ics or religion, so well do they
seem to follow the advice of that author[3]. And when the music began to
play, "Let the king enjoy his own again," they were immediately
reprimanded by a person of great gravity and science.

The bottle, in the mean while, went merrily about, and the following
healths were begun by a great man, The King, Prince and Princess, and
the Royal Family; the Church as by Law established; Prosperity to Old
England under the present Administration; and Love, Liberty, and
Science; which were unanimously pledged in full bumpers, attended with
loud huzzas.

The faces then of the most ancient and most honourable fraternity of the
Free Masons, brightened with ruddy fires; their eyes illuminated,
resplendent blazed.

Well fare ye, merry hearts, thought I, hail ye illustrious topers, if
liberty and freedom, ye free mortals, is your essential difference,
richly distinguishes you from all others, and is, indeed, the very soul
and spirit of the brotherhood, according to brother Eugenius
Philalethes[4]. I know not who may be your alma mater, but undoubtedly
Bacchus is your liber pater.

'Tis wine, ye Masons, makes you free,
Bacchus the father is of liberty.

But leaving the Free Masons, and their invaluable secrets, for I know
not what they are worth, come we now to speak of other men of learning,
who loved to indulge their genius with the delicious juice of the grape.
And here we need not fly to antiquity, which would swell this work into
a large volume, later times will furnish us with many a bright example.
_Non semper confugiamus ad vetera._

A man of learning, after ten or twelve hours daily study, cannot do
better, than to unbend his mind in drinking plentifully of the creature;
and may not such a one say to himself these verses of the French poet:--

"Dois-je mal a propos secher a faire un livre
Et n'avoir pour tout fruit des peines que je prends
Que la haine de sots et les mepris des grands[5]."

Why should I pass away my time in vain,
And, to compose a book, dry up my brain,
When all the recompense I'm like to find,
For all the toil and labour of my mind,
Is the unthinking silly ideot's hate,
And the contempt and scorn of all the great

I must own I would have the indefatigable labour of such a one gain an
immortal reputation after his death; but after all, to weary one's self
all one's life long with those views, is very chimerical. And certainly,
he