The lab’ring poor, in spite of double pay,
Are saucy, mutinous, and beggarly,
So lavish of their money and their time,
That want of forecast is the nation’s crime.
Good drunken company is their delight,
And what they get by day they spend by night.
Dull thinking seldom does their heads engage,
But drink their youth away, and hurry on old age.
Empty of all good husbandry and sense,
And void of manners most when void of pence,
Their strong aversion to behaviour’s such,
They always talk too little or too much;
So dull, they never take the pains to think,
And seldom are good-natured, but in drink.
In English ale their dear enjoyment lies,
For which they’ll starve themselves and families.
An Englishman will fairly drink as much
As will maintain two families of Dutch:
Subjecting all their labour to their pots;
The greatest artists are the greatest sots.
The country poor do by example live;
The gentry lead them, and the clergy drive:
What may we not from such examples hope?
The landlord is their god, the priest their pope.
A drunken clergy and a swearing bench
Has given the Reformation such a drench,
As wise men think there is some cause to doubt
Will purge good manners and religion out.
Nor do the poor alone their liquor prize;
The sages join in this great sacrifice;
The learned men who study Aristotle,
Correct him with an explanation bottle;
Praise Epicurus rather than Lysander,
And Aristippus[[20]] more than Alexander.
The doctors, too, their Galen here resign,
And generally prescribe specific wine;
The graduate’s study’s grown an easier task,
While for the urinal they toss the flask;
The surgeon’s art grows plainer every hour,
And wine’s the balm which into wounds they pour.
Poets long since Parnassus have forsaken,
And say the ancient bards were all mistaken.
Apollo’s lately abdicate and fled,
And good King Bacchus governs in his stead;
He does the chaos of the head refine,
And atom-thoughts jump into words by wine:
The inspirations of a finer nature,
As wine must needs excel Parnassus’ water.
Statesmen their weighty politics refine,
And soldiers raise their courages by wine;
Cecilia gives her choristers their choice,
And lets them all drink wine to clear their voice.
Some think the clergy first found out the way,
And wine’s the only spirit by which they pray;
But others, less profane than so, agree
It clears the lungs and helps the memory;
And therefore all of them divinely think,
Instead of study, ’tis as well to drink.
And here I would be very glad to know
Whether our Asgilites may drink or no;
Th’ enlight’ning fumes of wine would certainly
Assist them much when they begin to fly;
Or if a fiery chariot should appear,
Inflamed by wine, they’d have the less to fear.
Even the gods themselves, as mortals say,
Were they on earth, would be as drunk as they;
Nectar would be no more celestial drink,
They’d all take wine, to teach them how to think.
But English drunkards gods and men outdo,
Drink their estates away, and money too.
Colon’s in debt, and if his friends should fail
To help him out, must die at at last in gaol;
His wealthy uncle sent a hundred nobles
To pay his trifles off, and rid him of his troubles;
But Colon, like a true-born Englishman,
Drank all the money out in bright champagne,
And Colon does in custody remain.
Drunk’ness has been the darling of this realm
E’er since a drunken pilot had the helm.
In their religion they are so uneven,
That each man goes his own by-way to Heaven,
Tenacious of mistakes to that degree
That ev’ry man pursues it separately,
And fancies none can find the way but he:
So shy of one another they are grown,
As if they strove to get to Heaven alone.
Rigid and zealous, positive and grave,
And ev’ry grace but Charity they have.
This makes them so ill-natured and uncivil,
That all men think an Englishman the devil.
Surly to strangers, froward to their friend;
Submit to love with a reluctant mind.
Resolved to be ungrateful and unkind,
If by necessity reduced to ask,
The giver has the difficultest task;
For what’s bestowed they awkwardly receive,
And always take less freely than they give.
The obligation is their highest grief,
And never love where they accept relief.
So sullen in their sorrow, that ’tis known
They’ll rather die than their afflictions own;
And if relieved, it is too often true
That they’ll abuse their benefactors too;
For in distress, their haughty stomach’s such,
They hate to see themselves obliged too much.
Seldom contented, often in the wrong,
Hard to be pleased at all, and never long.
If your mistakes their ill opinion gain,
No merit can their favour reobtain;
And if they’re not vindictive in their fury,
’Tis their unconstant temper does secure ye.
Their brain’s so cool, their passion seldom burns,
For all’s condensed before the flame returns;
The fermentation’s of so weak a matter,
The humid damps the fume, and runs it all to water.
So, though the inclination may be strong,
They’re pleased by fits, and never angry long.