“Ut nos vitis amor, sic vos Venus improba vexat
Est data lex veneri Julia, nulla mero.”
As we love wine, so wicked Venus you,
Twas this, not that, the Julian Edict knew.
In order to draw a consequence from all this, let us speak once more of Montaigne[4], whose words are, “And if we cannot give any pleasure but what costs us something, as the ancients maintain, I find this vice costs the conscience less than all the rest, besides, it is in this respect no despicable consideration, that a man advanced in honours, amongst three principal conveniencies of life, that he told me he yet enjoyed, he reckoned this for one.”
After having shewn, in the foregoing chapters, That drunkenness reigns all the world over, Nulla in parte mundi cessat ebrietas. Let us see what we may hence infer in its favour: and I ask, if the agreement of so many different nations, to do one and the same thing, proves nothing, and may not, in some measure, serve as an apology for drunkenness? For if one considers, that the surprising variety of the humour and temperament of men, do, notwithstanding, in nowise hinder them from agreeing unanimously in this point, one shall have a very strong temptation to believe, that the desire of getting drunk is an innate quality, and we shall be confirmed in this sentiment, after tasting experimentally the exquisite sweetness caused by drunkenness.
To conclude,
All drink, throughout the universe, ’tis plain,
The moon drinks up the sea, the earth the rain,
The sun the air, and ev’ry tree, we know,