This epigram was composed by Crashaw when Dryden was an infant, so should not be attributed to the latter.
Some noble lines of the poet James Nicholson are well worthy of record:—
Our homes are invaded with dark desolation,
There’s danger wherever the wine-cup doth flow;
Then pledge your fair hands to resist the temptation,
Nor stain your red lips with those waters of woe.
Lift up your bright glances, put on all your beauty—
Your holy affections—your God-given dower;
Such weapons are mighty—awake to your duty,
The trophies you gather will add to your power.
And, once more,—
I’ll pledge thee not in wassail bowl,
With rosy madness filled;
But let us quaff the nobler wine,
By Nature’s hand distilled.
Where to the skies the mountains rise
In grandeur to the view,
Where sparkling rills leap down the hills,
Our Scotia’s mountain dew.
Thomas Weaver, 1649, writes,—
The harms and mischiefs which th’abuse
Of wine doth every day produce,
Make good the doctrine of the Turks,
That in each grape a devil lurks.
Divines like Hugh Peters declaimed from the pulpit against intemperance. Archbishop Harsnet, founder of Chigwell School, left the regulation respecting the head master, that he be ‘no tippler, no haunter of ale-houses, no puffer of tobacco.’
In addition to abundance of precept, some legislative action is noticeable.