Lengthens not a day, nor can buy to-morrow;
Money is trash; and he that will spend it,
Let him drink merrily, Fortune will send it.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, Oh, ho!
Play it off stiffly, we may not part so.
* * * * *
John Ford. (About 1623.)
A play, ascribed to Fletcher, entitled The Bloody Brother; or Rollo, Duke of Normandy, printed as early as 1640, contains a somewhat similar defence of drinking:—
A Drinking Song
Drink to-day, and drown all sorrow,