Any one who will take the trouble to go carefully through the columns of the ill-printed newspapers of the last century, will find that drunkenness, dissoluteness, and the sword hanging on every fool’s thigh ready to do his bidding, were the characteristics of the period. People got drunk at dinners, and then slew one another, or in some other way broke the law.
Any one who will take the trouble to go carefully through the columns of the ill-printed newspapers of the last century, will find that drunkenness, dissoluteness, and the sword hanging on every fool’s thigh ready to do his bidding, were the characteristics of the period. People got drunk at dinners, and then slew one another, or in some other way broke the law.
Thetavernswere crowded with morning drinkers. On the site occupied by the Bank of England, four inns used to stand; one of them was calledThe Crown. Sir John Hawkins, in hisHistory of Musick, mentions that it was not unusual to draw a butt (120 gallons) in half-pints in the course of a single morning.
The drinking at theUniversitieswas terrible.
Henry Gunning, M.A., Christ’s College, Cambridge (a descendant of the Bishop of Ely, who wrote the prayer for the Church Militant), had great opportunities of judging of the Cambridge of his day, for he was born 1768 in a Cambridgeshire vicarage, went up to Cambridge at an early age, was made Esquire Bedell 1789, and continued in that capacity till his death early in 1854. In his charmingReminiscences of the University, Town, and County of Cambridge, from the year 1780, he observes:—
Drunkenness was the besetting sin of the period when I came to college. I need scarcely add that many other vices followed in its train.
Drunkenness was the besetting sin of the period when I came to college. I need scarcely add that many other vices followed in its train.
Again, speaking of a college friend:—
I do not remember ever to have seen him guilty of drunkenness,at that time almost universal.
I do not remember ever to have seen him guilty of drunkenness,at that time almost universal.
Again (pp. 147-148):—
For many years during Rev. Charles Simeon’s ministry (I speak from my own personal knowledge) Trinity Church and the streets leading to it were the scenes of the most disgraceful tumults. On one occasion an undergraduate, who had been apprehended by Simeon, was compelled to read a public apology in the church. Mr. Simeon made a prefatory address: ‘We have long borne during public worship with the most indecent conduct from those whose situation in life should have made them sensible of the heinousness of such offences; we have seen persons coming into this place in a state of intoxication; we have seen them walking about the aisles, notwithstanding there are persons appointed to show them into seats; we have seen them coming in and going out without the slightest reverence or decorum; we have seen them insulting modest persons, both in and after divine service; in short, the devotions of the congregation have been disturbed by almost every species of ill conduct.’
For many years during Rev. Charles Simeon’s ministry (I speak from my own personal knowledge) Trinity Church and the streets leading to it were the scenes of the most disgraceful tumults. On one occasion an undergraduate, who had been apprehended by Simeon, was compelled to read a public apology in the church. Mr. Simeon made a prefatory address: ‘We have long borne during public worship with the most indecent conduct from those whose situation in life should have made them sensible of the heinousness of such offences; we have seen persons coming into this place in a state of intoxication; we have seen them walking about the aisles, notwithstanding there are persons appointed to show them into seats; we have seen them coming in and going out without the slightest reverence or decorum; we have seen them insulting modest persons, both in and after divine service; in short, the devotions of the congregation have been disturbed by almost every species of ill conduct.’
About 1788, Gunning was for some time a tutor in Herefordshire; there he observed that immense quantities of cider were drunk:—
In years when apples were abundant, the labourers in husbandry were allowed to drink as much cider as they thought proper. It was no unusual thing for a man to put his lips to a wooden bottle containing four quarts, and not remove them until he had emptied it. I have myself witnessed this exploit; but I never ventured to mention a circumstance apparently so incredible, until I read Marshall’sHistory of Herefordshire, in which he relates the same fact.
In years when apples were abundant, the labourers in husbandry were allowed to drink as much cider as they thought proper. It was no unusual thing for a man to put his lips to a wooden bottle containing four quarts, and not remove them until he had emptied it. I have myself witnessed this exploit; but I never ventured to mention a circumstance apparently so incredible, until I read Marshall’sHistory of Herefordshire, in which he relates the same fact.
George Pryme (b.1781,obiit1868) in hisAutobiographic Recollections, 1870, fully confirms Gunning’s picture of Cambridge:—
When I first went to Cambridge [in 1799] the habit of hard drinking was almost as prevalent there as it was in country society....‘Buzzing,’ unknown in the present day, was then universal. When the decanter came round to any one, if it was nearly emptied, the next in succession could require him to finish it; but if the quantity left exceeded the bumper, the challenger was obliged to drink the remainder and also a bumper out of the next fresh bottle. There was throughout these parties an endeavour to make each other drunk, and a pride in being able to resist the effects of the wine.
When I first went to Cambridge [in 1799] the habit of hard drinking was almost as prevalent there as it was in country society....
‘Buzzing,’ unknown in the present day, was then universal. When the decanter came round to any one, if it was nearly emptied, the next in succession could require him to finish it; but if the quantity left exceeded the bumper, the challenger was obliged to drink the remainder and also a bumper out of the next fresh bottle. There was throughout these parties an endeavour to make each other drunk, and a pride in being able to resist the effects of the wine.
This Pryme was a person of distinction; sometime Fellow of Trinity, first Professor of Political Economy in Cambridge University, and thrice M.P. for the Borough. Moreover he was no teetotaller; though a moderate man, he had full belief in themedicinalvirtue of brandy. And he had reason; for he says:—
In the winter of 1788-9 I was attacked by a severe fever, and was attended by Dr. Storer of Nottingham, the most eminent physician in that part of the country. After prescribing every medicine that he could think of as suitable to the case, he called one evening on my mother but declined seeing me, as he said everything had been tried, and that giving more medicine was only harassing me in vain. He however asked a few questions about me, and was told that I had repeatedly begged for brandy. He mixed some in a wine-glass with water, which I eagerly drank and asked for more; he then mixed a second glass. The next forenoon he called to inquire if I was still alive, and was told that I had had a good night and was much better. He saw me, and from that time I steadily recovered.
