IMPERIAL DRINKERS AND INCIDENTS IN GERMANY.
The stories of the gigantic drinkers of antiquity are startling; but I think they may be accounted for. Natural philosophers inform us, that objects seen through a mist are magnified to the senses; and so it is with the feats which we are asked to contemplate through the mist of ages: they are probably not so astounding as they appear. One may say of each story, so venerable and enlarged by age, as the good Dominican did to the congregation whom he had affected to tears by the warmth of one of his legendary sermons. “Do not cry so, my brethren,” said the Preacher; “for, after all, perhaps it’s not true.”
It must be allowed, however, that the stories of wine-bibbers of later times than those when the son of Aristides gained his living by singing ballads in the streets of Athens, or the heir of Cicero drank draughts longer than his sire’s orations, lack nothing whatever of the marvellous. And this reminds me of an incident, quod alibi narravi, and which I will narrate here, by way of illustration of this portion of my subject.