Drunkenness.

1. No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in. One would wonder how drunkenness should have the good luck to be of this number. Anarcharsis, being invited to a match of drinking at Corinth, demanded the prize very humourously, because he was drunk before any of the rest of the company, for, says he, when we run a race, he who arrives at the goal first, is entitled to the reward:

2. On the contrary, in this thirsty generation, the honour falls upon him who carries off the greatest quantity of liquor, and knocks down the rest of the company. I was the other day with honest Will Funnell, the West Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through him in the last twenty years of his life, which, according to his computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of October, four ton of port, half a kilderkin of small-beer, nineteen barrels of cyder, and three glasses of champaigne; besides which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention sips, drams, and whets without number.

3. I question not but every reader's memory will suggest to him several ambitious young men, who are as vain in this particular as Will Funnell, and can boast of as glorious exploits.

Our modern philosophers observe, that there is a general decay of moisture in the globe of the earth. This they chiefly ascribe to the growth of vegetables, which incorporate into their own substance many fluid bodies that never return again to their former nature:

4. But with submission, they ought to throw into their account, those innumerable rational beings which fetch their nourishment chiefly out of liquids: especially when we consider that men, compared with their fellow-creatures, drink much more than comes to their share.

5. But however highly this tribe of people may think of themselves, a drunken man is a greater monster than any that is to be found among all the creatures which God has made; as indeed there is no character which appears more despicable and deformed, in the eyes of all reasonable persons, than that of a drunkard.

6. Bonosus, one of our own countrymen, who was addicted to this vice, having set up for a share in the Roman empire, and being defeated in a great battle, hanged himself. When he was seen by the army in this melancholy situation, notwithstanding he had behaved himself very bravely, the common jest was, that the thing they saw hanging upon the tree before them, was not a man, but a bottle.

7. This vice has very fatal effects on the mind, the body and fortune of the person who is devoted to it.

In regard to the mind, it first of all discovers every flaw in it. The sober man, by the strength of reason, may keep under and subdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined; but wine makes every latent seed sprout up in the soul, and shew itself: it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them.

8. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome; Put less water into your wine, says the philosopher, and you'll quickly make her so. Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

9. Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and shew them in most odious colours, but often occasions faults to which he is not naturally subject. There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, that drunkenness does not produce, but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary.

10. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind, which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. The person you converse with, after the third bottle, is not the same man who at first sat down at the table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is inscribed to Publius Syrus, He who jests unto a man that is drunk, injures the absent.

11. Thus does drunkenness act in direct contradiction to reason, whose business it is to clear the mind of every vice which is crept into it, and to guard it against all the approaches of any that endeavour to make its entrance. But besides these ill effects which this vice produces in the person who is actually under its dominion, it has also a bad influence on the mind, even in its sober moments, as it insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent excesses: it wastes the estate, banishes reputation, consumes the body, and renders a man of the brightest parts the common jest of an insignificant clown.

12. A method of spending one's time agreeably is a thing so little studied, that the common amusement of our young gentlemen (especially of such as are at a great distance from those of the first breeding) is drinking. This way of entertainment has custom on its side; but as much as it has prevailed, I believe there have been very few companies that have been guilty of excess this way, where there have not happened more accidents which make against, than for the continuance of it.

13. It is very common that events arise from a debauch which are fatal, and always such as are disagreeable. With all a man's reason and good sense about him, his tongue is apt to utter things out of a mere gaiety of heart, which may displease his best friends. Who then would trust himself to the power of wine, without saying more against it, than, that it raises the imagination and depresses judgment?

14. Were there only this single consideration, that we are less masters of ourselves when we drink in the least proportion above the exigencies of thirst: I say, were this all that could be objected, it were sufficient to make us abhor this vice. But we may go on to say, that as he who drinks but a little is not master of himself, so he who drinks much is a slave to himself.

15. As for my part, I ever esteemed a drunkard of all vicious persons the most vicious: for if our actions are to be weighed and considered according to the intention of them, what can we think of him who puts himself into a circumstance wherein he can have no intention at all, but incapacitates himself for the duties and offices of life, by a suspension of all his faculties.

16. If a man considers that he cannot, under the oppression of drink, be a friend, a gentleman, a master, or a subject; that he has so long banished himself from all that is dear, and given up all that is sacred to him, he would even then think of a debauch with horror; but when he looks still further, and acknowledges that he is not only expelled out of all the relations of life, but also liable to offend against them all, what words can express the terror and detestation he would have of such a condition? And yet he owns all this of himself who says he was drunk last night.

17. As I have all along persisted in it, that all the vicious in general are in a state of death, so I think I may add to the non-existence of drunkards that they died by their own hands. He is certainly as guilty of suicide who perishes by a slow, as he that is dispatched by an immediate poison.

18. In my last lucubration I proposed the general use of water-gruel, and hinted that it might not be amiss at this very season: but as there are some, whose cases, in regard to their families, will not admit of delay, I have used my interest in several wards of the city, that the wholesome restorative above-mentioned may be given in tavern kitchens to all the mornings draught-men within the walls when they call for wine before noon.

19. For a further restraint and mark upon such persons, I have given orders, that in all the officers where policies are drawn upon lives, it shall be added to the article which prohibits that the nominee should cross the sea, the words, Provided also, That the above-mentioned A.B. shall not drink before dinner during the term mentioned in this indenture.

20. I am not without hopes that by this method I shall bring some unsizeable friends of mine into shape and breadth, as well as others who are languid and consumptive into health and vigour. Most of the self-murderers whom I yet hinted at, are such as preserve a certain regularity in taking their poison, and make it mix pretty well with their food:

21. But the most conspicuous of those who destroy themselves, are such as in their youth fall into this sort of debauchery, and contract a certain uneasiness of spirit, which is not to be diverted but by tippling as often as they can fall into company in the day, and conclude with down-right drunkenness at night. These gentlemen never know the satisfaction of youth, but skip the years of manhood, and are decrepid soon after they are of age.

22. I was godfather to one of these old fellows. He is now three and thirty, which is the grand climacteric of a young drunkard. I went to visit the crazy wretch this morning, with no other purpose but to rally him, under the pain and uneasiness of being sober.

But as our faults are double when they effect others besides ourselves, so this vice is still more odious in a married than a single man.

23. He that is the husband of a woman of honour, and comes home overloaded with wine, is still more contemptible, in proportion to the regard we have to the unhappy consort of his bestiality. The imagination cannot shape to itself any thing more monstrous and unnatural, than the familiarities between drunkenness and chastity. The wretched Astræa, who is the perfection of beauty and innocence, has long been thus condemned for life. The romantic tales of virgins devoted to the jaws of monsters, have nothing in them so terrible, as the gift of Astræa to that bacchanal.

24. The reflection of such a match as spotless innocence with abandoned lewdness, is what puts this vice in the worst figure it can bear with regard to others; but when it is looked upon with respect only to the drunkard himself, it has deformities enough to make it disagreeable, which may be summed up in a word, by allowing, that he who resigns his reason, is actually guilty of all that he is liable to from the want of reason.

TATLER, Vol. IV, No. 241.