In the winter of 1788-9 I was attacked by a severe fever, and was attended by Dr. Storer of Nottingham, the most eminent physician in that part of the country. After prescribing every medicine that he could think of as suitable to the case, he called one evening on my mother but declined seeing me, as he said everything had been tried, and that giving more medicine was only harassing me in vain. He however asked a few questions about me, and was told that I had repeatedly begged for brandy. He mixed some in a wine-glass with water, which I eagerly drank and asked for more; he then mixed a second glass. The next forenoon he called to inquire if I was still alive, and was told that I had had a good night and was much better. He saw me, and from that time I steadily recovered.
The habits of a University are very fair tests of the habits of the more affluent, and upper middle classes of the nation. Outside this for the most part is the great class generally known astradesmen. Probably nothing has contributed so much to the deterioration of this class, as the almost invariable habit of spending theevening in some hotel or tavern. It is still common in Germany. It is much to be hoped that it is dying out in England. Charles Knight, in hisPassages of a Working Life, seems to speak of it as universally the case early in the present century. He speaks of the tradesmen as habitually
Sallying forth to spend their long evenings in their accustomed chairs at the ale-house, which had become their second home. Some had a notion that they secured custom to the shop by a constant round among the numerous hostelries. I knew a most worthy man, occupying a large house which his forefathers had occupied from the time of Queen Anne, who, when he gave up the business to his son, who, recently married, preferred his own fireside, told the innovator that he would infallibly be ruined if he did not go out to make friends over his evening glass.
Sallying forth to spend their long evenings in their accustomed chairs at the ale-house, which had become their second home. Some had a notion that they secured custom to the shop by a constant round among the numerous hostelries. I knew a most worthy man, occupying a large house which his forefathers had occupied from the time of Queen Anne, who, when he gave up the business to his son, who, recently married, preferred his own fireside, told the innovator that he would infallibly be ruined if he did not go out to make friends over his evening glass.
But does not every grade in society sensibly or insensibly take its cue from thatimmediatelyabove it? And what were those who should have set a virtuous example doing? How much have such men to answer for, as Byron, Porson, Pitt, Fox, Sheridan, Smart, Lamb, and Churchill!
Of the first named, it has been observed that when he was not impairing a naturally delicate constitution with drastic medicines and protracted fasts, he would sometimes eat and drink excessively. And this was especially the case in fits of mortification. Everyone will remember the circumstance of theEdinburgh Reviewproscribing Byron’s early production,Hours of Idleness. Though he affected indifference, and spoke of the critique as a paper bullet of the brain, yet he afterwards acknowledged that he tried to drown his irritation on the day he read it with three bottles of claret after dinner. His excesses of all kinds, in his continental life, are matters of history. They are usually considered to have contributed to terminate his fever fatally. This recalls hisclever lines:—
On a Carrier who died of Drunkenness.
John Adams lies here, of the parish of Southwell:Acarrierwhocarriedhis can to his mouth well;Hecarriedso much, and hecarriedso fast,He couldcarryno more, so wascarriedat last;For the liquor he drank being too much for one,He could notcarryoff, so he’s nowcarrion.
Charles Churchill, the author of theRosciad, was a sad drunkard. The caricature drawn of him by Hogarth will be remembered. A number of them had met as usual at their whist club in theBedford Armsparlour. There it was that Churchill insulted Hogarth, called him a ‘very shallow fellow,’ and afterwards in writing derided the man, his productions, and his belongings. Hogarth revenged the sneer. He converted an old copper-plate into a palimpsest, on which he drew a caricature of Churchill as a growling bear with the ragged canonicals of a parson (for such the poet had been), a pot of porter by his side, and a ragged staff in his paw, each knot inscribed ‘lye.’
Theodore Hook was a highly convivial man. In a memoir of this once popular man, it is stated that the disorder under which he long laboured arose from a diseased state of the liver and stomach, brought on partly by anxiety, but chiefly, it is to be feared, by that habit of over indulgence at table, the curse of colonial life. (At the instance of the Prince Regent he had obtained a Government appointment in the Mauritius.)
A stanza of his own composition reveals in brief the man:—
Then now I’m resolved at all sorrows to blink—Since winking’s the tippy I’ll tip ‘em the wink,I’ll never get drunk when I cannot get drink,Nor ever let misery bore me.I sneer at the Fates, and I laugh at their spite,I sit down contented to sit up all night,And when my time comes, from the world take my flight,For—my father did so before me.[226]
The name of Charles Lamb will naturally suggest itself. Of him one would fain observe silence in this connection. He must at any rate speak for himself: ‘A small eater but not drinker.’ He acknowledges a partiality for the production of the juniper. This would probably prepossess Hazlitt, who observes in hisThoughts and Maxims: ‘We like a convivial character better than an abstemious one, because the idea of conviviality in the first instance is pleasanter than that of sobriety.’ Lamb considered it a great qualification in his father that he made punch better than any man of his degree in England. C. Lamb was a schoolfellow of S. T. Coleridge, and something more—a friend, not of a day, but of a life. Severed during the University career of the Lake poet, the friendship was maintained by occasional visits of the latter to town, where at theSalutation and Cat, they supped, heard the midnight chimes, and possibly heard the clock strike one several times, in the little smoky room now historical. More than twenty years passed, and Lamb is found dedicating his works, then first collected, to the same old friend. Meantime, countless letters pass between them; on Lamb’s part the lower side of the convivial blending too freely with the literary. Does he anticipate a visit to his friend? The joy is infinitely heightened by the prospect of the tavern and the ‘egg-hot.’ Nor does he blush to confess ‘I am writing at random, and half tipsy.’
