Cynthia’s fine eyes, me wretched, first could move,
Before that time I knew not what was love.
“And scarce had he repeated ten or twelve verses of that elegy of Propertius, but he expired, surrounded with cups and glasses, and of him one may really say, that he vomitted his purple soul out, Purpuræam vomit ille animam[13].”
I shall not vouch for the truth of this story, but you have it as I find it; nor must it be expected that Buchanan, who was their mortal enemy, should find any favour from the priests of the church of Rome.
Justus Lipsius got sometimes drunk; he tells us so himself, in his Commentary on Seneca, for in that passage where the philosopher says, that drunkenness cures some certain distempers, he makes on the word distempers this remark following—Melancholy (we know it by experience) or cold. And in the discourses which he says were carried on between Carrio Demius and Dusa, upon subjects of literature, and which he inserts in his Ancient Lessons, they had always a glass in their hand.
Every one knows that Baudius, professor in the university of Leyden, was a great drinker, and Culprit himself pleads guilty to the indictment. Habemus rerum confitentem. Here follow his own words, which I own I cannot translate without losing their beauty in the Latin, but the substance is, that he defies envy itself to say any thing against him, but that like the ancient Cato, he drank pretty liberally of the juice of the grape. Concurrant omnes, says he, non dicam ut ille satiricus, Augures, Haruspices, sed quicquid est ubique hominum curiosorum, qui in aliena acta tam sedulo iniquirunt ut ea fingant quæ nunquam fuerunt, nihil inveniet quod in nobis carpere possit livor, quam quod interdum ad exemplum prisci Catonii liberalitatis invitare nos patiamur, nec semper constitimus ultra sobrietatem veterum Sabinorum[14]. And in another letter he says, that the most virulent detractor could never reproach him with any thing, but that he got sometimes drunk. Malignitas obtrectatorum nihil aliud in nobis sigillare potest quam quod nimis commodus sum convivator, et interdum largius adspargor rore liberi patris[15].
Balzac made also some little debauches with some of his friends at his country-house; and what he wrote to an officer who was then prisoner in Germany, makes it evidently appear that he thought it lawful so to do. “In relation,” says he, “to the German manner of drinking healths, which you speak of with such trouble, as if they were so many Turkish bastinadoes, I think your sobriety in that respect to be a little too delicate, you must learn to howl when you are in company of wolves, as the proverb has it, and not to instance great generals. Don’t you know, that wise ambassadors of kings have heretofore got drunk for the good of their master’s affairs, and sacrificed all their prudence and gravity to the necessity of great men, and the custom of the country where they were. I do not advise you here to any forbidden acts of intemperance, but I think it no manner of harm now and then to drown your chagrin in Rhenish wine, and to make use of that agreeable means to shorten the time, the long continuance of which is ever extremely tedious to prisoners[16].”
The illustrious professor of Utrecht, whose name shall live as long as the republic of letters shall subsist, was a great drinker, and valued himself for drinking a great deal. It is reported of this learned man, that at the congress of the last peace, a certain German prince, of a sovereign house, came on purpose to have a brush with our professor, who accepted the challenge, and came off victorious, having fairly laid his enemy speechless on the floor.
[1.] Vide Preface, p. 17, l. 6, where are these words, viz. Thus shall princes love and cherish you as their most faithful children and servants, and take delight to commune with you, inasmuch as amongst you are found men excellent in all kinds of sciences, and who, thereby, may make their names, who love and cherish you, immortal
[2.] Page 6, l. 9.