s de la lire
Couronner d'indignes rivaux.

Tout me rend la vie importune
Une volage me trahit,
J'eus peu de bien de la fortune,
L'injustice me le ravit.

Mon plus cher ami m'abandonne,
En vain j'implore son secours,
Et la calomnie empoisonne.
Le reste de mes tristes jours.

Bacchus viens me verser a boire
Encore----bon----je suis soulage,
Chaque coup m'ote la memoire
Des maux qui m'avoient afflige.

Verse encore----je vois l'allegresse
Nager sur le jus precieux.
Donne, redouble----O douce yvresse!
Je suis plus heureux que les dieux."

Help, Bacchus, or I'm quite undone,
All things against my peace conspire;
Unworthy rivals many a one,
I find, despising song and lyre.

My life's entirely irksome grown,
By an inconstant I'm betray'd,
On that small fortune, once my own,
Injustice has severely prey'd.

Forsaken by my dearest friend,
In vain his succour I implore;
And calumnies rank poisons send,
And what is left of life devour.

Bacchus, some wine; fill higher yet
Again----so----I some comfort find;
Each smiling glass makes me forget
Those evils that have rack'd my mind.

Some more----I see gay images
On the rich surface sprightly move,
Fill double----O sweet drunkenness!
I'm happier than the gods above.

[Footnote 1: Virgil. AEneid. lib. vi. v. 713.]

[Footnote 2: Lib. 3. Etymol.]

[Footnote 3: Rec. Poes.]

[Footnote 4: Miscel. vol. i.]

[Footnote 5: Rec. de Poes.]

[Footnote 6: Jul. Capit. Hist. Aug. Script. fol. p. 359.]

[Footnote 7: Nicol. Rec. de Vers. p. 44.]

[Footnote 8: Seneca de Tranquil.]

[Footnote 9: Lib. i. ode 18.]

[[Footnote 9a: Horace, _Odes_ I.vii.17-19.]]

[[Footnote 9b: Horace, _Epistulae_ I.v.16-20.]]

[[Footnote 9c: Ovid, _Ars Amatoria_ I.237-242.]]

[Footnote 10: Nunc est profecto cum me patior interfici, ne hoc
gaudium aliqua contaminetur aegritudine. --_Eunuch._]

[Footnote 11: Statii Sil. 2. lib. iv.]

[[Footnote 11a: Varro, Menippean Satires, fragment from _Est
modus matulae_.]]

[Footnote 12: Ode ix. Anacr.]

CHAP. III.

THAT IT IS GOOD FOR ONE'S HEALTH TO GET DRUNK SOMETIMES.

Although mirth and joy be absolutely necessary to health, yet it must be
allowed that there are a great many pleasures very injurious and
prejudicial to it; and we should act wi