In hisThe Old Familiar Faces, he writes:—
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom-cronies,All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Reference need not be made to that terribly tragical dissertation in his incomparableEssays of Elia, entitledThe Confessions of a Drunkard. The passage which begins: ‘The waters have gone over me, but out of the dark depths could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have set foot on that perilous flood,’ is familiar to most lovers of literature. But whether the dismal language is the mirror of his own experience, may remain a moot point. However, facts contradict the assertion of Barry Cornwall, that ‘much injustice has been done to Lamb, by accusing him of excess in drinking,’ and Hazlitt was perfectly justified in unequivocally stating what he had taken scrupulous pains to verify. Thus much admitted, we may endorse the sentiment expressed so feelingly:—
We admire his genius; we love the kind nature which appears in all his writings; and we cherish his memory as much as if we had known him personally.[227]
We admire his genius; we love the kind nature which appears in all his writings; and we cherish his memory as much as if we had known him personally.[227]
From the social man of letters, we turn to one who moved in a far wider circle; who, in Byron’s opinion, wrote the best comedy, the best opera, the best farce, the best address, and delivered the very best oration ever conceived or heard in this country—Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He, like Lamb, can be judged out of his own mouth. It was he who with piquant humour declared that he could drink with advantage anygivenquantity of wine. Wine, says his biographer, Tom Moore, was oneof his favourite helps to inspiration: ‘If the thought (he would say) is slow to come, a glass of good wine encourages it, and when itdoescome, a glass of good wine rewards it.’ To the same effect, Leigh Hunt remarks: ‘His table songs are always admirable. When he was drinking wine he was thoroughly in earnest.’ Lady Holland, at whose house Sheridan was a constant guest, told Moore that he used to take a bottle of wine and a book up to bed with him always; theformeralone intended for use. He took spirits with his morning tea or coffee, and on his way from Holland House to town, invariably stopped at the old roadside inn, theAdam and Eve, where he ran up a long bill which Lord Holland was left the privilege of paying.
In the very amusing and instructiveReminiscences of Captain Gronow, speaking of Sheridan’s prosperity, the author urges:—
Many of the follies and extravagances that marked the life of this gifted but reckless personage must be attributed to the times in which he existed. Drinking was the fashion of the day. The Prince [Regent], Mr. Pitt, Dundas, the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and many others who gave the tone to society, would, if they now appeared at an evening party, ‘as was their custom of an afternoon,’ be pronounced fit for nothing but bed. A three-bottle man was not an unusual guest at a fashionable table; and the night was invariably spent in drinking bad port wine to an enormous extent.
Many of the follies and extravagances that marked the life of this gifted but reckless personage must be attributed to the times in which he existed. Drinking was the fashion of the day. The Prince [Regent], Mr. Pitt, Dundas, the Lord Chancellor Eldon, and many others who gave the tone to society, would, if they now appeared at an evening party, ‘as was their custom of an afternoon,’ be pronounced fit for nothing but bed. A three-bottle man was not an unusual guest at a fashionable table; and the night was invariably spent in drinking bad port wine to an enormous extent.
The same writer observes:—
Drinking and play were more universally indulged in then [about 1814] than at the present time, and many men still living must remember the couple of bottles of port at least which accompanied his dinner in those days.... The dinner-party, commencing at seven or eight, frequently did not break up before one in the morning. There were then four and even five-bottle men; and the only thing that saved them was drinking very slowly, and out of very small glasses. The learned head of the law, Lord Eldon, and his brother Lord Stowell, used to say that they had drunk more bad port than any two men in England; indeed, the former was rather apt to be overtaken, and to speak occasionally somewhat thicker than natural after long and heavy potations. The late Lords Panmure, Dufferin, and Blayney, wonderful to relate, were six-bottle men at this time; and I really think that if the good society of 1815 could appear before their more moderate descendants, in the state they were generally reduced to after dinner, the moderns would pronounce their ancestors fit for nothing but bed.
Drinking and play were more universally indulged in then [about 1814] than at the present time, and many men still living must remember the couple of bottles of port at least which accompanied his dinner in those days.... The dinner-party, commencing at seven or eight, frequently did not break up before one in the morning. There were then four and even five-bottle men; and the only thing that saved them was drinking very slowly, and out of very small glasses. The learned head of the law, Lord Eldon, and his brother Lord Stowell, used to say that they had drunk more bad port than any two men in England; indeed, the former was rather apt to be overtaken, and to speak occasionally somewhat thicker than natural after long and heavy potations. The late Lords Panmure, Dufferin, and Blayney, wonderful to relate, were six-bottle men at this time; and I really think that if the good society of 1815 could appear before their more moderate descendants, in the state they were generally reduced to after dinner, the moderns would pronounce their ancestors fit for nothing but bed.
Sheridan’s success in life, as well as his attachment to party, was mainly owing to his connection with one of whom we shall next speak, viz. Charles James Fox. A few months after his first appointment to office, Walpole went to the House to hear the young orator, and he tells us—
Fox’s abilities are amazing at so very early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat up drinking all night, and had not been in bed.
Fox’s abilities are amazing at so very early a period, especially under the circumstances of such a dissolute life. He was just arrived from Newmarket, had sat up drinking all night, and had not been in bed.
More than once is he said to have taken his place in the House of Commons in a state of absolute intoxication.
Mr. George Otto Trevelyan, M.P., gives in hisEarly History of Charles James Foxa very bad picture of the drinking habits of great men in England at that period.
