Returning reason cools the fiery blood,
And drives from memory's seat the rosy god.
Yet still he holds o'er some his maddening rule,
Still sways his sceptre, and still knows his fool;
Witness the livid lip, and fiery front,
With many a smarting trophy placed upon't;
The hollow eye, which plays in misty springs,
And the hoarse voice, which rough and broken rings⚫
These are his triumplis, and o'er these he reigns,
The blinking deity of reeling brains.
See Inebriety! her wand she waves,
And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves!
Sots in embroidery, and sots in crape,
Of every order, station, rank, and shape:
The king, who nods upon his rattle throne;
The staggering peer, to midnight revel p one;
The slow-tongued bishop, and the deacon sly,
The humble pensioner, and gownsman dry;
The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great,
Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state.
Lo! proud Flaminius at the splendid board,
The easy chaplain of an atheist lord,
Quaffs the bright juice, with all the gust of sense,
And clouds his brain in torpid elegance;
In china vases, see! the sparkling ill,
From gay decanters view the rosy rill;
The neat-carved pipes in silver settle laid,
The screw by mathematic cunning made:
Oh, happy priest! whose God, like Egypt's, lies,
At once the deity and sacrifice.
But is Flaminius then the man alone
To whom the joys of swimming brains are known?
Lo! the poor toper whose untutor'd sense,
Sees bliss in ale, and can with wine dispense; (1)
(1) "Lo the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind,
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind," &c.
POPE'S Essay on Man.
Whose head proud fancy never taught to steer,
Beyond the muddy ecstasies of beer;
But simple nature can her longing quench,
Behind the settle's curve, or humbler bench :
Some kitchen fire diffusing warmth around,
The semi-globe by hieroglyphics crown'd;
Where canvass purse displays the brass enroll'd,
Nor waiters rave, nor landlords thirst for gold;
Ale and content his fancy's bounds confine,
He asks no limpid punch, no rosy wine;
But sees, admitted to an equal share,
Each faithful swain the heady potion bear :
Go wiser thou! and in thy scale of taste,
Weigh gout and gravel against ale and rest;
Call vulgar palates what thou judgest so;
Say beer is heavy, windy, cold, and slow;
Laugh at poor sots with insolent pretence,
Yet cry, when tortured, where is Providence?
In various forms the madd'ning spirit moves,
This drinks and fights, another drinks and loves.
A bastard zeal, of different kinds it shows,
And now with rage, and now religion glows:
The frantic soul bright reason's path defies,
Now creeps on earth, now triumphs in the skies;
Swims in the seas of error, and explores,
Through midnight mists, the fluctuating shores;
From wave to wave in rocky channel glides,
And sinks in woe, or on presumption slides;
In pride exalted, or by shame deprest,
An angel-devil, or a human-beast.
Some rage in all the strength of folly mad;
Some love stupidity, in silence clad,
Are never quarrelsome, are never gay,
But sleep, and groan, and drink the night away;
Old Torpio nods, and as the laugh goes round,
Grunts through the nasal duct, and joins the sound,
Then sleeps again, and, as the liquors pass,
Wakes at the friendly jog, and takes his glass:
Alike to him who stands, or reels, or moves,
The elbow chair, good wine, and sleep he loves;
Nor cares of state disturb his easy head,
By grosser fumes, and calmer follies fed;
Nor thoughts of when, or where, or how to come,
The canvass general, or the general doom
Extremes ne'er reach'd one passion of his soul,
A villain tame, and an unmettled fool,
To half his vices he has but pretence,
For they usurp the place of common sense;
To half his little merits has no claim,
For very indolence has raised his name;
Happy in this, that, under Satan's sway,
His passions tremble, but will not obey.
The vicar at the table's front presides,
Whose presence a monastic life derides;
The reverend wig, in sideway order placed,
The reverend band, by rubric stains disgraced,
The leering eye, in wayward circles roll'd,
Mark him the pastor of a jovial fold,
Whose various texts excite a loud applause,
Favouring the bottle, and the good old cause.
See! the dull smile which fearfully appears,
When gross indecency her front uprears,
The joy conceal'd, the fiercer burns within,
As masks afford the keenest gust to sin;
Imagination helps the reverend sire,
And spreads the sails of sub-divine desire ;
But when the gay immoral joke goes round,
When shame and all her blushing train are drown'd,
Rather than hear his God blasphemed, he takes
The last loved glass, and then the board forsakes.
Not that religion prompts the sober thought,
But slavish custom has the practice taught;
Besides, this zealous son of warm devotion
Has a true Levite bias for promotion.
Vicars must with discretion go astray,
Whilst bishops may be damn'd the nearest way:
So puny robbers individuals kill,
When hector-heroes murder as they will.
Good honest Curio elbows the divine,
And strives a social sinner how to shine;
The dull quaint tale is his, the lengthen❜d tale,
That Wilton farmers give you with their ale,
How midnight ghosts o'er vaults terrific pass,
Dance o'er the grave, and slide along the grass;
Or how pale Cicely within the wood
Call'd Satan forth, and bargain'd with her blood:
These, honest Curio, are thine, and these
Are the dull treasures of a brain at peace;
No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull,
Of heavy, native, unwrought folly full:
Bowl upon bowl in vain exert their force,
The breathing spirit takes a downward course,
Or vainly soaring upwards to the head,
Meets an impenetrable fence of lead.
Hast thou, oh reader! search'd o'er gentle Gay,
Where various animals their powers display?
In one strange group a chattering race are hurl'd,
Led by the monkey who had seen the world.
Like him Fabricio steals from guardian's side,
Swims not in pleasure's stream, but sips the tide :
He hates the bottle, yet but thinks it right
To boast next day the honours of the night;
None like your coward can describe a fight.
See him as down the sparkling potion goes,
Labour to grin away the horrid dose ;
In joy-feign'd gaze his misty eyeballs float,
Th' uncivil spirit gurgling at his throat;
So looks dim Titan through a wintry scene,
And faintly cheers the woe foreboding swain.
VOL. II.
Timon, long practised in the school of art, Has lost each finer feeling of the heart; Triumphs o'er shame, and, with delusive wiles, Laughs at the idiot he himself beguiles: So matrons past the awe of censure's tongue, Deride the blushes of the fair and young. Few with more fire on every subject spoke, But chief he loved the gay immoral joke; The words most sacred, stole from holy writ, He gave a newer form, and call'd them wit. Vice never had a more sincere ally, So bold no sinner, yet no saint so sly; Learn'd, but not wise, and without virtue brave, A gay, deluding, philosophic knave. When Bacchus' joys his airy fancy fire, They stir a new, but still a false desire; And to the comfort of each untaught fool, Horace in English vindicates the bowl. "The man," says Timon, "who is drunk "No fears disturb, no cares destroy his rest; "In thoughtless joy he reels away his life, "Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife." "Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come, "And thunders worse than thine afflict the room,
"Where one eternal nothing flutters round,
"And senseless titt'ring sense of mirth confound;
"Or lead me bound to garret, Babel-high,
"Where frantic poet rolls his crazy eye,
Tiring the ear with oft-repeated chimes,
"And smiling at the never-ending rhymes:
"E'en here, or there, I'll be as blest as Jove,
"Give me tobacco, and the wine I love."
Applause from hands the dying accents break,
Of stagg'ring sots who vainly try to speak;
(1)" Integer vitæ, scelerisque puris
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