[5.] Essays, lib. ii. cap. 2.
[6.] Lib. xi. cap. 7.
[CHAP. V.]
THAT WINE CREATES WIT.
As wine increases the quantity of animal spirits, by the fumes which it sends to the brain, it is easy to comprehend that it cannot but be of great advantage to dull and heavy wits; so that one may particularly apply to them the common proverb, “Wine sets an edge to wit[1].” And the emblem of Adr. Junius, in which he represents Bacchus as a youth with wings on, and with this inscription, “Wine kindles wit[2],” agrees admirably well with these people. But the application of both proverb and emblem is no less just in relation to all the world; for it is most certain, that the god Bacchus, by warming the thoughts, renders them more acute, and inspires a greater plenty of witty sallies. For “Bacchus had not the name of Lysian, or Opener, if I may use the term, bestowed upon him for nothing but purely because he opens the mind, by putting it into an agreeable humour, and renders it more subtile and judicious[3].” For this reason it is grown into a proverb, That water-drinkers are not near so knowing as those who drink wine[4].
Plutarch assures us, That wine collects and increases the powers of the mind. He observes also, That it produces excellent effects on the minds of persons, who, though naturally timid, want no penetration. Plato maintains, as I have observed in the foregoing chapter, That wine warms as well the mind as the body. Monsieur Hofman says a great deal more, viz. That experience proves, that those climates which produce good wine, produce also people that “have infinitely more wit than those of the north, who drink nothing but beer. Gryllus believes, That the Greeks were called fathers of wisdom, on account of the excellency of their wine; and, that they lost their ancient lustre by reason of the Turks rooting out their vines. The Heathens placed Pallas and Bacchus in the same temple, to shew, that wine increased their wisdom, and that the Gods were represented wiser than men, only because they drank nectar and ambrosia.”
In respect of poets the world was always so sensible of the necessity they lay under, of having their imagination roused by wine, that nobody ever had any good opinion of the productions of a poet that drank water, that Non est Dythyrambus si aquam bibat; and wine was called the poets great horse. “There never were any excellent poets,” says Mr. Bayle, “that could versify, till after drinking pretty plentifully[5].”
And if we believe Plato, “He could never open the gates of poesy till he was a little beyond himself. The soul can speak nothing grand, or above the common, if it be not somewhat agitated[6].”
Horace[7], who knew by experience this truth, goes yet farther.
Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possint,
Quæ scribuntur aquæ potoribus.