Chapter 14

Poor Harry (Bolingbroke) is turned out from being Secretary of State.... They call him knave and traitor.... I believe all poor Harry’s fault was that he could not play his part with a grave enough face.... He got drunk now and then.

Lord Cartaret, afterwards Earl Granville, was a great scholar, and a man of invariable high spirits.

The period of his ascendency was known by the name of theDrunken Administration; and the expression was not altogether figurative. His habits were extremely convivial; and champagne probably lent its aid to keep him in that state of joyous excitement in which his life was passed.... Driven from office, he retired laughing to his books and his bottle.... Ill as he had been used, he did not seem, says Horace Walpole, to have any resentment, or indeed any feeling except thirst.[219]

Macaulay implies that Cartaret occasionally varied his champagne for ‘a daily half gallon of Burgundy.’

William Pulteney, created ‘Earl of Bath’ on the resignation of Walpole, has been generally reckoned amongst the men of the bottle. Indeed, Mr. Lecky remarks (i. 478) that he ‘is said to have shortened his life by drinking.’ But how can this be? He lived to the fairly respectable age of 82. Has he not been confounded with some namesake? For what says this same author in another volume?—‘Lord Bath, the old rival of Walpole, subscribed liberally to the orphanage of Georgia, and was a frequent and apparently devout attendant at Whitefield’s Chapel in Tottenham Court Road.’ In fact in his old age he became a Methodist. Was such a man likely to be a hard drinker?

Of Walpole, Mr. Lecky remarks, that when he was a young man, his father was accustomed to pour into his glass a double portion of wine, saying, ‘Come, Robert, you shall drink twice while I drink once; for I will notpermit the son in his sober senses to be witness of the intoxication of his father.’

It speaks volumes for the son of such a father, that when Mr. Chute gibed him for stupidity, which he set down to ‘temperance diet,’ Walpole protested, saying, ‘I have such lamentable proofs every day of the stupefying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritualnourriture.’

Methodism, drinking, and gambling, were all on the increase. So says Walpole. Of the first, he sarcastically says,—‘It increases as fast as any religious nonsense did.’ Of the second he remarks,—‘Drinking is at the highest wine-mark.’ But people were gluttons as well as drunkards.

The aristocracy of letters were infected, no less than that of rank. Truly did Chesterfield observe, that wine and wassail have taken more strong places than gun or steel. Jonathan Swift is generally regarded as a free liver, though probably the company he kept is often answerable for the imputation. The following notices must serve as material for judgment. Dr. King states that about three years before his death, he observed that he was affected by the wine which he drank after dinner; next day, on his complaining of his health, he took the liberty to tell him he had drunk too much wine. Swift was startled, and replied that he always regarded himself as a very temperate man, and never exceeded the quantity his physician prescribed. But, according to King, his physician never drank less than two bottles of claret after dinner. But King was a water-drinker.[220]Scott says of Swift’s entertainments that they were economical, ‘although his guests, so far as conviviality was consistent with decorum, were welcomed with excellent wine. Swift, who used to declare he was never intoxicated in his life, had nevertheless lived intimately with those at whose tables wine was liberally consumed, and he was not himself averse to the moderate use of it.’ The same author adds that Dr. King said that Swift drank about a pint of claret after dinner, which the doctor considered too much.

On the other hand his satirists accused him of excess. One of them says, ‘He was heard to make some self-denying promises in prayer, that, for the time to come, he would stint himself to two or three bottles in an evening.’[221]Again, the Archbishop of Cashel seems to have known his weak point. In a letter, inviting him on a visit, and giving him minute instructions as to the route, he baits him by the intelligence that he would pass a parson’s cabin where was a private cellar of which the parson kept the key, in which was always a hogshead of the best wine that could be got, in bottles well-corked, upon their side.[222]

His poems often betrayed the flavour of the bottle. Witness hisCountry Quarter Sessions, which begins:—

Three or four parsons full of October,Three or four squires between drunk and sober.

Again, in hisBaucis and Philemon; Goody Baucis in bestirring herself to provide the hermit’s hospitality—

Then stepp’d aside to fetch ‘em drink,Fill’d a large jug up to the brink,And saw it fairly twice go round.

Somerville, the author ofThe Chase, was no doubt fond of the bottle, as we see very clearly from the letter of his friend Shenstone after his death:—

Our old friend Somerville is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion.—Sublatum quærimus.I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense;to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery.

