The Drunkards Character, Section 76 – Section 77
§ 76.
NOw for the effecting of this (thoughDrinking … forceing of …eal…s their pri… cipall s…r…tageme. these Milo's (be they never so strong) oftentimes meet with some Titor…us or other, …onger th… they, who throwes them und… th… Table) what comparable to drinking of healths▪ (which A…tistbenes cals the only occasion and meane… of surfeiting and d…sord…r another▪ very f… ly, thepulley or …ooing…horn to al drunkennes and excess…) …or th…ir drinking and beginning of healths, is purposely, and serves to no other end, but to draw me… on to drinke more liberally, then els… they would, or should doe, but to allure and forc… such as they finde otherwis… unwilling; yea, their owne hearts and consciences can tes…ifi… unto them in the sight of of God that they use these healths, but as so many baites, occasions, or pre…ses to allure and provoke their guests, and friends to pledge them, even unto surfeit: neither must any refuse their healths, though it be against their natur…s, judgments, hearts and consciences, which doe secretly abhorre and utterly cond…mne them.
O how they will wind a man in, by drinking, first, a health to such a man; then, to such a woman my Mistresse, then to every ones mis…r…; then, to such a grea… person; naming some Lord, or Lady or some neere friend
Now by this meanes of drinking their Lords, their Ladies, their Masters, their Mistresses (and shee for the most part a common strumpet) their Magistrates, their Captains, Commanders, Kindreds, Parents, friends, or companions healths; …hey will wind men in to drinke, even till their braines, their wits, their tongues, their eyes, their feet, their senses, and all their members faile them.
For commonly when these friends fal to drinking of healths, it is as enemies fall to fighting with weapons▪ to shew their valour, and … get the … and their weapons are … who so carrieth … cleere, … and leades t…e rest about … (if they can goe) in T…umph; … he gets the greatest honour, that … the rest off their leggs.
Hereupon their healths must …ither bee great immeasure,Their …ealt…s either great in …eas…re …r …ny in number. or many in number. Touching the first, you have some like Tricong us Novellus▪ who dranke three Gallons of wine at once; or Prot…as who gave valiant Alexander a quaffe of two Gallons,1 Of great …ealt…s. which set him into a disease hee dyed of. Is not Steven…on a Towne within two miles of Abindon, famous for his sake, that dranke a Peck at a draught? And did not a Dyer, of Barkhamsted in Hartford-shire, doe the like? as for a drunkard to disrobe the greatest goblet of his liquor, though it be of such weight, that (as Virgil said once) the left hand is faine to helpe her sister, he makes nothing of it.
§ 77
TOuching the second,2 If t…ei… …ealt…s be … the liq… i… stronger or the number …. if they drinke but indifferent healths, then the lesse the healthes are, the more strong the wine; for the smalnesse of the cup, or glasse, is commonly made up with the strength, vigor, and dearenesse of the wine, or other liquor; so that these small healthes, will sooner intoxicate and inebriate men, then greater healthes, in cheaper and smaler drinke; and yet these little healthes, as well as little wedges, make but way for great ones of the same nature. For many of them, hating the mixture of Malt and water, will, by their good wills, let nothing come within them but the purity of the Grape, if they can get it, and that's as naturall to them (through custome) as small beere is to other men: and no wonder, for if physicke be taken too oft, it will not worke like physicke; yea, poyson by familiar use, becomes naturall foode; as Aristotle (in an example of a maid, which would picke Spiders off the wall, and eate them (shewes. Whence we may learne, that if Tobacco were as wholsome a weede or hearb, as is pretended; yet being used too commonly, nature entertaines it as a friend, not as a Physitian.
Or secondly, when the healthes a…e small and little in quantity or measure; they are commonly made up and recompenced with the multitude, number, and frequencie of them; and this they have learned of the Lombards, of whom we reade this story.
When foure auncient men of them met together, they dranke an health round, to each others yeares; in the end, one challenged the rest to drinke severally, so many times, as they had lived yeares, and likewise his companions pledged him: the one was fifty eight; the second, sixty three: the third, eighty seven▪ the last, ninety two yeares old; so he which dranke least, dranke … eight cups of wine, as Diaconus relates ….
O the audacious, horrible, and f…ar… full drunkennesse (which would ca…se any Christian heart to bleed and tremble) th…t is too often caused by these healthes in every place and corner, especially in the solemne time of Christ's Nativity!