hat
I eat with appetite and delight. I never received harm by any action
that was very pleasant to me; and accordingly have made all medicinal
conclusions largely give way to my pleasure; and I have, when I was
young,

"Quem circumcursans huc atque huc saepe Cupido
Fulgebat crocink splendidus in tunic."

["When Cupid, fluttering round me here and there, shone in his rich
purple mantle."--Catullus, lxvi. 133.]

given myself the rein as licentiously and inconsiderately to the desire
that was predominant in me, as any other whomsoever:

"Et militavi non sine gloria;"

["And I have played the soldier not ingloriously."
--Horace, Od., iii. 26, 2.]

yet more in continuation and holding out, than in sally:

"Sex me vix memini sustinuisse vices."

["I can scarcely remember six bouts in one night"
--Ovid, Amor., iii. 7, 26.]

'Tis certainly a misfortune and a miracle at once to confess at what a
tender age I first came under the subjection of love: it was, indeed, by
chance; for it was long before the years of choice or knowledge; I do not
remember myself so far back; and my fortune may well be coupled with that
of Quartilla, who could not remember when she was a maid:

"Inde tragus, celeresque pili, mirandaque matri
Barba meae."

["Thence the odour of the arm-pits, the precocious hair, and the
beard which astonished my mother."--Martial, xi. 22, 7.]

Physicians modify their rules according to the violent longings that
happen to sick persons, ordinarily with good success; this great desire
cannot be imagined so strange and vicious, but that nature must have a
hand in it. And then how easy a thing is it to satisfy the fancy? In my
opinion; this part wholly carries it, at least, above all the rest. The
most grievous and ordinary evils are those that fancy loads us with; this
Spanish saying pleases me in several aspects:

"Defenda me Dios de me."

["God defend me from myself."]

I am sorry when I am sick, that I have not some longing that might give
me the pleasure of satisfying it; all the rules of physic would hardly be
able to divert me from it. I do the same when I am well; I can see very
little more to be hoped or wished for. 'Twere pity a man should be so
weak and languishing, as not to have even wishing left to him.

The art of physic