a little for the bottle," they were all for the
bottle, and despised love as beneath the
majesty of their manhood. One of the
ultra-convivial songs of the time, as it
appears in an excellent and now scarce collection,*
says:

        My temples with clusters of grapes I'll entwine,
        And barter all joys for a goblet of wine,
        In search of a Venus no longer I'll run,
        But stop and forget her at Bacchus's tun.

* The Convivial Songster, being a select collection
of the best songs in the English language, humorous
and satirical. London: J. Fielding, 1782.

Another anacreontic declares that beauty
when it grows old ceases to charm; but
that nothing so true can be said of wine:

        Chloe's roses and lilies are just in tlieir prime,
        But roses and lilies are conquered by time,
        But in wine, from its age, such a benefit flows
        That we like it the better the older it grows.

One of the most noted bacchanalian poems
brought into favour in the time of King
Charles the Second, was paraphrased from
Anacreon by Cowley, and is a composition
not consistent with modern ideas, except
in so far as one may be tempted to admire
the ingenious perversity which pressed all
Nature into the service of drink:

        The thirsty earth drinks up the rain,
        And thirsts and gapes for drink again.
        The sea itself (which one would think,
        Should have but little need of drink)
        Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
        So full that they o'erflow the cup,
        The busy sun (and one would guess
        By's drunken fiery face no less)
        Drinks up the sea; and when he's done
        The moon and stars drink up the sun.
        Fill up the bowl then, fill it high!
        Fill all the glasses up, for why
        Should every creature drink but I?
        Why, man of morals, tell me why?

It would tend neither to amusement nor
to edification to go through the weary
catalogue of the poets who degraded their
talents or their genius to the laudation of
drunkenness, or of the conviviality which,
without intending it, very commonly and
much too frequently ended in helpless
inebriety. One of the songs, about the last
of its race, written about the middle of
the reign of George the Third, when the
vice was in its full vigour, and had not
received the slightest beneficial change from
a superior morality, contains a chronological
account, true or false, of the drinking
capacities of all the kings of England,
from Charles the Second to the youth of
the prince, who was afterwards George the
Fourth, of delectable memory.

Upon the subject of English Drinking-Songs,
it has been justly observed by the
Reverend Mr. Plumptre, in the introduction
to a collection, published in 1805,
just as the drinking habits of our ancestors
were beginning to give way to more
refined and civilised tastes and customs,
that " every nation, in proportion as it is
civilised, has abolished intemperance in
wine, and, consequently, must be barbarous
in proportion as it is addicted to excess.
The remark, I am rather apprehensive,
will be found no very great compliment to
the people of this kingdom. We are apt
to place good fellowship in riot, and have
but too natural a promptitude in imagining
that the happiness of an evening is
promoted by an extravagant circulation of the
glass; hence are our songs of festivity (as I
have already taken notice), fraught with
continual encomiums on the pleasures of
intoxication, and the whole tribe of
bacchanalian lyrics perpetually telling us how
wonderfully sensible it is to destroy our
senses, and how nothing can be more
rational in a human creature than to drink
till he has not left himself a single glimmer
of reason at all. But if, abstracted from
the brutal intention of our drinking-songs
in general, we should come to consider
their merit as literary performances, how
very few of them should we find worth a
station on a cobbler's stall, or deserving
the attention of an auditory at Billingsgate!
The best are but so many strings of
unmeaning puns and ill-managed conceits,
and betray not more the ignorance of their
encouragers than the barrenness of their
authors!"

To sit six or seven hours over the bottle,
drinking for drinking's sake, would
certainly, if there had been no intervals in
the dreary business, have required the
useful services of the boy who untied the
neckcloths at an early period of the
evening. To prolong the bout, and create
intervals between the potations, the song,
the toast, and the sentiment, with
occasional speeches interspersed, were both
desirable and necessary. The mere toper
who could not sing, was but a poor bon
vivant. Accordingly, the art of singing
was considered one of the first accomplishments
of every one who aspired to be a
good fellow. The compiler of the Convivial
Singer, in the introduction to his volume,
gave his readers some very sensible advice
upon this subject. " Though," says he,
"a fine voice is very delightful, if well
managed, yet it often happens that in a
large company the person with the worst
voice shall give the greatest pleasure.
This is occasioned either by a happy taste
in selecting good words, and giving them