ith courage, and even
makes the coward valiant. _Ad prelia trudit inertem._ Experience
confirms this truth. "We see," says Montaigne[6], "that our Germans,
though drowned in wine, remember their post, the word, and their rank."

We read in Spartien, that a certain general having been vanquished by
the Saracens, his soldiers laid all the blame of their defeat on their
want of wine.

The soldiers of the army of Pescennius Niger pressed earnestly for wine,
undoubtedly to make them fight the better; but he refused them in these
words, "You have the Nile," said he, "and do you ask for wine?" In
imitation, I suppose, of the emperor Augustus[7], who, when the people
complained of the dearness and scarcity of wine, said to them, "My
son-in-law, Agrippa, has preserved you from thirst, by the canals he has
made for you."

By what has been said it plainly appears, that wine is so far from
hindering a man from performing the duties of life, that it rather
forwards him, and is an admirable ingredient in all states and
conditions, both of peace and war, which made Horace[8] thus bespeak the
god of wine.

"Quanquam choreis aptior et jocis
Ludoque dictus, non sat idoneus
Pugnis ferebaris, sed idem
Pacis eras mediusque belli."

Tho' thou more apt for love than furious war,
And gay desires to move, thy chiefest care,
Yet war, and sweetest pleasures, you can join,
Both Mars and Venus are devotes to wine.

[Footnote 1: Flav. Vopisc. in vita Bonos.]

[Footnote 2: Amel. de la Houssai sur Tacit. Ann. liv. xi. ch. 35.]

[Footnote 3: Scaligeriana, p. 169.]

[Footnote 4: L. ii. ch. 2.]

[Footnote 5: Orat. ii. Philip.]

[Footnote 6: Essais, l. ii. ch. 2.]

[Footnote 7: Sueton. in Vit. August.]

[Footnote 8: Lib. ii. Od. 19.]

CHAP. XXV.

BURLESQUE, RIDICULOUS, AND OUT-OF-THE-WAY THOUGHTS, AGAINST DRUNKENNESS.

It is reported that Gerson should say, That there was no difference
between a man's killing himself at one stroke, or to procure death by
several, in getting drunk.

Somebody has burlesqued this verse of Ovid[1]:--

Vina parant animos, faciuntque coloribus aptos.[1a]

And thus changed it,

Vina parant asinos, faciuntque furoribus aptos.

Cyneas[2] alluding to those high trees to which they used to fasten the
vines, said one day, discoursing on wine, that it was not without reason
that his mother was hanged upon so high a gibbet.

"[3]The di