“George Sharpe, a Scotchman, professor, and vice-chancellor of Montpelier, who died in the year 1673, on his birth-day, aged fifty-nine years, was a great drunkard[10].”
Barthius may also be reckoned amongst those learned topers, if what Coloniez says be true. “I knew,” says he, “some learned men in Holland, who spoke of Scriverius as of a man extremely amorous. M. Vossius, amongst others, related to me one day, that Barthius being come from Germany to Haerlaem to see Scriverius, had in his company a lady perfectly beautiful, whom Scriverius had no sooner seen, but he found means to make Barthius drunk, that he might entertain the lady with greater liberty, which he accomplished. It was not, however, so well managed, but Barthius coming to himself had some reason to suspect what had past, which grew so much upon him, that he took the lady along with him in a rage, and drowned her in the Rhine[11].”
Scaliger treats as a drunkard, John Kuklin, a calvinist minister, native of Hesse, and a very learned man[12].
“Nicolas de Bourbon, of Bar sur l’Aube, was nephew’s son to the poet Nicolas Bourbon, who lived in the time of Francis the First; after having been king’s professor, then canon of Langres, made himself father of the oratory.——He was a prodigious dry soul, and loved good wine, which made him often say, That though he was of the French academy, yet that when he read French verses he fancied he was drinking water.”
The great Buchanan, so famous for his fine writings, was a terrible drinker, if we may give any credit to Father Garasse. What follows is taken out of his Doctrine Curieuse, p. 748. “I shall,” says he, “recount to our new atheists, the miserable end of a man of their belief and humour, as to eating and drinking. The libertine having passed his debauched youth in Paris and Bourdeaux, more diligent in finding out tavern bushes than the laurel of Parnassus; and being towards the latter end of his life, recalled into Scotland, to instruct the young prince, James VI. continuing his intemperance, he grew at last so dropsical by drinking, that by way of jeer he said he was in labour. Vino intercute, not aquâ intercute. As ill as he was, he would, however, not abstain from drinking bumpers, and them too all of pure wine, as he used to do at Bourdeaux. The physicians who had care of his health, by order of the king, seeing the extravagant excesses of their patient, told him roundly, and in a kind of heat, that he did all he could to kill himself, and that, if he continued this course of life, he could not live above a fortnight, or three weeks, longer. He desired them then to hold a consultation amongst themselves, and let him know how long he might live if he abstained from wine. They did so, and told him, he might on that condition live five or six years longer. Upon which he gave them an answer worthy his humour. Go, says he, with your regimens and prescriptions, and know, that I had rather live three weeks, and get drunk every day, than six years without drinking wine. And as soon as he had thus dismissed the physicians, he caused a barrel of wine of Grave to be placed at his bed’s head, resolving to see the bottom of it before he died; and carried himself so valiantly in this encounter, that he drank it up to the lees, fulfilling literally the contents of this quaint epigram of Epigonus upon a frog, who falling into a pipe of wine, cried out,
φεύ τινες ὕδωρ
πίνουσι μανίην σώφρονα μαινόμενοι. [A]
“Having death and the glass between his teeth, the ministers visited him to bring him to himself, that he might take resolution to die with some thought and reflection; one of them especially exhorted him to recite the Lord’s Prayer; upon which, opening his eyes, he looked very ghastly upon the minister, And what is that, says he, that you call the Lord’s Prayer? The standers by answered, It was the Our Father; and that, if he could not pronounce that prayer, they desired him that at least he would recite some christian prayer, that he might die like a good man. For my part, replied he, I never knew any other prayer than this,
“Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis,
Contractum nullis ante cupidinibus.”[12a]