These were the days when the Duke of Grafton, the Premier, lived openly with Miss Nancy Parsons.Rigby, the Paymaster of the Forces, had only one merit, that he drank fair. He used brandy as the rest of the world used small beer.Lord Weymouth, grandson of Lord Cartaret, had more than his grandfather’s capacity for liquor, and a fair portion of his abilities. He constantly boozed till daylight, even when a Secretary of State. His occasional speeches were extolled by his admirers as preternaturally sagacious, and his severest critics admitted them to be pithy. Walpole made the following smart hit at him: ‘If I paid nobody, and went drunk to bed every morning at six, I might expect to be called out of bed by two in the afternoon to save the nation, and govern the House of Lords by two or three sentences as profound and short as the proverbs of Solomon.’ ‘They tell me, Sir John,’ said George the Third to one of his favourites, ‘that you love a glass of wine.’ ‘Those who have so informed your Majesty,’ was the reply, ‘have done me great injustice; they should have said a bottle.’ ‘Two of the friends of Philip Francis, without any sense of having performed an exceptional feat, finished between them a gallon and a half of Champagne and Burgundy, a debauch which in this unheroic age it almost makes one ill to read of.’
These were the days when the Duke of Grafton, the Premier, lived openly with Miss Nancy Parsons.Rigby, the Paymaster of the Forces, had only one merit, that he drank fair. He used brandy as the rest of the world used small beer.Lord Weymouth, grandson of Lord Cartaret, had more than his grandfather’s capacity for liquor, and a fair portion of his abilities. He constantly boozed till daylight, even when a Secretary of State. His occasional speeches were extolled by his admirers as preternaturally sagacious, and his severest critics admitted them to be pithy. Walpole made the following smart hit at him: ‘If I paid nobody, and went drunk to bed every morning at six, I might expect to be called out of bed by two in the afternoon to save the nation, and govern the House of Lords by two or three sentences as profound and short as the proverbs of Solomon.’ ‘They tell me, Sir John,’ said George the Third to one of his favourites, ‘that you love a glass of wine.’ ‘Those who have so informed your Majesty,’ was the reply, ‘have done me great injustice; they should have said a bottle.’ ‘Two of the friends of Philip Francis, without any sense of having performed an exceptional feat, finished between them a gallon and a half of Champagne and Burgundy, a debauch which in this unheroic age it almost makes one ill to read of.’
The sobriety of Pitt has been the subject of much debate. Mr. Jeaffreson has well said that free livers delight to attribute their own failings to great people who are free from them. Till Lord Stanhope relieved Pitt’s fame of groundless aspersions of intemperance, it suffered from drunken epigrams, and the idle tales of pot-loving detractors. Of the former, the following is a specimen:—
On folly every fool his talent tries;It needs some toil to imitate the wise;Though few like Fox can speak—like Pitt can think,Yet all like Fox can game—like Pitt can drink.
Perhaps no form of detraction is so insidious as caricature, and Pitt was its sport. The pencil of Gillray was busy in 1788 with a caricature entitled,Market Day—Every Man has His Price. The Ministerial supporters are represented as horned cattle exposed for sale. The scene is laid in Smithfield. At the window of a public-house adjoining appear Pitt and Dundas, a jovial pair drinking and smoking.
Again, when the dearth of 1795 was just beginning, a print by the same Gillray represents a convivial scene at Pitt’s country house. It is entitled, ‘God save the King! in a bumper; or, an Evening Scene three times a Week at Wimbleton.’ Pitt is trying to fill his glass from the wrong end of the bottle, while his companion, grasping pipe and bumper, ejaculates the words, ‘Billy, my boy—all my joy!’
Still there is an element of truth underlying both epigram and burlesque; but, having admitted this, we may assert that his wont formed a contrast to the wild habits of many of his contemporaries, and that with justice he was favourably compared by the Court with the irregularities of Fox and his associates.
Professor Richard Porson was at one time a prominent figure in theCider Cellarsin Covent Garden. It was his nightly haunt. It was there that one of his companions is said to have shouted in his presence, ‘Dick can beat us all; he can drink all night and spout all day.’ This sounds bad, but it must be remembered that Porson had struggled long on the then miserable pittance attached to the Greek Professorship at Cambridge, 40l.a year, and had suddenly obtained the post of head librarian of the London Institution, with a salary increased five-fold. He thus had facilities for indulgence, and with them, possibly for a time, the appetite. Anhabitualdrunkard he was not. Like Johnson, he could practise abstinence more easily than temperance. He lived in days when the leading statesmen and politicians were not ashamed of being seen under the influence of wine, and though Porson has been vilified for his occasional intemperance, it may, without much hesitation, be affirmed that it was his reforming principles in Church and State that brought much of the obloquy upon him.
Thomson, the author of theSeasons, was a convivial man.
Mrs. Hobart, Thomson’s housekeeper, often wished Quin dead, he made her master drink so. He and Quin used to come sometimes from the Castle together at four o’clock in a morning, and not over sober you may be sure. When he was writing in his own house he frequently sat with a bowl of punch before him, and that a good large one too.
Mrs. Hobart, Thomson’s housekeeper, often wished Quin dead, he made her master drink so. He and Quin used to come sometimes from the Castle together at four o’clock in a morning, and not over sober you may be sure. When he was writing in his own house he frequently sat with a bowl of punch before him, and that a good large one too.
The following anecdote is told of him:—
Mr. H. of Bangor said he was once asked to dinner by Thomson, but could not attend. One of his friends who was there told him that there was a general stipulation agreed on by the whole company, that there should be no hard drinking. Thomson acquiesced, only requiring that each man should drink his bottle. The terms were accepted unconditionally, and when the cloth was removed a three-quart bottle was set before each of his guests. Thomson had much of this kind of agreeable humour.
Mr. H. of Bangor said he was once asked to dinner by Thomson, but could not attend. One of his friends who was there told him that there was a general stipulation agreed on by the whole company, that there should be no hard drinking. Thomson acquiesced, only requiring that each man should drink his bottle. The terms were accepted unconditionally, and when the cloth was removed a three-quart bottle was set before each of his guests. Thomson had much of this kind of agreeable humour.