James Quin the tragedian was abon vivant. After being engaged at Drury Lane Theatre, a tavern brawl involved him in law proceedings, and he was obliged for a time to leave the country. His epitaph, by Garrick, depicts the man:—

A plague on Egypt’s arts! I say;Embalm the dead, on senseless clayRich wines and spices waste!Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I,Bound in a precious pickle, lie,Which I shall never taste.Let me embalm this flesh of mineWith turtle fat and Bordeaux wine,And spoil th’ Egyptian trade.Than Humphry’s Duke more happy I;Embalm’d alive, old Quin shall die,A mummy ready made.

Richard Savage lived a very profligate life. Johnson says that ‘in no time of his life was it any part of his character to be the first of the company that desired to separate.’ It was when inebriated that he killed one Mr. James Sinclair, 1727, and was within an ace of being hanged for the same. Lord Tyrconnel, who had been very kind to him, and suddenly dropped him, gives a very bad account of his drinking habits.

He affirmed that it was the constant practice of Mr. Savage to enter a tavern with any company that proposed it, drink the most expensive wines with great profusion, and when the reckoning was demanded, be without money: if, as it often happened, his company were willing to defray his part, the affair ended without any ill consequences; but if they were refractory, and expected that the wine should be paid for by him that drank it, his method of composition was to take them with him to his own apartment, assume the government of the house, and order the butler in an imperious manner to set the best wine in the cellar before his company, who often drank till they forgot the respect due to the house in which they were entertained, indulged themselves in the utmost extravagance of merriment, practised the most licentious frolics, and committed all the outrages of drunkenness.

No wonder Lord Tyrconnel dropped him. Even Savage himself admitted that Lord Tyrconnel ‘often exhorted him to regulate his method of life,and not to spend all his nights in taverns, and that he appeared desirous that he would pass those hours with him, which he so freely bestowed upon others.’ The poor fellow eventually, having estranged all his friends by his petulance as well as his bad habits, got deplorably poor, and ‘wandered about the town, slighted and neglected, in quest of a dinner, which he did not always obtain.’ It was at this period that we read the extraordinary account of him, that ‘he was not able to bear the smell of meat till the action of his stomach was restored by a cordial.’ On one occasion in great distress at Bristol, ‘he received a remittance of five pounds from London, with which he provided himself a decent coat, and determined to go to London, but unhappily spent his money at a favourite tavern.’

The tale goes on, ‘Thus was he again confined to Bristol, where he was every day hunted by bailiffs. In this exigence he once more found a friend, who shelteredhim in his house, though at the usual inconveniences with which his company was attended; for he could neither be persuaded to go to bed in the night nor to rise in the day.’

But if many were the victims of excess, many too were the champions of restraint; and, first of all, we turn to Dr. Samuel Johnson. In his early life he drank wine; let him testify for himself.

In an interesting conversation with an old college friend, one Edwards, held April 17, 1778, he made a remark which Sir Wilfrid Lawson would hail:—

Edwards.How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals and a glass of good wine. I find I require it.Johnson.I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a good deal....Edwards.I am grown old: I am sixty-five.Johnson.I shall be sixty-eight next birthday. Come, sir,drink water, and put in for a hundred.

Edwards.How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals and a glass of good wine. I find I require it.

Johnson.I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine; for many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a good deal....

Edwards.I am grown old: I am sixty-five.

Johnson.I shall be sixty-eight next birthday. Come, sir,drink water, and put in for a hundred.

When he first came to London, at the age of 29, he abstained entirely (testeBoswell) from fermented liquors, ‘a practice to which he rigidly conformed for many years together at different periods of his life.’ Upon this point Croker has a suggestive note, apropos of the effect of drink on hypochondria:—

At this time his abstinence from wine may perhaps be attributed to poverty, but in his subsequent life he was restrained from that indulgence by, as it appears, moral, or rather medical, considerations. He found by experience that wine, though it dissipated for a moment, yet eventually aggravated the hereditary disease under which he suffered; and perhaps it may have been owing to a long course of abstinence that his mental health seems to have been better in the latter than in theearlier portion of his life. He says, in hisPrayers and Meditations(August 17, 1767), ‘By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me; which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find any means of obtaining it.’ These remarks are important, becausedepression of spiritsis too often treated on a contrary system, from ignorance of orinattention to what may beitsrealcause.

