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 is not so fixed, that we need be without authority for whatever we do; it changes according to climates and moons, according to Fernel and to Scaliger.—­[Physicians to Henry ii.]—­If your physician does not think it good for you to sleep, to drink wine, or to eat such and such meats, never trouble yourself; I will find you another that shall not be of his opinion; the diversity of medical arguments and opinions embraces all sorts and forms.  I saw a miserable sick person panting and burning for thirst, that he might be cured, who was afterwards laughed at for his pains by another physician, who condemned that advice as prejudicial to him:  had he not tormented himself to good purpose?  There lately died of the stone a man of that profession, who had made use of extreme abstinence to contend with his disease:  his fellow-physicians say that, on the contrary, this abstinence had dried him up and baked the gravel in his kidneys.