HisAutumncame out in 1730, in which occur the lines:—
But first the fuel’d chimney blazes wide;The tankards foam; and the strong table groansBeneath the smoking sirloin, stretch’d immenseFrom side to side; in which with desperate knifeThe deep incision make, and talk the whileOf England’s glory, ne’er to be defacedWhile hence they borrow vigour; or amainInto the pasty plunged at intervals,If stomach keen can intervals allow,Relating all the glories of the chace.Then sated Hunger bids his brother ThirstProduce the mighty bowl; the mighty bowl,Swell’d high with fiery juice, steams liberal roundA potent gale, delicious as the breathOf Mäia to the love-sick shepherdessOn violets diffus’d, while soft she hearsHer panting shepherd stealing to her arms.Nor wanting is the brown October, drawnMature and perfect from his dark retreatOf thirty years; and now his honest frontFlames in the light refulgent, not afraidEven with the vineyard’s best produce to vie.* * * *At last these puling idlenesses laidAside, frequent and full the dry divanClose in firm circle; and set ardent inFor serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretchIndulg’d apart; but earnest brimming bowlsLave every soul, the table floating round,And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.* * * *Before their maudlin eyesSeen dim and blue the double tapers dance,Like the sun wading through the misty sky.Then sliding soft, they drop. Confus’d aboveGlasses and bottles, pipes and gazeteers,As if the table even itself was drunk,Lie a wet broken scene; and wide belowIs heap’d the social slaughter: where astrideThe lubber Power in filthy triumph sitsSlumbrous, inclining still from side to side,And steeps them drench’d in potent sleep till morn.Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunchAwful and deep, a black abyss of drink,Outlives them all; and from his buried flockRetiring, full of rumination sad,Laments the weakness of these latter times.
InAutumn, somewhat later, he sings the praises ofcider:—
The piercing cider for the thirsty tongue;Thy native theme and boon inspirer too,Phillips, Pomona’s bard, the second thouWho nobly durst in rhyme-unfetter’d verseWith British freedom sing the British song;How from Silurian vats high-sparkling winesFoam in transparent floods; some strong to cheerThe wintry revels of the labouring hind;And tasteful some to cool the summer hours.
Again, we read a few lines later of the autumnal vintage:—
Round the raised nations pours the cup of joy:The claret smooth, red as the lip we pressIn sparkling fancy while we drain the bowl;The mellow-tasted Burgundy; and quickAs is the wit it gives the gay champagne.
Wordsworth says of theSeasons:—‘Much of it is written from himself.’ Probably this is true.
In 1798 was published a collection of the dramatic works of John O’Keefe. In the following lines from hisPoor Soldieroccurs a phrase which has become household:—
Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,From which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Vale,Was once Toby Filpot’s, a thirsty old soulAs e’ercracked a bottleor fathomed a bowl.
The allusion is simply to drunken frolics, during which glass was broken. Mr. Oldbuck says in theAntiquary:—‘We never were glass-breakers in this house.’
In 1805 Robert Bloomfield published his rural poem, theFarmer’s Boy. It is a very humorous and suggestive account of the manners of clod-hopping England as engaged about the Harvest-home supper in Suffolk and Norfolk, here entitled theHorkey. This has been already discussed. Suffice it to add that Bloomfield’s charming little provincial ballad, entitled,The Horkey, has been recently published by Macmillan, and is abundantly illustrated.
But of all the marvellous issues from the press at the beginning of the present century, nothing could bemore monstrous than the publication of a work entitled ‘Ebrietatis Encomium; or, the Praise of Drunkenness, wherein is authentically and most evidently proved the Necessity of Frequently Getting Drunk; and the Practise is most ancient, primitive, and Catholick.’
The author, not unnaturally, thinks that some apology is needed in his preface. He declares that he did not undertake the work on account of any zeal he had for wine, but only to divert himself(!), and not to lose a great many curious remarks he had made upon this most Catholic liquid.
Verily, ‘nulli vitio unquam defuit advocatus.’ He seems to have hunted upbon-mots, or rathermal-motsfrom every toping author that was to hand,e.g.he cites Seneca (De Tranquillitate):—‘As drunkenness causes some distempers, so it is a sovereign remedy for our sorrows.’ Propertius—‘Alas! so then wine lives longer than man, let us then sit down and drink bumpers; life and wine are the same thing.’ Horace—‘That nectar which the blessed vines produce, the height of all our joy and wishes here.’ La Motte:—
A l’envi laissons nous saisir,Aux transports d’une douce ivresse:Qu’importe si c’est un plaisir,Que ce soit folie ou sagesse.
These are specimens of the sources from which the author, ‘Boniface Oinophilus’ drew.[228]
But we travel to far other soil.
The poet Cowper [b.1781,d.1800], the intellectual ancestor of Wordsworth, has several pictures of his times in his writings.
With a lofty and noble morality does he describe the truly gay:—
Whom call we gay? That honour has been longThe boast of mere pretenders to the name.The innocent are gay—the lark is gay,That dries his feathers saturate with dewBeneath the rosy cloud, while yet the beamsOf dayspring overshoot his humble nest.The peasant too, a witness of his song,Himself a songster, is as gay as he.But save me from the gaiety of thoseWhose headaches nail them to a noon-day bed;And save me too from theirs whose haggard eyesFlash desperation, and betray their pangsFor property stripp’d off by cruel chance;From gaiety that fills the bones with pain,The mouth with blasphemy, the heart with woe.The Task, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’
Noble lines these, breathing much of the spirit of Horace’s noble ethics:—
Non possidentem multa vocaverisRecte beatum. Rectius occupatNomen beati qui deorumMuneribus sapienter uti,Calletque duram pauperiem pati,Pejusque leto flagitium timet.Non ille pro caris amicis,Non patriâ timidus perire.
There was not perhaps much need for our poet to dread the gout:—
Oh may I live exempted (while I liveGuiltless of pamper’d appetite obscene),From pangs arthritic, that infest the toeOf libertine Excess!The Task, Book I., ‘The Sofa.’
