale and livid, and his strength and
flesh visibly wasted; and what was yet worse, the vigour of his mind
decayed, in proportion with that of his external frame, insomuch that,
falling into a deep melancholy, he considered himself as on the brink
of the grave, and expected nothing but dissolution every hour.

While he continued in this languishing condition, he was frequently
visited by the priests, who in some parts of Germany, particularly at
Vienna, are infinitely more inveterate against Protestantism than at
Paris, or even at Rome, though the _papal_ seat; as indeed any one may
judge, who has heard of the many and cruel persecutions practised upon
the poor Protestants by the emperors, in spite of the repeated
obligations they have had to those powers who profess the doctrines of
Calvin and Luther; but gratitude is no part of the characteristic of a
German.

These venerable distracters of the human mind, were perpetually
ringing hell and damnation in his ears, in case he abjured not, before
his death, the errors in which he had been educated, and continued in
so