Ebrietatis Encomium Part 21

The dire confusions of pernicious war, The satyrs, fauns, and Bacchus, all abhor.

Curs'd be those sanguinary mortals, who Of reeking blood with crimson tides The sacred mysteries imbrue Of our great G.o.d who over peace presides.

VIII.

But if I must wage war, If so necessity commands, Follow, my friends, advance your hands, Let us commence the pleasing jar.

With wreaths of ivy be our temples bound, Hark! to arms, to arms, they sound, Th' alarm to battle calls, Lend me your formidable Thyrse, ye Baccha.n.a.ls.

Double your strokes. Bold----bolder yet, 'Tis done-------- How many rivals conquer'd lie?

How many hardy combatants submit?

O son of Jupiter, thy deity, And sovereign power, we own, and aid divine; Nothing but heaps of jolly topers slain I see extended on the plain, Floating in ruddy streams of reeking wine.

IX.

Io victoria to our king, To Bacchus songs of triumph let us sing; His great immortal name Let us aloud to distant worlds proclaim.

Io victoria to our king, To Bacchus grateful strains belong; O! may his glories live in endless song, The vanquish'd welt'ring on the sand, One health from us their conqu'ror demand.

Fill me a b.u.mper. Trumpet sound, Second my voice, loud, louder yet, Sound our exploits, and their defeat, Who quiet, undisturb'd, possess the ground.

Io victoria to our king, To Bacchus, songs of triumph let us sing.

To this great work now finished (G.o.d be thanked) I subscribe as usual in the like cases of books, for I love decorum, and have an utter aversion to particularity, prolixity, and circ.u.mlocution. I say, to make short, I subscribe as usual, &c. in the like cases, &c. for I love, &c. and have an aversion, &c. the universally famous and most noted name which is subscribed to all books by what name or t.i.tles dignified or distinguished: or of what sort, species, size, dimension, or magnitude soever, pamphletary and voluminous; whether they be first or foremost, plays, either comical, tragical, comi-tragical, tragi-comical, or pastoral; G.o.dly, or profane songs or ballads; sermons high or low, popish or protestant, dissenting, independent, enthusiastical, Brownistical, heterodox, or orthodox; Philadelphian, Muggletonian, Sacheverelian, or Bangorian, quaking, rhapsodical, prophetical, or nonsensical; legends golden or plain; breviaries, graduals, missals, pontificals, ceremonials, antiphonaries, statutes, spelling-books.

Or, secondly and lastly, tracts, treatises, essays; pandects, codes, inst.i.tutes; primers, rosaries, romances; travels, synods, history books; digests, decretals, lives; commentaries anagogical, allegorical, or tropological; journals, expositions, vocabularies, pilgrimages, manuals, indexes common or expurgatorial; almanacks, bulls, const.i.tutions, or lottery books, viz. i. e. namely, to wit, or, that is to say,

FINIS.

Which being interpreted is,

_THE END_.

POSTSCRIPT.

Having received the following letter from a merry friend, wherein are some (not unpleasant) remarks on the foregoing treatise, I thought fit to send it to the press, which the reader, as he is at liberty either to read, or let alone, so it is the same thing to me, whether he does read it, or let it alone.

To the renowned Boniface Oinophilus de Monte Fiascone, A. B. C. author of the most inimitable (and non-pareil) treatise, Ebrietatis Encomium, to be left with that mirror of privative perspicuity, Signor Edemondo Curluccio, at the Bible and Dial, over against Catherine-Street, in the Strand.

Right trusty, and well-beloved, I greet you well,

Having perused (at the bookseller's, who shewed me the sheets) your Ebrietatis Encomium all through, even unto Finis, or the End, I own I was not a little diverted thereat. But as I never flatter any body, so my friends may least of all expect I should begin with them. I must, therefore, be frank and free with you, most renowned and never-to-be-forgotten Boniface, _post nullos memorande sodales_, and tell you, that you have omitted several things very material, and highly conducible to the elucidation, or ill.u.s.tration, (choose you whether) of your agreeable subject. But perhaps they either did not occur to your memory; or, which is the same thing, (_quoad lectorem_) you were entirely ignorant of them, but which take as follow.