Certainly not if the following picture was his usual evening condition:—
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urnThrows up a steamy column, and the cupsThat cheer but not inebriate wait on each,So let us welcome peaceful evening in.The Task, Book IV., ‘The Winter Evening.’
Commenting upon the usual misquotation of this passage, which provincial newspapers make a point of rendering:—‘The cup that cheers’ &c., Cuthbert Bede adds:—
The poet of ‘The Task’ spoke of ‘cups;’ and, it is very evident, from the graphic description of the accompanying urn, that those cups were intended to hold a certain beverage that had been introduced into England about 130 years before ‘The Task’ was written, and which, by those who could afford to purchase it at the high price then demanded for it, was known as ‘Tea.’ It might be urged, with more ingenuity than plausibility, that, as Cowper does not mention the contents of the cups, they, together with the hot water in the loud-hissing urn, might have been used for some of those compounds, familiarly known as ‘Cups.’ Thus, there were ‘cups’ of spiced wine, Claret, Burgundy, Gilliflower sack, Hydromel (which was recommended by Lord Holles to those who abjured wine, and was composed of honey, spring-water, and ginger), Cider, and many kinds of ale and Beer-cups, distinguished by such extraordinary names as Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Old Pharaoh, Hugmatee, Stitchback, Cock-ale, Three-threads, Mum, and Knock-me-down, which last name is particularly suggestive of the probable result of the toper’s indulgence in a brew of hot ale-cup, in which gin was a leading ingredient.It is very evident that it could only be a person who was veryhard-up for an argument, who could think of framing such an accusation against the abstemious and gentle William Cowper, and who could interpret his ‘cups’ in any other sense than as cups for tea. In fact, the whole passage presents to us a tea-table scene; and, as we read it, we can see the comfortable parlour at Olney, the curtains closely drawn—in that respect very sensibly differing from‘The half-uncurtain’d window,’mentioned in the winter-evening’s scene, in Campbell’s ‘Pleasures of Hope’—with the bubbling urn, containing, possibly, the tea already made, or else ready to contribute its boiling stream to the tea-pot.
The poet of ‘The Task’ spoke of ‘cups;’ and, it is very evident, from the graphic description of the accompanying urn, that those cups were intended to hold a certain beverage that had been introduced into England about 130 years before ‘The Task’ was written, and which, by those who could afford to purchase it at the high price then demanded for it, was known as ‘Tea.’ It might be urged, with more ingenuity than plausibility, that, as Cowper does not mention the contents of the cups, they, together with the hot water in the loud-hissing urn, might have been used for some of those compounds, familiarly known as ‘Cups.’ Thus, there were ‘cups’ of spiced wine, Claret, Burgundy, Gilliflower sack, Hydromel (which was recommended by Lord Holles to those who abjured wine, and was composed of honey, spring-water, and ginger), Cider, and many kinds of ale and Beer-cups, distinguished by such extraordinary names as Humpty-dumpty, Clamber-clown, Old Pharaoh, Hugmatee, Stitchback, Cock-ale, Three-threads, Mum, and Knock-me-down, which last name is particularly suggestive of the probable result of the toper’s indulgence in a brew of hot ale-cup, in which gin was a leading ingredient.
It is very evident that it could only be a person who was veryhard-up for an argument, who could think of framing such an accusation against the abstemious and gentle William Cowper, and who could interpret his ‘cups’ in any other sense than as cups for tea. In fact, the whole passage presents to us a tea-table scene; and, as we read it, we can see the comfortable parlour at Olney, the curtains closely drawn—in that respect very sensibly differing from
‘The half-uncurtain’d window,’
mentioned in the winter-evening’s scene, in Campbell’s ‘Pleasures of Hope’—with the bubbling urn, containing, possibly, the tea already made, or else ready to contribute its boiling stream to the tea-pot.
But this sort of evening was not the usual evening in England in 1785. Much more frequently was the evening spent in what our poet himself calls ‘the quenchless thirst of ruinous ebriety,’ and describes in the following lines (Task, lib. iv.):—
Pass where we may, through city or through town,Village or hamlet of this merry land,Though lean and beggar’d, every twentieth paceConducts the unguarded nose to such a whiffOf stale debauch, forth issuing from the styesThat Law has licensed, as makes Temperance reel.There sit, involved and lost in curling cloudsOf Indian fume, and guzzling deep, the boor,The lackey, and the groom: the craftsman thereTakes a Lethean leave of all his toil;Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears,And he that kneads the dough; all aloud alike,All learned, and all drunk! the fiddle screamsPlaintive and piteous, as it wept and wail’dIts wasted tones and harmony unheard.* * * *‘Tis here they learnThe road that leads from competence and peaceTo indigence and rapine; till at lastSociety, grown weary of the load,Shakes her encumber’d lap, and casts them out.But censure profits little: vain the attemptTo advertise in verse a public pestThat, like the filth with which the peasant feedsHis hungry acres, stinks and is of use.The excise is fatten’d with the rich resultOf all this riot: and ten thousand casksFor ever dribbling out their base contents,Touch’d by the Midas finger of the State,Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.Drink and be mad then; ‘tis your country bids!Gloriously drunk obey the important call!Her cause demands the assistance of your throatsYe all can swallow, and she asks no more.
Towards the end of the progress of error is the sage advice:—
With caution taste the sweet Circæan cup;He that sips often at last drinks it up.Habits are soon assumed, but when we striveTo strip them off ‘tis being flayed alive.Call’d to the temple of impure delightHe that abstains, and he alone, does right.
Finally, an admirable moral is contained in the lines:—
Pleasure admitted in undue degreeEnslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.‘Tis not alone the grape’s enticing juiceUnnerves the moral powers, and mars their use;Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame,And woman, lovely woman, does the same.
