ncomium,
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 illustration, (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 pass 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 cumbrous teeth.
Mantle farewell, of grograin brown compos'd,
Studded with silver clasp in number plural:
With jacket short