Dr. Johnson was very often chiefly indebted toteafor his literary afflatus. ‘The quantities which he drank of the infusion of that fragrant leaf,’ says Boswell, ‘at all hours were so great, that his nerves must have been uncommonly strong, not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it.’ In his defence of Tea against Mr. Jonas Hanway, Johnson describes himself as ‘a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for many years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnights, and with tea welcomes the morning.’ This last phrase his friend, Tom Tyers, happily parodied, ‘teveniente die—tedecedente.’

Boswell often pauses to descant upon

Dr. Johnson’s Temperance.

September 16, 1773.—Last night much care was taken of Dr. Johnson, who was still distressed by his cold. He had hitherto most strangely slept without a nightcap. Miss Macleod made him a large flannel one, and he was prevailed with to drink a little brandy when he was going to bed. He has great virtue in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor because, as he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. Lady Macleod would hardly believe him, and said, ‘I am sure, sir, you would not carry it too far.’—Johnson.‘Nay, madam, it carried me. I took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and, having broken off the habit, I have never returned to it.’

Again, says Boswell:—

A.D. 1776.—Finding him still persevering in his abstinence from wine, I ventured to speak to him of it.—Johnson.Sir, I have no objection to a man’s drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go into excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences. One of the fathers tells us he found fasting made him so peevish that he did not practise it.

Dr. B. W. Richardson’s ideas about the harm done to constitutions by excessive palpitation of the heart (especially under the action of alcohol) seem to have had shadows cast before. Boswell’s hero rather pooh-poohed the idea, in a conversation after dinner at Thrale’s, April 10, 1776:—

Johnson mentioned Dr. Barry’s System of Physic. ‘He was a man,’ said he, ‘who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England, and brought his reputation with him.His notion was, that pulsation occasions death by attrition, and that therefore the way to preserve life is to retard pulsation.But we know that pulsation is strongest in infants, and that we increase in growth while it operates in its regular course; so it cannot well be the cause of destruction.’

This Barry became a Baronet—Sir Edward Barry, Bart.‘He published, in 1775, a curious work on the Wines of the Ancients.’

It should not be forgotten that when Dr. Johnson did drink, he drank heavily. On April 7, 1778, he said he had drunk three bottles of port at a time without being the worse for it. ‘University College has witnessed this.’ He could practise abstinence, but not temperance.

Boswell’s own ideas upon drinking are worth recording:—

I observed [says he of himself, April 12, 1776] that wine did some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and irritating their minds; but that the experience of mankind had declared in favour of moderate drinking.

Sir Joshua Reynolds on the same occasion expressed similar ideas. He argued that ‘a moderate glass enlivened the mind, by giving a proper circulation to the blood.’

Probably Reynolds had studied theFamiliar Lettersof the Historiographer-Royal, Howell, who, as before noticed, thought that ‘good wine makes good blood.’

Johnson lived to see, as he believed, a change for the better, in the direction of temperance.

Anno Domini 1773.—We talked of change of manners. Dr. Johnson observed that our drinking less than our ancestors was owing to the change from ale to wine. ‘I remember,’ said he, ‘when all thedecentpeople in Lichfield got drunk every night, and were not the worse thought of. Ale was cheap, so you pressed strongly. When a man must bring a bottle of wine, he is not in such haste.’ [Johnson was sixty-four at the time.]

It seems strange that Johnson’s influence over his minion’s habits was so slight. At any rate the following anecdote points to this conclusion:—

Lord Eldon tells us, in his ‘Anecdote Book,’ that at an assize in Lancaster about the year 1782, Jemmy Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson, was found dead drunk and stretched upon the pavement. His merry colleagues, of whom the sage Lord Eldon was one, subscribed among them a guinea at supper, which they sent next morning to Boswell, with instructions to move in Court for the writ of ‘Quare adhæsit pavimento.’ In vain did the perplexed and bibulous barrister apply to all the attorneys of his acquaintance for information as to the nature of the writ for which he was instructed to move, and great was the astonishment of the Judge when the application was made to him. At last one of the Bar, amidst the laughter of the Court, exclaimed, ‘My Lord, Mr. Boswell adhæsit pavimento last night. There was no moving him for some time. At length he was carried to bed, and has been dreaming of what happened to himself.’