Wordsworth was a most abstemious man. He and his wife drank water, and ate the simplest fare. When Scott stayed with him at Rydal Mount, he had to hie him to the nearest public-house not unfrequently.
Myers has observed, in his monograph on the poet inEnglish Men of Letters:—
The poet of theWaggoner—who, himself an habitual water-drinker, has so glowingly described the glorification which the prospect of nature receives in a half-intoxicated brain—may justly claim that he can enter into all genuine pleasures, even of an order which he declines for himself. With anything that is false or artificial he cannot sympathise, nor with such faults as baseness, cruelty, rancour, which seem contrary to human nature itself; but in dealing with faults of mereweaknesshe is far less strait-laced than many less virtuous men.His comment on Burns’Tam o’ Shanterwill perhaps surprise some readers who are accustomed to think of him only in his didactic attitude.Wordsworth’s Criticism.... Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow-minded puritan in works of art, ever read without delight the picture which Burns has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer Tam o’ Shanter? The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset that his hero was a desperate and sottish drunkard, whose excesses were as frequent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down to his cups while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion; the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise, laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate—conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence—selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality; and while these various elements of humanity are blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the anger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the enjoyment within. I pity him who cannot perceive that in all this, though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect.‘Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,O’er a’ theillsof life victorious.’What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence for the vicious habits of the principal actor in the scene, and of those who resemble him! Men who to the rigidly virtuous are objects almost of loathing, and whom therefore they cannot serve! The poet, penetrating the unsightly and disgusting surfaces of things, has unveiled with exquisite skill the finer ties of imagination and feeling that often bind these beings to practices productive of so much unhappiness to themselves, and to those whom it is their duty to cherish; and, as far as he puts the reader into possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for exercising a salutary influence over the minds of those who are thus deplorably enslaved.
The poet of theWaggoner—who, himself an habitual water-drinker, has so glowingly described the glorification which the prospect of nature receives in a half-intoxicated brain—may justly claim that he can enter into all genuine pleasures, even of an order which he declines for himself. With anything that is false or artificial he cannot sympathise, nor with such faults as baseness, cruelty, rancour, which seem contrary to human nature itself; but in dealing with faults of mereweaknesshe is far less strait-laced than many less virtuous men.
His comment on Burns’Tam o’ Shanterwill perhaps surprise some readers who are accustomed to think of him only in his didactic attitude.
Wordsworth’s Criticism.
... Who, but some impenetrable dunce or narrow-minded puritan in works of art, ever read without delight the picture which Burns has drawn of the convivial exaltation of the rustic adventurer Tam o’ Shanter? The poet fears not to tell the reader in the outset that his hero was a desperate and sottish drunkard, whose excesses were as frequent as his opportunities. This reprobate sits down to his cups while the storm is roaring, and heaven and earth are in confusion; the night is driven on by song and tumultuous noise, laughter and jest thicken as the beverage improves upon the palate—conjugal fidelity archly bends to the service of general benevolence—selfishness is not absent, but wearing the mask of social cordiality; and while these various elements of humanity are blended into one proud and happy composition of elated spirits, the anger of the tempest without doors only heightens and sets off the enjoyment within. I pity him who cannot perceive that in all this, though there was no moral purpose, there is a moral effect.
‘Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,O’er a’ theillsof life victorious.’
What a lesson do these words convey of charitable indulgence for the vicious habits of the principal actor in the scene, and of those who resemble him! Men who to the rigidly virtuous are objects almost of loathing, and whom therefore they cannot serve! The poet, penetrating the unsightly and disgusting surfaces of things, has unveiled with exquisite skill the finer ties of imagination and feeling that often bind these beings to practices productive of so much unhappiness to themselves, and to those whom it is their duty to cherish; and, as far as he puts the reader into possession of this intelligent sympathy, he qualifies him for exercising a salutary influence over the minds of those who are thus deplorably enslaved.
The poet Southey’s opinion of the ale-house,versusthe home, is as true of our own times as his own:—
For the labouring man the ale-house is too often a place of unmingled evil; where, while he is single, he squanders the money which ought to be laid up as a provision for marriage or old age; and where, if he frequent it after he is married, he commits the far heavier sin of spending, for his own selfish gratification, the earnings upon which the woman and children whom he has rendered dependent upon him have the strongest of all claims.
For the labouring man the ale-house is too often a place of unmingled evil; where, while he is single, he squanders the money which ought to be laid up as a provision for marriage or old age; and where, if he frequent it after he is married, he commits the far heavier sin of spending, for his own selfish gratification, the earnings upon which the woman and children whom he has rendered dependent upon him have the strongest of all claims.
Of the drink itself he writes:—
But Thalaba took not the draught,For right he knew the Prophet had forbiddenThat beverage, the mother of sins;Nor did the urgent guestsProffer the second time the liquid fire,For in the youth’s strong eye they sawNo movable resolve.
William Playfair, the famous political economist, wrote in 1805 hisEnquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. He has some striking remarks upon the bearing ofrevenueupon the drink traffic:—
When a nation becomes the slave of its revenue, and sacrifices everything to that object,abuses that favour revenue are difficult to reform; but surely it would be well to take some mode to prevent thefacility with which people get drunk, and the temptation that is laid to do so. The immense number of public-houses, and the way in which they give credit, are undoubtedly, in part, causes of this evil.It would be easy to lessen the number, without hurting liberty, and it would be no injustice if publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses, in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, unless for necessaries. There could be no hardship in this, and it would produce a great reform in the manners of the lower orders. There are only three modes of teaching youth the way to well-doing—by precept, by example, and by habit at an early age. Precept, without example and habit, has but little weight, yet how can a child have either of these, if the parents are encouraged and assisted in living a viciouslife? Nations and individuals should guard against those vices to which they find they have a natural disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the common people in this country are the most addicted.