First and foremost, amongst your philosophers, you have taken no notice of the stupendous Des Cartes, with his wonderful system of whirlpools (vortices) and particles, cubic, conic, striate, oblong, globular, hooked, crooked, spiral and angular: for who the devil but a mere tipsy, giddy brains, could have dished up such a confounded hotch-potch and gallimatias of whimsical rotations, or fancied that the whole earth whirled round like a town-top, had not _Vinorum materia subtilis_, the circling effluvia of _Liber Pater_, abundantly invaded his capital regions.

So have I seen in days of yore a dame, At Winchester, who seventy winters knew, Not more nor less, my mistress then yclept, Hight Margaret, deceas'd long since I trow, Whose fate I thus bemoan'd in song sublime.

She's gone, alas! the beauteous nymph is dead, Dead to my hopes, and all my eager wishes: Such is the state of poor unhappy man, All things soon pa.s.s away, nought permanent, That rolls beneath the vortex of the moon.

So when we've screw'd up to the highest Peg[1]

Our ample lines of future happiness, Some disappointments dire, or chance disastrous, Snaps the extended chords. Oh! then farewell, No more shall visual ray of form acute Affect her wondrous mien. Farewell those lips Of sapphire tincture, gums of crocus die Freed from th'ungrateful load of c.u.mbrous teeth.

Mantle farewell, of grograin brown compos'd, Studded with silver clasp in number plural: With jacket short, so famous, tory red, Not hemm'd, but bound about with good galloon Of deepest mazarine (delightful hue!) Farewell (I sighing speak) those non-such shoes Of obfusc colour (heel of form cylindrous) Worn only upon days non-ferial.

In love's true knot of verdant ferrit tied.

But Oh! farewell, a long and last farewell, To large Ampull with vital water fraught, Wherein the effluvia soft and delicate Of dulcet aniseseed (not coriander) In its capacious rim of form anguillar Whirl in sweet vortex. Hence it was observ'd, The subtile matter, when in throat retir'd, Kept still its roulant quality, and oft Would mount in circling spires to pericranium Of she-philosopher, when in elbow chair, Deep and profound, would the grave matron reve, And learnedly p.r.o.nounce (like great RENATUS[2]) With equal verity the world turns round.

Secondly and foremost, you should have added at the end of the philosophers chapter, the song of the Tippling Philosophers, which I send you here enclosed.

The bookseller to whom I mentioned this, fancied truly, that you might think it too mean and trifling to insert. But without troubling myself to know, whether this be your sentiment, or whether he spoke this of his own head, I shall trouble myself to tell you, as this song is taken from an excellent French one, which you may find in a very famous book[3], and which (to follow your method) you may know by the note at the bottom. The song (whether you have ever seen it, or not, I neither know, nor do I care) is as follows, and will go with the same tune as the English (if I am not mistaken).

[Footnote 1: You must remember my Mrs.'s name was Margaret.]

[Footnote 2: Des Cartes's christian name.]

[Footnote 3: Fureteriana, p. 205.]

CHANSON A BOIRE.

I.

Je cherche en vin la verite, Si le vin n'aide a ma foiblesse, Toute la docte antiquite Dans le vin puisa la sagesse.

Oui c'est par le bon vin que le bon sens eclate J'en atteste Hypocrate, Qui dit qu'il fait a chaque mois Du moins s'enivrer une fois.

II.

Socrate cet homme discret Que toute la terre revere, Alloit manger au cabaret Quand sa femme etoit en colere.

Pouvons-nous mieux faire que d'imiter Socrate Et de suivre Hypocrate, Qui dit, &c.

III.

Platon est nomme le divin Parce qu'il etoit magnifique, Et qu'il regala de son vin La cabale philosophique.

Sa table fut toujours splendide et delicate, Il suivit Hypocrate, Qui dit, &c.

IV.

Aristotle buvoit autant, Et nous avons lieu de le croire De ce qu'Alexandre le grand, Son disciple, aimoit tant a boire, Qu'il degela cent fois sur les bords de l'Euphrate En suivant Hypocrate, Qui dit, &c.

V.

L'on veut que Diogene aimoit l'eau, Mais il n'eut point cette folie, Il se logea dans un tonneau Pour sentir le gout de la lie.

Et pour mieux boire au pot, il jetta la sa jatte Et tint pour Hypocrate, Qui dit, &c.

VI.

Democrite pres de sa fin, Par une invention jolie, En flairant seulement le vin, De trois jours prolonga sa vie.

Le vin r.e.t.a.r.de plus la mort, qu'il ne la hate, Temoin notre Hypocrate, Qui dit, &c.

VII.