It is unfortunate that Johnson should have been guilty of thelapsus linguæfor which Bacchanalians have often claimed him as their hero, and by which careful historians have been misled. Mr. Mallet, speaking of the Icelanders of the middle ages, tells that ‘after they had finished eating their boiled horseflesh, they generally sat swilling their ale out of capacious drinking-horns and listening to the lay of a skald, or the tale of a Saga-man, until they were most of them in that happy state of mind, when, according to Johnson, man is alone capable of enjoying the passing moment of his fleeting existence.’ He refers doubtless to a saying of thesavantrecorded by his biographer. Johnson being asked whether a man was not sometimes happy in the moment that was present, answered, ‘Never but when he is drunk.’ Most Johnsonians would readily admit that this was alapsus, a sally of the moment, not his deliberate judgment, such as is obtainable from a set work like his incomparableRasselas. There we read:—‘Intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable.’

Oliver Goldsmith, inThe Bee, has some pungent observations uponale-houses:—

Ale-houses are ever an occasion of debauchery and excess, and either in a religious or political light it would be our highest interest to have the greatest part of them suppressed. They should be put under laws of not continuing open beyond a certain hour, and harbouring only proper persons. These rules, it may be said, will diminish the necessary taxes; but this is false reasoning, since what was consumed in debauchery abroad would, if such a regulation took place, be more justly and perhaps more equitably for the workman’s family spent at home: and this, cheaper to them and without loss of time. On the other hand, our ale-houses, being ever open, interrupt business.

This same delightful author wrote that convivial satire entitledThe Three Pigeons, which he put into the mouth of Tony Lumpkin inShe Stoops to Conquer, of which the following is a part:—

Let schoolmasters puzzle their brainWith grammar, and nonsense, and learning;Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,Givesgenusa better discerning.When Methodist preachers come down,A-preaching that drinking is sinful,I’ll wager the rascals a crown,They always preach best with a skin-full.Then come, put the jorum about,And let us be merry and clever;Our hearts and our liquors are stout,Here’s the Three Jolly Pigeons for ever!

Shenstone, another contemporary poet, though he spent so large a portion of his time in adorning The Leasowes, till he had made it a kind of rural paradise, could also rave about thefreedomof aninn:—

‘Tis here with boundless power I reign,And every health which I beginConverts dull port to bright champagne;Such freedom crowns it at an inn.Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round,Where’er his stages may have been,May sigh to think he still has foundThe warmest welcome at an inn.

And the same spirit breathes again in theDeserted Villageof Goldsmith. The village ale-house is clearly included among the ‘simple blessings of the lowly train.’ Yet there is nothing to condemn in the sentiments there expressed, and we may echo the words of Sir Walter Scott:—

The wreath of Goldsmith is unsullied; he wrote to exalt virtue and expose vice; and he accomplished his task in a manner which raises him to the highest rank among British authors.

But we pass on to notice the man who did more than any one of his time to expose vice, and in particular the vice of intemperance. And this is not surprising when we consider the remarkable manner in which his genius for painting discovered itself.

Going out one Sunday with some companions to Highgate, they went into an inn, where they had not been long, before a quarrel arose between some persons in the same room. One of the disputants struck the other on the head with a quart pot, which cut him badly, and the blood ran down his face freely. This, with the contortions of his countenance, afforded a striking object to Hogarth, who drew out his pencil and sketched the scene.

It will be sufficient for the present purpose to note the part which drink plays in hisMarriage à la Mode, theRake’s Progress, and in two miscellaneous Plates. In the first mentioned, Counsellor Silvertongue begins his vile work of ensnaring the Viscountess by offering her a glass of light wine at an interval between the dances. Plate ii. represents the Viscount returning home the day after the entertainment. His appearance denotes that he has been involved in some drunken fray. Plate vi. depicts ‘sin when it is finished,’ the suicide of the beguiled Viscountess by means of laudanum.

Plate iii. of theRake’s Progressillustrates the ‘orgie at the Rose Tavern.’ Young Rakewell is lavishly expending his money in plying with drink the caressing courtesans. He himself becomes intoxicated, and is of course robbed of his watch and jewellery; one of the wretched women, in a fit of rage, sets fire to a map of the world, swearing that she will burn the entire globeand herself with it. The reflections of the morrow can be easily imagined.

