DRUNKENNESS. In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence. DR. JOHNSON. A VINE bears three grapes, the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance. ANACHARSIS. A DRUNKARD is one that will be a man to-morrow morning, but is now what you will make him, for he is in the power of the next man, and if a friend the better. Cassio. I REMEMBER a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should with joy, pleasure, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: How came you thus recovered ? Cas. It hath pleased the devil, drunkenness, to give place to the devil, wrath; one imperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself. Othello, Act II. THE maxim, "in vino veritas," ""* a man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth," may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars; but, sir, I would not keep company with a fellow, who lies as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him. 'Tis pity wine, which nature meant His wearied mind and body too, * To gain access a private way To man's best sense, by its own key, JOHNSON. BUTLER. On Drunkenness. No sooner come to be enjoy'd, And that which she for good design'd, Runs out of all its happiness, And makes the friend of truth and love While man with raging drink inflamed, To plant and propagate a vine, Which since has overwhelm'd and drown'd, Far greater numbers, on dry ground, Than all the flood before had done. BUTLER. On Drunkenness. * For truly then I feare no man Be he never so bolde, When I am warmed and throwly warmed SKELTON. SHALL I, to please another's wine-sprung mind, A pain in that, wherein he finds a pleasure? If reason move not gallants, quit the room; Be not a beast in courtesy, but stay, Stay at the third cup, or forego the place, G. HERBERT. Olivia. WHAT's a drunken man like, fool ? Clown. Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him. Oli. Go thou and seek the coroner, and let him sit o' my coz: for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drowned: go, look after him. Clo. He is but mad yet, madonna; and the fool shall look to the madman. Twelfth Night, Act I., Scene 2. A DRUNKARD is a good philosopher, for he thinks aright: the world goes round. SIR T. OVERBURY. IF the headache should come before drunkenness, we should have care of drinking too much. But pleasure, to deceive us, marches before and conceals her brain. MONTAIGNE. Essays. BEFORE dinner, men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk: when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects. DR. JOHNSON. DR. ALDRICH'S FIVE REASONS FOR DRINKING. GOOD wine; a friend; or being dry; Or any other reason why. ODE TO THE CUCKOO. HAIL, beauteous stranger of the grove! Now heaven repairs thy rural seat, What time the daisy decks the green, Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, The schoolboy, wandering through the wood Starts, the new voice of spring to hear, And imitates thy lay. What time the pea puts on the bloom, Thou fliest thy vocal vale, An annual guest in other lands, Another spring to hail. Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, Thy sky is ever clear; Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, O, could I fly, I'd fly with thee! MICHAEL BRUCE. O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice; O cuckoo! shall I call thee bird, While I am lying on the grass Thy twofold shout I hear; From hill to hill it seems to pass At once far off and near. Though babbling only to the vale Thrice welcome, darling of the spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, The same whom in my school-boy days Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. WORDSWORTH. SCANDAL. THERE is a lust in man no charm can tame, Nor that elegant ladies, in fact, In genteel society ever detract, DRYDEN. Juvenal. Or lend a brush when a friend is black'd,- But only talk scandal for fear some fool, Should think they were bred at charity school. HOOD. Tale of a Trumpet. WE hain't got any daily paper in our town, but we've got a female sewin' circle, which answers the same purpuss. ARTEMUS WARD. PAINTING. BUT poets are confined in narrower space, DRYDEN. Epistles. THE EFFECT OF TIME UPON PAINTINGS. MORE cannot be by mortal act exprest; |