have no meaning in them, and
have no other ornament, but unintelligible jingle, and initial letters?
How would he curse the day which deprived his senseless soul of that
happy error that so much charmed his thoughts, and amused his
imagination?

What is here said of the poets is applicable to all mankind; and so a
man, whom any one should undertake to persuade, that the mirth and joy
inspired by wine is chimerical, would do well to answer him, after the
manner as a certain madman did the doctor that cured him. The story is
this:--

Once upon a time a certain bigot, otherwise a man of sense, had his
brain a little touched with whimsies, and continually fancied he heard
the heavenly music of the blessed spirits. At last a physician, very
expert in his profession, cured him, either by his skill, or by chance,
no matter which; but when he came to demand his fees; for what? says the
other, in a violent passion, by your damned slip-slops and hellish art,
you have robbed me of my Paradise, though you have cured me of my error.
This I borrow from Boileau[7], as he did from Horace[8].

"[9]There are," says Pere Bouhours, writing to Bussi Rabutin, "agreeable
errors, which are much more valuable than that which the Spaniards
called desengano, and which might be called in our language
disabusement, if this word, which one of our best writers has ventured
upon, had been received."

We shall conclude with M. de Sacy[10], "That it is not always doing
mankind an agreeable service to dissipate their illusions." And we say
of those who taste those satisfactions wine inspires, what M. Bayle says
very pleasantly of news-mongers who are still in hopes of what they wish
for. "They are[11]," says he, "the least unhappy, whatever happens.
There is a great deal of reality in their agreeable sentiments, how
chimerical soever their foundation may be; so that they do not willingly
suffer themselves to be disabused; and they sometimes say, when one
gives them reasons why they should believe the news, that makes them so
joyful, is doubtful or absolutely false, Why do you envy us the
pleasures we enjoy? Do not disturb our entertainment, or rob us of what
we hold most dear. A friend more opposite to error than charity is a
very troublesome reasoner; and if he meddles with their chimeras they
will endeavour to do him a diskindness."

We come now to another objection, and that is, that this joy inspired by
wine is but of a very short continuance;