with this, that he attempted no reply, but stared at me with as much astonishment as he would have done at my great ancestor Adam, in his primitive state of nature.

The cloth was now taken away, and the bottles, glasses, and dish-clouts, put upon the table, when Will Sitfast, who, I found, was perpetual toast-maker, took the chair, of course, as the man of application to business. He began the king's health in a bumper, which circulated in the same manner, not without some nice examinations of the chairman as to day-light. The bottle standing by me, I was called upon by the chairman, who added, that, though a waterdrinker, he hoped I would not refuse that health in wine. I begged to be excused, and told him that I never drank his majesty's health at all, though no one of his subjects wished it more heartily than I did; that hitherto it had not appeared to me that there could be the least relation between the wine I drank and the king's state of health; and that, till I was convinced that impairing my own health would improve his majesty's, I was resolved to preserve the use of my faculties and my limbs, to employ both in his service, if he should ever have occasion for them. I had foreseen the consequences of this refusal, and, though my friend had answered for my principles, I easily discovered an air of suspicion in the countenances of the company, and I overheard the

colonel whisper to Lord Feeble, "This author is a very odd dog!'

My friend was ashamed of me, but, however, to help me off as well as he could, he said to me aloud, "Mr. Fitz-Adam, this is one of those singularities, which you have contracted by liv ing so much alone." From this moment, the company gave me up to my oddnesses, and took no farther notice of me. I leaned silently upon the table, waiting for, though, to say the truth, without expecting, some of that festal gayety, that urbanity, and that elegant mirth, of which my friend had promised so large a share; instead of all which, the conversation ran chiefly into narrative, and grew duller and duller with every bottle. Lord Feeble recounted his former achievements in love and wine; the colonel complained, with some dignity, of hardships and injustice; Sir George hinted at some important discoveries, which he had made, that day, at court, but cautiously avoided naming names; Sir Tunbelly slept between glass and glass; the doctor and my friend talked over college matters, and quoted Latin; and our worthy president applied himself wholly to business, never speaking but to order; as, "Sir, the bottle stands with you; sir, you are to name a toast; that has been drunk already; here, more claret!" &c. In the height of all this convivial pleasantry, which I plainly saw was come to its zenith, I stole away at about nine

o'clock, and went home; when reflections upon the entertainment of the day crowded into my mind, and may perhaps be the subject of some future paper.

THE FOLLY OF IMMODERATE DRINKING.

The entertainment, I do not say the diversion, which I mentioned in my last paper, tumbled my imagination to such a degree, and suggested such a variety of indistinct ideas to my mind, that, notwithstanding all the pains I took to sort and digest, I could not reduce them to method. I shall therefore throw them out in this paper without order, and just as they occurred to me.

When I considered that, perhaps, two millions of my fellow subjects passed two parts in three of their lives in the very same manner in which the worthy members of my friend's club passed theirs, I was at a loss to discover that attractive, irresistible, and invisible charm, for I confess I saw none, to which they so deliberately and assiduously sacrificed their time, their health, and their reason; till, dipping accidentally into Monsieur Pascal, I read, upon the subject of hunting, the following passage: "What, unless to drown thought," says that excellent writer, "can make men throw away so much time upon a silly animal, which they may buy much cheaper in the market? It hinders us from looking into ourselves, which

is a view we cannot bear."

That this is often

one motive, and sometimes the only one, of hunting, I can easily believe. But then it must

be allowed, too, that, if the jolly sportsman, who thus vigorously runs away from himself, does not break his neck in his flight, he improves his health, at least, by his exercise. But what

other motive can possibly be assigned for the soaker's daily and seriously swallowing his own destruction, except that of "drowning thought, and hindering him from looking into himself, which is a view he cannot bear ?"

Unhappy the man who cannot willingly and frequently converse with himself; but miserable in the highest degree is the man who dares not! In one of these predicaments must that man be, who soaks and sleeps away his whole life. Either tired of himself for want of any reflections at all, or dreading himself for fear of the most tormenting ones, he flies for refuge from his folly or his guilt to the company of his fellow-sufferers, and to the intoxication of strong liquors.

Archbishop Tillotson asserts, and very truly that no man can plead, in defence of swearing that he was born of a swearing constitution. I believe the same thing may with equal truth be affirmed of drinking. No man is born a drinker. Drinking is an acquired, not a natural, vice. The child, when he first tastes strong liquors, rejects them with evident signs of disgust, but is insensibly brought first to

bear, and then to like them, by the folly of his parents, who promise them as an encouragement, and give them as a reward.

When the coroner's inquest examines the body of one of those unhappy wretches who drown themselves in a pond or river, with comtmonly a provision of lead to make the work the surer, the verdict is either felo de se, or lunatic. Is it then the water, or the suddenness of the plunge, that constitutes either the madness or the guilt of the act? Is there any difference between a water and a wine suicide? If there nbe, it is evidently in favour of the former, which is never so deliberate and premeditated as the latter. The soaker jogs on with a gentler pace indeed, but to as sure and certain destruction, and, as a proof of his intention, would, I ri believe, upon examination, be generally found to have a good deal of lead about him too. He cannot allege, in his defence, that he has not warning, since he daily sees, in the chronical distempers of all his fellow soakers, the fatal effects of that slow poison which he so greedily guzzles; for I defy all those honest gentlemen, that is, all the hard drinkers in England, a numerous body I doubt, to produce one single instance of a soaker, whose health and faculties are not visibly impaired by drinking. Some, indeed, born much stronger than others, hold it out longer, and are absurdly quoted as living proofs even of the salutary effects of drinking; but, though they have not yet any of the most