“[5]Drunkenness is detested in most parts of hot countries. It is looked upon there as infamous. The greatest affront you can give a Spaniard, is to call him drunkard. I have been assured, continues M. Bayle, a servant, if his master should call him so, might bring his action at law against him, and recover damages, though any other name he will suffer very patiently, and without any right of complaint of being injured in his reputation, as rogue, hang-dog, b——, &c.”
Empedocles, we may well conclude, loved wine, which he called, Water putrified in wood.
[6]Amongst the Locrians, Seleucus had such an aversion to wine, that he forbad any one to drink it under pain of death, or even give it to the sick.
Apollonius Thyanæus never drank any wine, no more than St. Fulgentius, bishop, S. Stephen, king of Poland, and cardinal Emeri.
“[7]The Severians, disciples of Severus, in the time of pope Sotherus, condemned absolutely wine, as a creature of the devil.”
[8]The emperor Frederick the Third, seeing his wife barren, consulted the physicians upon the case; who told him, that if the empress would drink wine she might be fruitful. But he told them, like a simpleton as he was, That he had rather his wife should be barren and sober, than be fruitful and drink wine. And the empress, being informed of the wise answer of the imperial ninny-hammer, her husband, said full as wisely, That if she was to be put to her choice, to drink wine or die, she should make no manner of hesitation, but prefer death.
De nimia sapientia libera nos domine.
[a.] Catullus XXVII.5-6.
[1.] Rem. sur Rabel. t. iv. ch. 93.
[2.] Page 777.