Epicure

Epicure used to write: "I do not fear death. When it is death, I am not, when I am, it is not death."

If there bee any lasie fellow, any that cannot away with worke, any that would wallow in pleasures, hee is hastie to be priested. And when hee is made one, and has gotten a benefice, he consorts with his neighbour priests, who are altogether given to pleasures; and then both hee, and they, live, not like Christians, but like epicures; drinking, eating, feasting, and revelling, till the cow come home, as the saying is.

But, without preaching, the truth may surely be borne in mind, that the bustle, and triumph, and laughter, and gaiety which Vanity Fair exhibits in public, do not always pursue the performer into private life, and that the most dreary depression of spirits and dismal repentances sometimes overcome him. Recollection of the best ordained banquets will scarcely cheer sick epicures.

The refreshments which the servants had prepared were now put on the table, and an epicure would perhaps have enjoyed them with additonal zest, from the contrast which such fare afforded to the miserable cabin in which it was served up.