Lives as he ought to do, and dies an honest fellow.”
The most affectionate solicitude is continually manifested by seventeenth-century poets lest perchance unthinking mortals should neglect or overlook their opportunities of drinking, and so forfeit their full share of pleasure in a pleasant world.
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,”
is as much the motto of the drinker as of the lover, and the mutability of life forever warns him against wasting its flying moments in unprofitable soberness.
“Not long youth lasteth,
And old age hasteth.
“All things invite us
Now to delight us,”
is the Elizabethan rendering of Father William’s counsel; and the hospitable ghost in Fletcher’s “Lovers’ Progress,” who, being dead, must know whereof he speaks, conjures his guests to
“Drink apace, while breath you have,