exclaims the bold King Richard; and I once heard a fine old sportsman, and very worthy man, declare, after a bottle of good port, that he would not exchange the present—his eightieth year—for the gayest he had ever spent.
Luckily for the credit of the human race—although Cleopatra hunted and drank with Antony—there has been, in all ages of the world, a sense of shame attached to the vice of drunkenness in women, having any pretensions to character, as something contrary to their more refined nature. By the ancient Roman laws it was punishable even by death; and we find that even the abandoned women who celebrated the Bacchanalia were ashamed to do so, except under the disguise of masks.
To the credit of the present age, drunkenness in women is not a common failing; but when they once yield to the vice, they have less moderation in the indulgence of it than men have. That such was the case in other ages and countries, may be gleaned from a passage in a comic play-writer, contemporary with Plato, which has been thus accurately rendered:
"Remark how wisely ancient art provides,
The broad-brimmed cup, with flat expanded sides;
A cup contrived for man's discreeter use,
And sober potions of the generous juice.
But woman's more ambitious, thirsty soul
Soon long'd to revel in the plenteous bowl;
Deep and capacious as the swelling hold
Of some stout bark, she shaped the hollow mould;
Then, turning out a vessel like a tun,
Simpering, exclaimed—Observe, I drink but one."
To return to the effect of wine on the ruder sex. Next to a smoky house and a scolding wife, it is the greatest trial of the temper to which that of man is exposed. In fact, it is a test by which it may be proved; and the advice of Horace is excellent, not to choose a friend till we have put him to this test. Addison is likewise happy in his remark on this point. "Wine," says he, "is not to be drunk by all who can swallow;" and truer words were never written. It has an extraordinary effect upon low and uncultivated minds; as was exemplified in late times, when war prices and abundance of money placed it within the reach of the English commonalty. Rows and broils, with marked insolence towards superiors, were the concomitant results. Neither is the observation of Pliny a whit less just. He says truth is vulgarly and properly attributed to wine; and I am decidedly of his opinion. In fact, our English term, "disguised in liquor," is improperly used; inasmuch as a blackguard when drunk is in his nature a blackguard when sober. The tongue, says the Bible, is at all times an unruly member; but when under the influence of wine, it is still more apt to run riot. Then, again, drunken men are given to "err in vision and stumble in judgment," and to put constructions upon words which they were not intended to convey. When we sacrifice to Bacchus, we are not favored by Mercury; and the well-known adage of "wine in, wit out," is but an abbreviation of the equally well proved axiom, that wine raises the imagination, but depresses the judgment.
Neither is the highly bred gentleman, if much addicted to intoxication, quite safe to be admitted into close friendship, inasmuch as he renders himself, by the practice, unworthy of confidence. Wine so unlocks the cabinet of the heart, that it is easily looked into when we are off our guard.
From an article in the "Home Book of the Picturesque," just published by G. P. Putnam.
AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN SCENERY COMPARED.
BY J. FENIMORE COOPER.