InGin Lane, the artist portrays a loathsome neighbourhood, the presiding genius of which isgin. To procure it no means are left untried. Every article of domestic comfort, even to the meanest shred of raiment, is carried to the pawnbroker for the wherewithal to purchase gin. The influence of this fire-water is everywhere apparent; in the ruined dwellings, in the sickly looks, in the emaciated frames, trembling limbs, carious teeth, livid lips, and sunken eyes. The very children in that region are habituated from the cradle to love gin. The one house that thrives is that of the pawnbroker. The details are agonising! a child ravenous, gnawing a bare bone, which a dog, equally the victim of famine, is snatching from him. A woman is seen pouring a dram down the throat of an infant. In a ruined house, the corpse of a hanging suicide is displayed. A drunken object is drawn, in female shape, whose legs have broken out in horrible ulcers, and who is taking snuff, regardless of her child slipping from her arms into the low area of the gin vault. Gin too has killed the female whom we see two men placing in a shell by order of the beadle, while the orphan child is being conveyed to the Union.

Well did the Reverend James Townley underwrite:—

Gin, cursed fiend! with fury fraught,Makes human race a prey;It enters by a deadly draughtAnd steals our life away.Virtue and Truth, driv’n to despair,Its rage compels to fly;But cherishes, with hellish care,Theft, Murder, Perjury.Damn’d cup! that on the vitals preys,That liquid fire contains,Which madness to the heart conveys,And rolls it through the veins.

The general design of the PlateBeer Streetis to expose the deadly habit of gin-drinking, and to teach that if man must drink strong liquors, beer is far the best to indulge in.

Edward Young, courtier, poet, rector, a general genius, satirised tea and wine as abused by the women of his day. After bemoaning the hecatomb sacrificed upon the altar oftea, he exclaims:—

But this inhuman triumph shall decline,And thy revolting Naiads call for wine;Spirits no longer shall serve under thee,But reign in thy own cup, exploded Tea!Citronia’s nose declares thy ruin nigh;And who dares give Citronia’s nose the lie?The ladies long at men of drink exclaimed,And what impaired both health and virtue blamed.At length, to rescue man, the generous lassStole from her consort the pernicious glass,As glorious as the British Queen renown’dWho suck’d the poison from her husband’s wound.

Another champion of temperance was John Armstrong, who wrote in 1744The Art of Preserving Health. But he was no ascetic, for he writes:—

When you smoothThe brows of care, indulge your festive veinIn cups by well-informed experience foundThe least your bane, and only with your friends.

The effects of a surfeit of drink he has most ably drawn:—

But most too passive, when the blood runs low,Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,And bravely by resisting conquer fate,Try Circe’s arts; and in the tempting bowlOf poisoned nectar sweet oblivion swill.Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolvesIn empty air; Elysium opens round,A pleasing frenzy buoys the lightened soul,And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;And what was difficult, and what was dire,Yields to your prowess and superior stars:The happiest you of all that e’er were mad,Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloomShuts o’er your head; and, as the thundering stream,Swollen o’er its banks with sudden mountain rain,Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook,So, when the frantic raptures in your breastSubside, you languish into mortal man;You sleep, and waking find yourself undone,For, prodigal of life, in one rash nightYou lavished more than might support three days.A heavy morning comes; your cares returnWith tenfold rage. An anxious stomach wellMay be endured; so may the throbbing head;But such a dim delirium, such a dream,Involves you; such a dastardly despairUnmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus felt,When, baited round Cithæron’s cruel sides,He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.

How does this remind of the rich fool in the parable! The earlier lines of irony seem almost taken in idea from some sentiments of Hafiz, the favourite poet of the Persians.

I am [says he] neither a judge nor a priest, nor a censor, nor a lawyer; why should I forbid the use of wine?Do not be vexed at the trifles of the world; drink, for it is folly for a wise man to be afflicted....The only friends who are free from care are a goblet of wine and a book of odes.Give me wine! wine that shall subdue the strongest: that I may for a time forget the cares and troubles of the world.

I am [says he] neither a judge nor a priest, nor a censor, nor a lawyer; why should I forbid the use of wine?

Do not be vexed at the trifles of the world; drink, for it is folly for a wise man to be afflicted....

The only friends who are free from care are a goblet of wine and a book of odes.

