Spenser, The Shepherd’s Calendar, May.
Think you that the child hath any notion of the strong contents of riper age? or can he possibly imagine there are any such delights as those his babies and rattles afford him?—Allestree, Sermons, part ii. p. 148.
Bacchanal. Used now generally of a drunken reveller or votary of Bacchus; but it was once more accurately applied to the ‘bacchanalia,’ or orgies celebrated in his honour.
Do not ye, like those heathen in their bacchanals, inflame yourselves with wine.—Hammond, Paraphrase on the N. T., Ephes. v. 18.
So bacchanals of drunken riot were kept too much in London and Westminster, which offended many, that the thanks due only to God should be paid to the devil.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 165.
Well, I could wish that still in lordly domes
Some beasts were killed, though not whole hecatombs;
That both extremes were banished from their walls,
Carthusian fasts, and fulsome bacchanals.
Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne.