tes my soul, and gives it wing.
With kind enthusiasms then ecstatic grown,
It takes unusual flights, sublimely soars,
Spurns the dull globe below, and endless worlds explores.

One may very well apply to Bacchus, what the same gentleman says of the
graces in this ode[9].

"Tout fleurit par vous au Parnasse,
Apollon languit, et nous glace,
Sitot que vous l'avez quitte,
Mieux que les traits les plus sublimes
Vous allez verser sur mes rimes
Le don de l'immortalite.

The sprightly influence you shed,
Bright constellation! makes Parnassus gay.
Apollo droops and hangs his head,
His frozen fingers know not how to play;
And we his sons the sad distemper find,
Which chills the fancy, and benumbs the mind,
When cruel you withdraw your magic ray.
You finely paint on ev'ry rhyme
Features most noble and sublime,
Resplendent all the images,
In rich immortal draperies.
You give me colours that can never die,
But baffle time, and live through all eternity.

It is to wine we owe the productions of Eschylus and Anacreon, whose
muses were very chilly, till Bacchus warmed them. Aurelius, the sophist,
composed his best declamations in his cups. Herodes, called Saginatus
Orator, the fattened Orator, never talked better, than after drinking
pretty plentifully. And according to Horace, this was the case with
Ennius.

"Ennius ipse pater nunquam nisi potus ad arma
Prosiluit dicenda ------------ [10]."

Ennius himself ne'er sung of arms,
Martial exploits and wars alarms,
Till the good father's face did shine,
Enrich'd with ruby beams of wine.

Alcaeus, the famous poet, never sat down to compose tragedy till he was
tipsy. The disciples of the great Paracelsus took the opportunity, when
he was fuddled, to make him dictate. The venerable Messire Francis
Rabelais composed over the bottle the acts and jests of Gargantua,
and his son Pantagruel, a work which gained him such great reputation.
"Pontius de Thiard, bishop of Chalons sur Saone, had greater obligations
to Bacchus than Apollo for his good verses; who, not reckoning what wine
he drank all day long, never slept without drinking a pretty large
bottle[11]." So true is it, that

"A la fontaine ou s'enyvre Boileau
Le grand Corneille et le sacre troupeau
De ces auteurs que l'on ne trouve guere
Un bon rimeur doit boire a pleine eguyere,
S'il veut donner un b