Give me wine! wine that shall subdue the strongest: that I may for a time forget the cares and troubles of the world.

Armstrong joined in the general growl at the substitution of port for the lighter French wine.

In describing a man’s sensations on awaking he says:—

You curse the sluggish port, you curse the wretch,The felon, with unnatural mixture, firstWho dared to violate the virgin wine.

Again, when speaking of wholesome wine, he praises:—

The gay, serene, good-natured Burgundy,Or the fresh fragrant vintage of the Rhine.

Again, he describes Burgundy as the drink for gentlemen, and port as an abomination:—

The man to well-bred Burgundy brought up,Will start the smack ofMethuenin the cup.

What Armstrong said one hundred and thirty years ago I entreat my medical brethren to believe now. I repeat it: if you want to prescribespirits, do so; if you want to givewine, givepurewine. One bottle of good Burgundy will give twice the flavour and half the spirit that port does.[223]

In 1735 was publishedA Friendly Admonition to the Drinkers of Brandy and other Distilled Spirituous Liquors. The author laments that man has found means to extract from what God intended for his refreshment, a most pernicious and intoxicating liquor. Singularly does this anonymous writer anticipate the results of modern inquiries. He tells us that distilled liquorscoagulate and thicken the blood, contract and narrow the blood-vessels, as has been proved byexperiments purposely made.

Whence [says he] we may evidently see the reason why those liquors do so frequently causeObstructionsandStoppagesin theLiver; whence theJaundice,Dropsy, and many other fatal Diseases: It is in like manner also that they destroy and burn up theLungstoo: Hence also it is, that by frequently contracting and shrivelling, and then soon after relaxing, they weaken and wear out the Substance and Coats of the Stomach, on which they more immediately prey, every time they are drank: Hence, I say, it is, that these spirituous Liquors rarely fail to destroy the Appetite and Digestion of those who habituate themselves to them; for by drying up, and spoiling the Nerves, they make them insensible; they destroy also many of the very fine Blood-Vessels, especially where their Fibres are most tender, as in the Brain; whereby they spoil the Memory and intellectual Faculties: And by thus inflaming the Blood, and disordering the Blood Vessels and Nerves, they vitiate and deprave theNatural Temper.When first drank, they seem to comfort the Stomach, by contracting its too relaxed and flabby Fibres, and also to warm the Blood; but as the Warmth which they give, on mixing with the Blood, soon goes off, as it is in fact found to do, when we mix Brandy with Blood; so also the spirituous Part of the Brandy being soon dissolved, and soaking into the watery Humours of the Body, it can no longer contract and warm the Substance and Coats of the Stomach and other Parts; which therefore as soon relaxing, the unhappy persons are thereby in a little time reduced to a cold, languid, and dispirited state, which gives them so much uneasiness that they are impatient to get out of it by Supplies of the same deadly Liquor, which, instead of curing, daily increases their Disease more and more.

When first drank, they seem to comfort the Stomach, by contracting its too relaxed and flabby Fibres, and also to warm the Blood; but as the Warmth which they give, on mixing with the Blood, soon goes off, as it is in fact found to do, when we mix Brandy with Blood; so also the spirituous Part of the Brandy being soon dissolved, and soaking into the watery Humours of the Body, it can no longer contract and warm the Substance and Coats of the Stomach and other Parts; which therefore as soon relaxing, the unhappy persons are thereby in a little time reduced to a cold, languid, and dispirited state, which gives them so much uneasiness that they are impatient to get out of it by Supplies of the same deadly Liquor, which, instead of curing, daily increases their Disease more and more.

But the worst is not yet told.

As when immediately put into the Veins of an Animal they cause sudden Death, so when drank in a large Quantity at once, they coagulate and thicken the Blood to such a degreeas to kill instantly: And when they are not drank in such Quantities as to kill immediately, but are daily used, then, besides many other Diseases, they are apt to breedPolypuses, or fleshy Substances in the Heart, by thickening the Blood there; whichPolypuses, as they grow larger and larger, do, by hindering and retarding the Motion of the Blood through the Heart, thereby farther contribute to the Faintness and Dispiritedness of those unhappy Persons, and at length, by totally stopping the Course of the Blood, do as effectually kill, as if a Dart had been struck thro’ the Liver.

