The general design of the Plate Beer Street is to expose the deadly habit of gin-drinking, and to teach that if man must drink strong liquors, beer is far the best to indulge in.
Edward Young, courtier, poet, rector, a general genius, satirised tea and wine as abused by the women of his day. After bemoaning the hecatomb sacrificed upon the altar of tea, he exclaims:—
But this inhuman triumph shall decline,
And thy revolting Naiads call for wine;
Spirits no longer shall serve under thee,
But reign in thy own cup, exploded Tea!
Citronia’s nose declares thy ruin nigh;
And who dares give Citronia’s nose the lie?
The ladies long at men of drink exclaimed,
And what impaired both health and virtue blamed.
At length, to rescue man, the generous lass
Stole from her consort the pernicious glass,
As glorious as the British Queen renown’d
Who suck’d the poison from her husband’s wound.
Another champion of temperance was John Armstrong, who wrote in 1744 The Art of Preserving Health. But he was no ascetic, for he writes:—
When you smooth
The brows of care, indulge your festive vein
In cups by well-informed experience found
The least your bane, and only with your friends.
The effects of a surfeit of drink he has most ably drawn:—
But most too passive, when the blood runs low,
Too weakly indolent to strive with pain,
And bravely by resisting conquer fate,
Try Circe’s arts; and in the tempting bowl
Of poisoned nectar sweet oblivion swill.
Struck by the powerful charm, the gloom dissolves
In empty air; Elysium opens round,
A pleasing frenzy buoys the lightened soul,
And sanguine hopes dispel your fleeting care;
And what was difficult, and what was dire,
Yields to your prowess and superior stars:
The happiest you of all that e’er were mad,
Or are, or shall be, could this folly last.
But soon your heaven is gone: a heavier gloom
Shuts o’er your head; and, as the thundering stream,
Swollen o’er its banks with sudden mountain rain,
Sinks from its tumult to a silent brook,
So, when the frantic raptures in your breast
Subside, you languish into mortal man;
You sleep, and waking find yourself undone,
For, prodigal of life, in one rash night
You lavished more than might support three days.
A heavy morning comes; your cares return
With tenfold rage. An anxious stomach well
May be endured; so may the throbbing head;
But such a dim delirium, such a dream,
Involves you; such a dastardly despair
Unmans your soul, as maddening Pentheus felt,
When, baited round Cithæron’s cruel sides,
He saw two suns, and double Thebes ascend.
How does this remind of the rich fool in the parable! The earlier lines of irony seem almost taken in idea from some sentiments of Hafiz, the favourite poet of the Persians.
I am [says he] neither a judge nor a priest, nor a censor, nor a lawyer; why should I forbid the use of wine?