, being crammed with eating, like fatted oxen;
then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most attain it
least; and that the pleasure of eating lies not in satiety, but
appetite.

XXXV. They report of Timotheus, a famous man at Athens, and the head of
the city, that having supped with Plato, and being extremely delighted
with his entertainment, on seeing him the next day, he said, "Your
suppers are not only agreeable while I partake of them, but the next
day also." Besides, the understanding is impaired when we are full with
overeating and drinking. There is an excellent epistle of Plato to
Dion's relations, in which there occurs as nearly as possible these
words: "When I came there, that happy life so much talked of, devoted
to Italian and Syracusan entertainments, was noways agreeable to me; to
be crammed twice a day, and never to have the night to yourself, and
the other things which are the accompaniments of this kind of life, by
which a man will never be made the wiser, but will be rendered much
less temperate; for it must be an extraordinary disposition that can be
temperate in such circumstances." How, then, can a life be pleasant
without prudence and temperance? Hence you discover the mistake of
Sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the Assyrians, who ordered it to
be engraved on his tomb,

I still have what in food I did exhaust;
But what I left, though excellent, is lost.

"What less than this," says Aristotle, "could be inscribed on the tomb,
not of a king, but an ox?" He said that he possessed those things when
dead, which, in his lifetime, he could have no longer than while he was
enjoying them. Why, then, are riches desired? And wherein doth poverty
prevent us from being happy? In the want, I imagine, of statues,
pictures, and diversions. But if any one is delighted with these
things, have not the poor people the enjoyment of them more than they
who are the owners of them in the greatest abundance? For we have great
numbers of them displayed publicly in our city. And whatever store of
them private people have, they cannot have a great number, and they but
seldom see them, only when they go to their country seats; and some of
them must be stung to the heart when they consider how they came by
them. The day would fail me, should I be inclined to defend the cause
of poverty. The thing is manifest; and nature daily informs us how few
things there are, and how trifling they are, of which she