ed,

THE NECESSITY
of
FREQUENTLY GETTING DRUNK;

And, That the Practice Is Most Ancient,
Primitive, and Catholic.

By
BONIFACE OINOPHILUS,
De Monte Fiascone, A. B. C.

Vinum laetificans cor hominis.
Narratur et prisci Catonis,
Saepe mero caluisse virtus. --HOR.

_LONDON:_
Printed For C. Chapple, Pall Mall.

1812.

Harding & Wright, Printers, St. John's Square, London.

EBRIETATIS ENCOMIUM:

OR, THE

PRAISE OF DRUNKENNESS

THE

PREFACE.

If ever preface might serve for an apology, certainly this ought to do
so. The bare title of the book is enough to have it universally cried
down, and to give the world an ill opinion of its author; for people
will not be backward to say, that he who writes the Praise of
Drunkenness, must be a drunkard by profession; and who, by discoursing
on such a subject, did nothing but what was in his own trade, and
resolved not to move out of his own sphere, not unlike Baldwin,
a shoe-maker's son, (and a shoe-maker), in the days of yore, who
published a treatise on the shoes of the ancients, having a firm
resolution strictly to observe this precept, _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_.

To this I answer, I am very well contented, that the world should
believe me as much a drunkard, as Erasmus, who wrote The Praise of
Folly, was a fool, and weigh me in the same balance.

But some will say, what good can a man propose to himself in being a
panegyrist for drunkenness? To solve this difficulty I shall make use of
a comparison.

M. Pelisson, in his History of the French Academy, says, that Menage did
not compose that famous Requete des Dictionaires, in which he ridicules
all the academics, on account of any aversion he had to them, but purely
to divert himself, and not to lose the witty turns that came into his
head upon that subject. In the same manner, I declare that I did not
undertake this work on account of any zeal I have for wine, you must
think, but only to divert myself, and not to lose a great many curious
remarks I have made upon this most catholic liquid.

It may farther be objected, that this work is so stuffed with
quotations, that they hinder the book itself from being seen; like what
I heard say of a country fellow, who complained when he left London,
that he could not see it for the houses. As an excuse for all t