And again, speaking of these same spirituous liquors, he adds:—

Some may indeed be more palatable than others,but they are all in a manner equally pernicious and dangerous, that are of an equal Strength; and those most destructive and deadly, which are the strongest, that is, which have most Spirit in them. WhichSpiritbeing of a very harsh, fiery, and acrimonious Nature, as it is found to seize on and harden raw Flesh put into it; so does it greatly injure the Stomach, Bowels, Liver, and all other Parts of human Bodies, especially the Nerves; which being the immediate and principal Instruments of Life and Action, hence it is, that it so remarkably enfeebles the habitual Drinkers of it; and also depraves the Memory, by hardening and spoiling the Substance of the Brain, which is the Seat of Life, and this is an Inconvenience which the great Drinkers ofPunchoften find, as well as theDramDrinkers.

Fifteen years later (1751) a Scotchman, James Burgh (cousin to the historian Robertson), wroteA warning to Dram-Drinkers. Would that it had been effectual!

At this timeciderseems to have risen to the dignity of civic feasts. At a feast held Nov. 5th, 1737, at an inn, the following are the charges:—

No bill for feast or treat at any place ... was found to have any mention of cider as used at table, and charged for with beer and ale before this one.[224]

In 1746A Bowl of Punchappears as a novelty in the bill of a corporation dinner. When Coade was Mayor in 1737, sixteen bowls of punch were drunk at a corporation banquet.

Whitsun-aleswere still in force. In the postscript of a letter from a minister to his parishioners in the Deanery of Stow, Gloucestershire, 1736, the author writes:—

What I have now been desiring you to consider as touching the evil and pernicious consequences ofWhitsun-alesamong us, doth also obtain against Dovers Meeting ... and also againstMidsummer AlesandMead-mowings; and likewise against the ordinary violations of those festival seasons commonly calledWakes.

In the year 1735 occurred a scene which fairly gives colour to theSecret History of the Calves’ Head Club. The following account is given in the letters of L’Abbé Le Blanc:—

Some young men of quality chose to abandon themselves to the debauchery of drinking healths on the 30th of January, a day appointed by the Church of England for a general fast, to expiate the murder of Charles I., whom they honour as a martyr. As soon as they were heated with wine, they began to sing. This gave great offence to the people, who stopped before the tavern, and gave them abusive language. One of these rash young men put his head out of the window and drank to the memory of the army which dethroned this king, and to the rebels which cut off his head upon a scaffold. The stones immediately flew from all parts, the furious populace broke the windows of the house, and would have set fire to it.

The Chapter Coffeehouse was opened at this time, famous for punch, pamphlets, and newspapers. Buchan, ofDomestic Medicinefame, was anhabitué; so was Dr. Gower.

These eminent physicians sat and prescribed for the maladies of their mates,Chapter punch; ‘If one won’t do, call for a second.’ But clubs, whatever they may have been, are anything but unfavourable to temperancenow. The worst that can be honestly thought of them is—that theymayminister to selfishness.

Thus are clubs an exception to the usual tendency of the moral law of gravitation—downwards. What is there in common, save the name, between theAthenæumof to-day, and theRoxburgheof the beginning of the century?

The entertainments of the latter have found their way into print under the title ‘Roxburghe Revels; or, An Account of the Annual Display, culinary and festivous, interspersed incidentally with matters of Moment or Merryment.’[225]

George III. was an example ofmoderation. One of his biographers, Edward Holt, observes:—

Exercise, air, and little diet were the grand fundamentals in the King’s idea of health and sprightliness: his Majesty fed chiefly on vegetables and drank little wine. The Queen was what many private gentlewomen styled whimsically abstemious.

The story is told that at Worcester, the mayor, knowing that the King never took drink before dinner, asked him if he would be pleased to take a jelly, when the King replied: ‘I do not recollect drinking a glass of wine before dinner in my life, yet upon this pleasing occasionI will venture.’ A glass of rich oldMountainwas served, when his Majesty immediately drank ‘Prosperity to the Corporation and Citizens of Worcester.’ This occurred in the twenty-eighth year of the King’s reign (1788). The rigid rule was still observed by his Majesty, as we learn from an incident which occurred twelve years later. One morning, when visiting as usual his stables, the King heard the following conversation between the grooms: ‘I don’t care what you say, Robert, but every one agrees that the man at theThree Tunsmakes the best purl in Windsor.’ ‘Purl, purl!’ said the King, quickly. ‘Robert, what’s purl?’ This was explained to be warm beer with a glass of gin, &c. His Majesty listened attentively, and turning round, said: ‘I dare say, very good drink, but too strong for the morning; never drink in a morning.’

