Now there’s my dad, God bless him, He’s now turned eighty-five, Hard work does ne’er distress him, He’s the happiest man alive. Though old in age He’s young in health, His head and his heart both clear, Possessing these and blest with peace, He smokes and he drinks his beer— For he’s fond of a drop of good beer, he is, He very much likes his beer, he does, Let gentlemen fine Sit down to their wine, But my feyther will stick to his beer.
Now, lads, need no persuasion, But send your glasses round, There’s no fear of an invasion While barley grows in ground; {428} May trade increase And discord cease In every coming year. Possessed of these and blest with peace, Why, we’ll smoke and we’ll drink our beer. For I likes a drop of good beer, I does, I’ze fond of a drop of good beer, I is. Let gentlemen fine Sit down to their wine But we’ll all of us stick to our beer.
The poet Bloomfield, in the Farmer’s Boy, may possibly better please our more critical readers. In describing the harvest-homing, he says:—
Now noon gone by, and four declining hours, The weary limbs relax their boasted pow’rs; Thirst rages strong, the fainting spirits fail, And ask the sov’reign cordial, home-brew’d ale:
A wider circle spreads, and smiles abound, As quick the frothing horn performs its round, Care’s mortal foe, that sprightly joys imparts To cheer the frame and elevate their hearts.
Shakespere has been called by the teetotallers as a witness in favour of abstinence from intoxicating liquors. Does he not make Adam, in As You Like It, say—
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood, Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo The means of weakness and debility; Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly?
Hot and rebellious liquors! yes; but would Shakespere have classed ale amongst them? It seems far more probable that the reference is to the strong wines of which the topers of his time drank deeply, the “malmsey and malvoisie,” the “neat wine of Orleance, the Gascony, the Bordeaux, the sherry sack, the liquorish Ipocras, brown beloved Bastard, or fat {429} Aligant,” or to the “aqua vitæ,” the manufacture of which in the reign of Mary was the subject of restrictive legislation.
Our consideration of the arguments put forward by the teetotal theorists has so far been slightly delayed by the few pages we have thought it well to devote to the accusations made against brewers of adulteration, and of the evident advantages of malt liquor to the labouring classes—proved beyond doubt without any necessity for learned disquisitions on chemistry or physiology. In turning now to a more particular consideration of the much-vexed question of temperance v. total abstinence, we do not propose to attempt the advancement of any novel or startling theories, but merely to give publicity to the arguments in favour of the temperate use of alcoholic drinks, as opposed to the total abstinence therefrom, supporting our arguments, as it will be found we shall be able to do, by the opinions of some of the best-known medical and scientific writers of the present day.