SECTION IX.

OF FOOLISH GLUTTONS AND DRUNKARDS.

Be not among wine-bibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh.

For the Drunkard and the Glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.

SOLOMON.

To city feast my prying gaze I turn,
Profusion on the board I there discern,

* Repasts of this nature have long been proverbial; nor does the appearance of the leading men east of Temple Bar, bely the general opinion of their capability and prowess at the knife and fork exercise in vain doth moderation cry out, Lucisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti; tempus abire tibi est; deaf to all such warnings, they continue the attack; and instances have been known, that, on the arrival of an unexpected dish, the already gorged alderman, thrown into an ecstacy at the luscious view, has waddled from the table, and having, by the assistance of potent libations of salt and water, eased in some degree the overburdened stomach, he has forthwith returned to charge the object of his gluttony, and satiated his vengeance by a glorious indigestion. Plures crapula quam gladius.

*

While goggle eyes stare eager to begin: With smack of lips the pil'd up ladle see Reeking with callipash and callipee,

For forc'd meat balls they dash thro' thick and thin.

The ven❜son next, then turkeys, geese and chine, Wash'd down with oceans of Madeira wine;

O despicable glutton, think but on the tortures which thon inflictest on the poor skate, ere it is crimped, to satiate thine appetite, and blush to own thyself a human being.

* At all periods has the inordinate gratification of this sense been considered by its votaries. The famed Anacreon, greedily indulging his appetite, was choked with a grape stone. Heliogabalus delighted in feasting on the tongues of nightingales and the brains of peacocks; while the followers of Epicurus ransacked the culinary art, in order to invent dishes that were calculated to pamper this bestial propensity. Nay, and among the tribe of guttling fools of more modern date may rank Worlidge the famous engraver of gems, who was so fond of good living as to expend one guinea on a pint of peas, although he had not at the time a shoe to his foot, and was literally repairing to a disciple of Crispin's, in order to procure a pair, when in Covent Garden Market, this fascinating object presented itself to his greedy eyes.

Fricandoes, fricassees, veal, mutton, beef; Tarts, custards, jellies, blanc mange, and ice

creams:

Such are the joys ally'd to city dreams;

For gold they labour, guttling's * their relief.

Hogarth's celebrated print of the election feast, affords an inimitable picture of excess in gluttony, displayed in the representation of one of the party at the electioneering feast, who being overgorged, is just expiring of a fit of apoplexy, while at the end of the fork, still grasped in his band, appears an oyster, which had been intended for the next mouthful. But although many instances in real life have been related of the inordinate love of guttling which bas characterized the natives of this island, it is nevertheless conceived, that the reader must allow, from the following statement, that the natives of other countries may out-eat us. During the last war, a Prussian soldier at Liverpool literally devoured at one meal-a live cattwo pounds of bullock's liver, and two pounds of candles -with respect to rats and mice, they were regarded as such choice dainties in his estimation, that he would voraciously dispatch all that came in his way, and it is absolutely a fact, that this ravenous propensity created such an acute feeling, that the drummer and fifer boys were afraid of appearing before this cormorant, lest he should be led to take a fancy to an arm or a shoulder, and suddenly place his grinders in contact with human flesh.

To find out drunkards *, I need not go far, They're west as well as east, of Temple Bar;

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

See nature's paragon bereft of sense,
With gait unsteady, prone to impudence,

And ev'ry act that's loathsome in the beast:
Such is our Bacchus-but my picture's done,
If in the human frame I view as one
A drunkard and a glutton at a feast.

L'ENVOY OF THE POET.

From all intemperance let man abstain,
And sober reason be his constant guide;
He ne'er in folly's boat will share the pain,
Of such as row at once 'gainst wind and tide.

THE POET'S CHORUS TO FOOLS.

Come trim the boat, row on each Rara Avis, Crowds flock to man my Stultifera Navis.

boast of mankind may always 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