and modification of it, inconvenience and censure are more or less attached. To restrain abuses in costly apparel and in eating; many nations, under the name of "Sumptuary laws," have enacted penalties: but Baron Montesquieu is of opinion, that "luxury is necessary to monarchies, but injurious to democracies:" Judge Blackstone observes, that, with regard to England whose Government is compounded of both species, it may still be a dubious question how far private luxury is a public evil,” and he observes, "that our Legislators, on this point, have several times changed their opinions, “for formerly," adds he, "there were many penal laws to restrain excess in apparel, which have been since repealed, but as to excess in diet," there still remains one ancient statute unrepealed, which ordains, "that no man shall be served at dinner or supper with more than two courses, except upon some great great holyday, there specified, in which he may be served with three.*** Of the evils which result from intempeperance in diet, Mr. Addison has given this expressive description: "For my part," says he, "when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers, and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in, ambuscade among the dishes." They, who by plentiful and luxurious meals are in the habit of gorging the stomach, and loading the system with a greater variety of materials for disease and death, as unquestionably such do, than those who transgress in the opposite extreme, may justly be said to offend in a higher degree againstthe laws of nature, and in a more certain way to become their own suicides! they are, moreover, equally guilty of a notorious. abuse * Vide Blackstone's Commentaries. abuse of those good things, which were sent only for our moderate use and in this respect are alike chargeable with immorality: a heavy meal, it is admitted, does not hurry the porter of it, into a delirium, as the same proportion of drink might do, but it nevertheless stupifies him by lethargy; while crudities and flatulencies are making their rumbling uproar in the distended carcass, which on some occasions, can only be relieved, by a few voluntary efforts to reject, what had been so greedily forced into it. It becomes therefore the greatest reproach of our nature to wander from her simple paths, to commit as it were, a rape on the simplicity of her chaste desires, and by every art that imagination can invent, or extravagance procure, to riot in this most disgusting species of excess! Having thus served the glutton, with a short but wholesome meal, the cup of the Bacchanalian Y Bacchanalian shall next be supplied, with a beverage equally salutary, and in greater abundance: we will for the present forbear the lectures of gravity, and our business with him shall be introduced in a more jocular: kind of way, by first telling a story. A German Physician, in the last century, in two large folios, made strange suppositions by droll contrast, and endeavoured to destroy vice, by affecting to cherish it. He makes a Christopher Hegendorph speak an oration to the University of Leipsick, in praise of drunkenness." Doubtless, illustrious auditors," says this Physician, as I am a young man, and about to recommend drunkenness to grave and sober men, I shall seem to be doubly drunk-but pardon me, if I affirm, that I am not the first patron of drunkenness intoxication is an antient, universal practice, Jews, Trojans, and Greeks, got drunk-Noah and Lot got drunk-The Greeks published encomiums on intoxica tion-The Romans loved tippling-Tiberius and Lucius Piso used to sit at their cups three days and nights together-Egyptians, Saxons, and almost all people got drunk-as for the Monks, they could not possibly go through the services of their several orders, without plenty of liquor;-besides, liquor makes mirth, and mirth is life;-drinking also sets men a talking about religion; and farmers never dispute so clearly for Luther against Eckius, as when they are animated with strong liquor.-Poets and Preachers can do nothing without plenty of drink — and with it, what can they not do? but you will objects it is said in the Gospel, be not over - charged with drunkenness can't you get drunk without getting dead drunk? St. Paul's advice merely is, do not get drunk-by which he only means, do not get excessively drunk.” Surely the most experienced advocate for intoxication could not have given a more witty turn to his cause, than what this writer x 2 |