, which is, that my readers must not expect I should set
down a complete list of all the several sorts of topers I just now
mentioned; such an exactitude would take up too much time. Much sooner
may one reckon up what numbers die away every spring by the doctor;
and how many dispose of their maidenheads before marriage.

In every different class you will find no other jolly drinkers, but such
as I have met with in my great reading, and as shall occur to my
remembrance. Neither shall I be very scrupulous in placing them
according to the strict rules of chronology, but put them down as they
present themselves to my imagination.

If the antiquity of a custom makes it always good and laudable,
certainly drunkenness can never deserve sufficient recommendation. Every
one knows, that Noah got drunk after he had planted the vine. There are
some who pretend to excuse him, that he was not acquainted with the
strength of wine. But to this it may very well be answered, that it is
not very probable so wise a man as Noah should plant a vine without
knowing its nature and property. Besides, it is one thing to know,
whether he got drunk at all: and another, whether he had an intention to
do so.

But if we give any credit to several learned persons, Noah was not the
first man that got fuddled. Father Frassen maintains, "That people fed
on flesh before the flood, and drank wine. There is no likelihood,
according to him, that men contented themselves with drinking water for
fifteen or sixteen hundred years together. It is much more credible,
that they prepared a drink more nourishing and palatable. These first
men of the world were endued with no less share of wit than their
posterity, and, consequently, wanted no industry to invent every thing
that might contribute to make them pass their lives agreeably. Jesus
Christ says, that in the days of Noah, before the Flood, men married,
and gave their children in marriage. These people, Father Frassen
observes, regaled each other, and made solemn entertainments. Now who
can imagine, that they drank at those festivals nothing but water, and
fed only on fruits and herbs! Noah, therefore, was not the inventor of
that use which we make of the grape; the most that he did, was only to
plant new vines[1]."

This good father was not singular in his opinion; another very learned
person also believed, that from the passage of Scripture above cited,
one might draw a very probable argument, that men be