When a nation becomes the slave of its revenue, and sacrifices everything to that object,abuses that favour revenue are difficult to reform; but surely it would be well to take some mode to prevent thefacility with which people get drunk, and the temptation that is laid to do so. The immense number of public-houses, and the way in which they give credit, are undoubtedly, in part, causes of this evil.It would be easy to lessen the number, without hurting liberty, and it would be no injustice if publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses, in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, unless for necessaries. There could be no hardship in this, and it would produce a great reform in the manners of the lower orders. There are only three modes of teaching youth the way to well-doing—by precept, by example, and by habit at an early age. Precept, without example and habit, has but little weight, yet how can a child have either of these, if the parents are encouraged and assisted in living a viciouslife? Nations and individuals should guard against those vices to which they find they have a natural disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the common people in this country are the most addicted.
We now pass to some of the political action of the reign. In 1768, Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a new tax on cider and perry, amounting to ten shillings on the hogshead. Earl Stanhope states that the outcry was so vehement that a modification of the scheme was all that was granted, and four shillings were to be paid by the grower. In the Upper House the Bill was also strongly opposed, but the Ministry carried the point. Bute incurred much odium. People compared the rash disregard of popular opinion with which this measure was pushed through with the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, who had bowed to the public demonstrations against his system of excise; and when Bute’s resignation was announced many ascribed his retreat to the alarm raised by the popular indignation. A caricature entitled,The Roasted Exciseman; or, the Jack Boot’s exit, represents the enraged mob burning the effigy of a Scotchman suspended on a gallows; a great worn boot lies on the bonfire, into which a man is throwing an excised cider barrel as fuel.
The City of London presented a petition against the tax at the bar of the House of Commons, but to no effect; and in the cider counties it was found hard indeed to enforce the duties imposed.
One of many lachrymations was Benjamin Heath’sThe Case of the County of Devon, 1763. An address to honest English hearts, being an honest countryman’s reflections onthe cider tax, 1763. Some plain reasons for the repeal of the cider tax, dedicated to every man who pays taxes, and particularly to the Honourable G—— J——, M.P. for Norfolk, &c., 1763. An address to the electors, such as are not makers of cider and perry, 1787.
The tax on beer, too, early in the reign, had greatly exasperated the mob. TheRoyal Magazinetells that while their Majesties were at Drury Lane Theatre, to see theWinter’s Tale, as Garrick was repeating the lines:—
‘For you, my hearts of oak, for your regale,Here’s good old English stingo, mild and stale,’
a fellow cried out of the gallery: ‘At threepence a pot, Master Garrick, or confusion to the brewers!’
Imposts onmaltwere continually brought forward. The brewers as well as their clients were wild. Mr. Whitbread inveighed on one occasion against the Ministers for laying awar taxupon malt. Sheridan, who was present, could not resist a shy at the brewer. He wrote on a paper the following lines, and handed them to Mr. Whitbread across the table:—
They’ve raised the price of table drink;What is the reason, do you think?The tax onmalt’s the cause I hear—But what hasmaltto do withbeer?
In 1791, the House of Commons was again induced to consider the question, and a committee came to the resolution: ‘That the number of persons empowered to retail spirits should be greatly diminished,’ &c. Certain Acts were passed, encouraging the rival trade of the brewers.Grocers were prohibited from selling drams in their shops, &c. The Speaker of the House, in his speech at the bar of the Lords, March, 1795, and in an address delivered on presenting the Bills of Supply, which received the unanimous thanks of the Lower House, thus referred to the excellent result ofeven these small measures, and at the same time enunciated a pregnant political truth. After alluding to the increased prosperity and resources of the country, and to some measures for decreasing the sale of spirits, he observes: ‘Satisfied, however, that those resources and that prosperitycannot be permanent without an effectual attention to the sobriety of the people, their morals and peaceable subordination to the laws, they have, by an arrangement of duties which promises also an increase of revenue, relieved the brewing [trade] from all restriction of taxes, so as to give it a decided advantage over the distilling, and thereby discourage the too frequent and immoderate use of spirituous liquors,a measure which must conduce to sobriety, tranquillity, and content, and under which the people, encouraged in regular industry, and the consequent acquisition of wealth, must feel the blessings,’ &c., of good government.
Under the dark days that followed, from 1795 to 1800—days of rebellion at home and revolution abroad—thissubject was lost sight of, unhappily for the interests of all. The Acts which had initiated so much good, were allowed to expire, discouragement to the use of spirits ceased, grocers were again allowed to dispense the drug to women and families, and debauchery rioted and revelled as before.[229]
In 1796, among the next taxes introduced, was an additional duty of twenty pounds per butt on wine. Discontent ensued. Pitt’s alleged propensity furnished the material for satire. Gillray represented him under the character of Bacchus, and his friend Dundas under that of Silenus, in a caricature entitledThe Wine Duty, or the Triumph of Bacchus and Silenus. John Bull, withempty bottle and empty purse, and with long face, addresses his remonstrance: ‘Pray, Mr. Bacchus, have a bit of consideration for old John; you know as how I’ve emptied my purse already for you, and it’s woundedly hard to raise the price of a drop of comfort, now that one’s got no money left for to pay for it!’
Among the taxes of 1799 was one upon beer, which would have the effect of raising the price of porter to fourpence the pot, and which would most affect the working classes. The Tory satirists pretended to sympathise most with the Whig Dr. Parr, a great porter drinker. Gillray published a sketch of the supposedEffusions of a Pot of Porter, or ‘ministerial conjurations for supporting the war, as lately discovered by Dr. P——r, in the froth and fumes of his favourite beverage.’ A pot of four-penny is placed on a stool, from the froth of which arises Pitt, mounted on the white horse, brandishing a flaming sword. The Doctor’s reverie is a satire on the innumerable mischiefs which popular clamour laid to the charge of the Minister:—