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Shakspeare on Temperance.

CHAPTER I.

THE RISE OF THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT.-SOCIAL LIFE UNDER GOOD QUEEN BESS.-HAMLET.-Dr. NORMAN KERR'S TESTIMONY.-DANISH HEALTH DRINKING.

HE year 1829 was a memorable one in the annals of the Temperance Reformation, for it was then that some devoted men banded together to take common action against the great national sin of Intemperance. One or two of these pioneers happily still survive, their age,

"As a lusty winter,

Frosty but kindly,"

witnessing to the truth that total abstinence from alcoholic liquors is strictly compatible with perfect health. The efforts of 1829 are not, however, to be accepted as the beginning of either Temperance or Total Abstinence; all that is claimed for the veteran worthies is, that they instituted "associated aggression" upon the drinking customs of the community, and that they "founded societies" with the

distinct aim of disseminating Temperance principles.

The golden rule of Total Abstinence has a far more ancient record than the story of half a century; and although there have been many learned discussions as to the precise and definite teaching of the Inspired Word in relation to Total Abstinence, no controversialist has succeeded in arguing away the fact that we have in the Bible examples of a goodly company of total abstainers. In general literature we find a similar testimony, so that it would not be a difficult task to compile a long list of illustrious examples of Total Abstinence, embracing some of the world's greatest men, from the earliest times to our own.

The advocacy of Temperance, and the strong denunciation of drunkenness, may be clearly traced in the standard works of English literature. Chaucer, Spenser, and their contemporaries, furnish ample materials for quotation; and scarcely a single aspect of the question appears to have escaped the bard of all time-the immortal Shakspeare. Thomas Carlyle touched a chord which awakens echoes in every student's breast when he penned the memorable passage, "Along with that tombstone information, perhaps even without much of it, we could have liked to gain some answer, in one way or other, to this wide question: What and how was English life in Shakspeare's time? wherein has ours grown to differ therefrom?" Many attempts have been

made to answer this question, and not a few quaint pictures have been drawn of the social life of England under the reign of good Queen Bess. But, after all, Shakspeare himself is without a rival as the honest chronicler of his own times. His was the mission so nobly depicted in his own glowing lines, "To hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."

The "form and pressure of the time," in so far as Temperance is concerned, is repellant and hideous enough, in all conscience. Tested by the delineations preserved for us in the pages of Shakspeare, the "goodness" of the good old times certainly appears somewhat visionary. Take, for instance, the tragedy which deals with Hamlet, who, as Coleridge grandly expresses it, is "the darling of every country in which the literature of England has been fostered." In the second scene of the first act, Hamlet, in bidding his friend Horatio welcome to Elsinore, gives utterance to the emphatic assurance,—

"We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart."

How deep the English drank in those days may be better imagined than described when we place by the side of the passage just quoted (which of course refers to the habits of the Danes) another extract, to be found in "Othello," Act II. Scene 3. Iago has sung a convivial song, which Cassio

thinks "excellent," whereupon the former makes the avowal that he "learned it in England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting; your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-Drink ho!—are nothing to your English."

Cassio.

"Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?"

Iago.

"Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain."

Returning to "Hamlet," we find a further reference to Temperance in the fourth scene of Act IV. Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus are represented as being in conference. A flourish of trumpets and discharge of ordnance cause Horatio to put the question, "What does this mean, my lord?” and the following colloquy ensues :

Hamlet.

"The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge."

Hamlet.

"Ay, marry, is't:

And to my mind, though I am native here,

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel, east and west,

Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations:

They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase

Soil our addition; and, indeed, it takes

From our achievements, though performed at height,

The pith and marrow of our attribute.

So, oft it chances in particular men,

That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth (wherein they are not guilty
Since nature cannot choose his origin),
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners; that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo)

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of ill
Doth all the noble substance often dout,
To his own scandal."

"The swaggering up-spring reels," is read by Mr. Halliwell, as "the blustering up-start is in