ome
pennance for your fault, you shall heere maintaine an argument in the
defence of drunkennes. Mine Host shall heere it, ile be your opponent,
_Acutus_ moderator: wilt thou doe it?

_Host_. A mad merrie grig;[319] all good spirits; wilt thou doe it,
_Bos_?

_Bos_. Ile doo't.

_Grac_. Seate yee, heres my place; now, _Bos_, propound.

_Bos_. Drunkenness is a vertue.

_Gra_. Your proofe.

_Bos_. Good drink is full of vertue,
Now full of good drink is drunke;
_Ergo_, to be drunke is to be vertuous.

_Grac_. I deny it: good drinke is full of vice,
Drinke takes away the sences,
Man that is sencelesse is vitious;
_Ergo_, good drinke is full of vice.

_Bos_. I deny it still: good drinke makes good bloud,
Good blood needes no Barber,
_Ergo_, tis good to drinke good drinke.

_Accu_. Hee holdes ye hard, _Graccus_.

_Bos_. Heeres stronger proofe: drunkennes ingenders with two of the
morrall vertues, and sixe of the lyberall sciences.

_Gra_. Let him proove that and Ile yeeld.

_Host_. A mad spirit, yfaith.

_Bos_. A drunkard is valiant and lyberall; heele outface _Mars_, brave
_Hercules_, and feares not the Devill; then for the most part hee's
liberal, for heele give all the cloathes off his back, though hee weepe
like a Widowe all the day following; nay for the sciences, hee's a good
phisitian, hee vomits himself rarelie and will giue any man else a
vomit, that lookes on him (if he have not a verie good stomacke);
perfect in Geomitrie, for he hangs in the aire by his own conceite, and
feeles no ground; and hee's all musicall, the world turns round with
him, everie face in the painted cloath, shewes like a Fairie dauncing
about him, and everie spar in the house a minstrell.

_Grac_. Good: forward.

_Bos_. Then hee's a good Lawyer, for hees never without a _fierie
facies_, & the least _Capias_ will take his _habeas Corpus_:
besides, another point of a Lawyere, heele raile and rave against his
dearest friends and make the world think they are enemies, when the next
day theile laugh, bee fat and drunk together: and a rare Astronomer, for
he has starres twinckling in his eyes in the darkest night when a wise
man discernes none in the firmament, and will take great paines in the
practise, for lay him on his backe in the open fields over night, and
you shal be sure to finde him there in the morning. Have I sed well or
shall I give you a stronger proofe? An honest man will be as good as his
word: Signior _Graccus