To find out drunkards,* I need not go far, For noble, seaman, soldier, churchman too, The 'squire, the peasant, nay, the modest lambs, I mean our ladies-they with frequent drams, Will fuddle noses till they're red and blue. In speaking of drunkenness, Arcanum demens detegit ebrietas, it is not only the foe to decency and reason, but when indulged in to excess, absolutely incapacitates the sot from the smallest corporeal effort. As a proof of this, a fact is recorded of a certain military commander, who indulged in copious libations at the mess table, from which all the company had retired, excepting himself and one bottle companion, with whom he chose to complete the debauch over a large bowl of punch. This son of Mars having drank for a time until he had rendered his companion senseless, and desirous of proving himself a superior votary to the orgies of Bacchus, grasped the vessel, in order to empty its contents, when finding himself incapable of raising it to his lips, from the effects of inebriety, he bent his mouth to the edge of the bowl, which he tilted, resting his arms on the table, and while in this position, being unsteady from the effect of liquor, he slipped forward, when his face became immerged in the intoxicating draught, and in that situation he continued immovable, and was shortly suffocated. But not to speak of such deadly effects, the mere inebriety which constitutes the boast of mankind may al F See nature's paragon bereft of sense, And ev'ry act that's loathsome in the beast; L'ENVOY OF THE POET. From all intempérance let man abstain, THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS. Come, trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis ways be said to verify on the ensuing morning these lines of Horace. Corpus onustum Hesternis vitiis animum quoque prægravat unà. And speaking of the capability of the English in drinking, Shakspeare thus expresseth himself. "I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swagbellied Hollander, are nothing to your English. Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking? Why he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not, to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be filled." SECTION X. OF YOUNG FOOLS WHO MARRY OLD ONES Non id videndum, conjugum ut bonis bona ; WHAT mighty spell pervades thy breast, Canst thou from that pale shrivel❜d lip, And all for baleful gold? * The following lines, so applicable to the point in question, are here introduced, in order to finish the picture of the poet. Or now behold the man by fortune cross'd, A Canst thou invigorate that frame, Give age's ice youth's ardent flame; Canst thou before the altar kneel,* And swear to what thou ne'er canst feel, Bid waters freeze in summer's glow, How loathsome the idea-O Heav'n! to feel * However we may laugh, on viewing the effusions of the painter, we cannot but inwardly moralize on contemplating that plate in the series of the Rake's progress, which portrays the youthful spendthrift in the act of uniting himself with one old enough to be his grandmother. Let any individual but observe therein the liquorish eye of squinting age, blinking towards the visage of cool and passionless youth, and nothing more need be alleged on the subject of improper marriages. |