In the description of the King’s visit to Whitbread’s brewery, we learn incidentally the large scale on which even then the wholesale trade was conducted—e.g.in the great store were three thousand and seven barrels of beer. The stone cistern, into which he entered, held four thousand barrels of beer. The royal party were offered some of Whitbread’sentire.

The King drank and responded totoasts. Thus, at a dinner ofThe Knights, we read that towards the end of the first course, a large gilt cup was brought to the Sovereign by the cupbearer. The King drank to the knights, who, being at his Majesty’s command, informed of the same by Garter, stood up uncovered, pledged the King, and then sat down.

At the jubilee, the commemoration of the fiftieth year of the King’s reign, the mayor at the banquet gave ‘The King, God bless him, and long may he reign over a free and united people,’ which was drunk with threetimes three.

The general habits of the time formed a striking contrast to the personal example of the King. In the recently issued elaborateLife of George IV., by Percy Fitzgerald, we get a picture into the social manners and customs prevailing about 1787:—

‘How the men of business and the great orators of the House of Commons contrive to reconcile it with their exertions I cannot conceive,’ writes that most charming of public men, Sir Gilbert Elliot, to his wife. ‘Men of all ages drink abominably. Fox (a Prime Minister) drinks what I should call a great deal, though he is not reckoned to do so by his companions; Sheridan (M.P. and dramatist, and withal the bosom friend of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV.) excessively; and Grey (Viscount Howick) more than any of them. But it is in a much more gentlemanly way than our Scotch drunkards, and is always accompanied with lively clever conversation on subjects of importance. Pitt (a Prime Minister), I am told, drinks as much as anybody.’The same observer, Sir Gilbert Elliot (1787), describes a scene at W. Crewe’s, where three young men of fashion, Mr. Orlando Bridgman, Mr. Charles Greville, of the Picnic Club, and Mr. Gifford were so drunk, ‘as to puzzle the whole assembly.’ The last was a young gentleman lately come out, of a good estate of about five thousand pounds a year, the whole of which he is in the act of spending in one or two years at least (125,000l.), and this without a grain of sense, without any fun to himself or entertainment to others. He never uttered a word, though as drunk as the other two, who were both riotous, and began at last to talk so plain, that Lady Francis and Lady Valentine fled from the side table to ours, and Mrs. Sheridan would have followed them, but did not escape till her arms were black and blue, and her apron torn off.Pitt, the model young minister, broke down in the house in the following year, owing to a debauch the night before at Lord Buckingham’s, when, in company with Dundas and the Duke of Gordon, he took too much wine.Indeed, the manners and customs of the times (1780-1830) might be called a ‘precious school’ for the young princes (Prince of Wales, Dukes of York, Cumberland, and Kent), and there was no public opinion to check these vices.The lawlessness that was abroad reached even to the young, who disdained the control of their parents.

The same observer, Sir Gilbert Elliot (1787), describes a scene at W. Crewe’s, where three young men of fashion, Mr. Orlando Bridgman, Mr. Charles Greville, of the Picnic Club, and Mr. Gifford were so drunk, ‘as to puzzle the whole assembly.’ The last was a young gentleman lately come out, of a good estate of about five thousand pounds a year, the whole of which he is in the act of spending in one or two years at least (125,000l.), and this without a grain of sense, without any fun to himself or entertainment to others. He never uttered a word, though as drunk as the other two, who were both riotous, and began at last to talk so plain, that Lady Francis and Lady Valentine fled from the side table to ours, and Mrs. Sheridan would have followed them, but did not escape till her arms were black and blue, and her apron torn off.

Pitt, the model young minister, broke down in the house in the following year, owing to a debauch the night before at Lord Buckingham’s, when, in company with Dundas and the Duke of Gordon, he took too much wine.

Indeed, the manners and customs of the times (1780-1830) might be called a ‘precious school’ for the young princes (Prince of Wales, Dukes of York, Cumberland, and Kent), and there was no public opinion to check these vices.

The lawlessness that was abroad reached even to the young, who disdained the control of their parents.

To the same effect writes Dr. Doran:—

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