The friendship of Nicholas Ferrar, the head of the remarkable
household at Little Gidding, and of the saintly George Herbert, is a
pleasant episode of seventeenth century history. One of its results
was the appearance at Cambridge in 1634 of a little volume, entitled
“Hygiasticon.” This contains a translation, believed to be by Ferrar,
of the treatise on dietetics by the learned Jesuit, Leonard Lessius,
George Herbert’s version of Luigi Cornaro’s book on Long Life, and “A
discourse translated out of Italian that a spare diet is better than a
splendid and sumptuous.” This version was made by one whose initials,
T.S., have not been deciphered. The name of the original author was
equally unknown to bibliographers. It is, in fact, the twenty-fourth of
the “Paradossi” printed at Lyons in 1543. This book, although it has
no author’s name attached, is known to be the production of Ortensio
Lando, sometimes known by his Latin name of Hortensius Tranquillus. He
was born at Milan about the end of the fifteenth century, and died at
Venice about 1553. He was a graduate in medicine of the University of
Bologna, and for years led the life of a wandering scholar, but finally
settled at Venice where he died. He was the author of fifty or more
books.[A] This seventeenth century version of Lando’s paradox whilst
not slavish, makes an excellent presentation of the spirit and aim of
the original. In the few places where the English writer has amplified
the additional matter is noteworthy. It has, therefore, been thought
sufficient to modernise the spelling, modify the arrangement and
punctuation, and substitute here and there a modern word for one that
sounded less crude in the seventeenth than in the nineteenth century.
When a scholar, such as Ortensio Lando was, undertakes to defend
paradoxes he is not always to be taken too seriously, but in this
praise of frugal life and simple diet there is an accent of sincerity
that carries conviction.