Mark how it smells. Methinks, a real pain
Is by its odour thrown upon my brain.
I’ve tasted it—‘tis spiritless and flat,
And has as many different tastes
As can be found in compound pastes.[179]
We are now in a position to determine the causes of the prevalent intemperance at the close of the seventeenth century:—
1. The Act to encourage distillation.
2. The exhaustion of light wines.
3. The influence of the Court.
4. The development of toasting.
5. Club life.
It remains only to notice the last two of the causes.
Toasting was carried to an utter absurdity. Chamberlayne thus accounts for the fashion:—
As the English, returning from the wars in the Holy Land, brought home the foul disease of leprosy, ... so, in our fathers’ days, the English, returning from service in the Netherlands, brought with them the foul vice of drunkenness.... This vice at present prevails so much that some persons, and those of quality, may not safely be visited in an afternoon without running the hazard of excessive drinking of healths (whereby, in a short time, twice as much liquor is consumed as by the Dutch, who sip and prate); and in some places it is esteemed a piece of wit to make a man drunk, for which purpose some swilling insipid buffoon is always at hand.[180]