back upon her all the first night. Her mother will then come and bring her daughter to me, as I am seated upon my sofa. The daughter, with tears in her eyes, will fling herself at my feet, and beg of me to receive her into my favor. Then will I, to imprint in her a thorough veneration for my person, draw up my legs and spurn her from me with my foot, in such a manner that she shall fall down several paces from the sofa." Alnaschar was entirely swallowed up in this chimerical vision, and could not forbear acting with his foot what he had in his thoughts; so that unluckily striking his basket of brittle ware, which was the foundation of all his grandeur, he kicked his glasses to a great distance from him into the street, and broke them into a thousand pieces.-O. No. 569.] MONDAY, JULY 19, 1714. Reges dicuntur multis urgere culullis, Et torquere mero, quem perspexisse laborent, HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 434. Wise were the kings who never chose a friend And seen the bottom of his deepest thoughts. -ROSCOMMON. 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. Anacharsis, being invited to a match of drinking at Corinth, demanded the prize very humorously, 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;" on the contrary, in this thirsty generation, the honor 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 Funnel, 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 tons of port, half a kilderkin of small beer, nineteen barrels of cider, and three glasses of champagne; beside which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention sips, drams, and whets without number. 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 Funnel, 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; but with submission, they ought to throw into their own 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. 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. 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 be haved 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. 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 show itself; it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome, “Put less water in your wine," says the philosopher, "and you will 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. Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and show them in the most odious colors, 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 us the contrary. 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 table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is ascribed to Publius Syrus, “Qui ebrium ludificat lædit absentem." "He who jests upon the man that is drunk, injures the absent." 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 endeavors to make its entrance. But beside 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. I should now proceed to show the ill effects which this vice has on the bodies and fortunes of men; but these I shall reserve for the subject of some future paper. No. 574.] FRIDAY, JULY 30, 1714. Non possidentem multa vocaveris Duramque callet pauperiem pati. HOR. 4 Od. ix, 45. Believe not those that lands possess, And shining heaps of useless ore, But rather those that know And have the heart to use the store, That have the generous skill to bear The hated weight of poverty.-CREECH. I WAS Once engaged in discourse with a Rosicrucian about "the great secret." As this kind of men (I mean those of them who are not professed cheats) are overrun with enthusiasm and philosophy, it was very amusing to hear this religious adept descanting on his pretended discovery. He talked of the secret as of a spirit which lived within an emerald, and con verted everything that was near it to the highest perfection it is capable of. 'It gives a luster,” says he, "to the sun, and water to the diamond. It irradiates every metal, and enriches lead with all the properties of gold. It heightens smoke into flame, flame into light, and light into glory." He further added, “that a single ray of it dissipates pain, and care, and melancholy, from the person on whom it falls. In short," says he, "its presence naturally changes every place into a kind of heaven." After he had gone on for some time in this unintelligible cant, I found that he jumbled natural and moral ideas together in the same discourse, and that his great secret was nothing else but content. This virtue does indeed produce, in some measure, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing, by banishing the desire of them. If it cannot remove the disquietudes arising out of a man's mind, body, or fortune, it makes him easy under them. It has indeed a kindly influence on the soul of man, in respect of every being to whom he stands related. It extinguishes al murmur, repining, and ingratitude, toward that Being who has allotted him his part to act in this world. It destroys all inordinate ambition, and every tendency to corruption, with regard to the community wherein he is placed. It gives sweetness to his conversation, and a perpetual serenity to all his thoughts. Among the many methods which might be made use of for the acquiring of this virtue, I shall only mention the two following. First of all, a man should always consider how much he has more than he wants and secondly, how much more unhappy he might be than he really is. |