ave gone no farther than the merry cup;
but to prattle, and speak what had been better left unsaid, argues a
man to be quite gone. And therefore Plato thinks that wine is the must
ingenious discoverer of men's humors; and Homer, when he says,--

At feasts they had not known each other's minds,
(Ibid. xxi. 35.)

evidently shows that he knew wine was powerful to open men's thoughts,
and was full of new discoveries. It is true from the bare eating and
drinking, if they say nothing we can give no guess at the tempers of the
men; but because drinking leads them into discourse, and discourse lays
a great many things open and naked which were secret and hid before,
therefore to sport a glass of wine together lets us into one another's
humors. And therefore a man may reasonably fall foul on Aesop: Why sir,
would you have a window in every man's breast, through which we may look
in upon his thoughts? Wine opens and exposes all, it will not suffer us
to be silent, but takes off all mask and visor, and makes us regardless
of the severe precepts of decency and custom. Thus Aesop or Plato,
or any other that designs to look into a man, may have his desires
satisfied by the assistance of a bottle; but those that are not
solicitous to pump one another, but to be sociable and pleasant,
discourse of such matters and handle such questions as make no discovery
of the bad parts of the soul, but such as comfort the good, and, by
the help of neat and polite learning, lead the intelligent part into
an agreeable pasture and garden of delight This made me collect and
dedicate the first to you this third dedication of table discourses, the
first of which is about chaplets made of flowers.

QUESTION I. WHETHER IT IS FITTING TO WEAR CHAPLETS OF FLOWERS AT TABLE.

ERATO, AMMONIUS, TRYPHO, PLUTARCH, AND OTHERS.

At Athens Erato the musician keeping a solemn feast to the Muses, and
inviting a great many to the treat, the company was full of talk, and
the subject of the discourse garlands. For after supper many of all
sorts of flowers being presented to the guests, Ammonius began to jeer
me for choosing a rose chaplet before a laurel, saying that those made
of flowers were effeminate, and fitted toyish girls and women more than
grave philosophers and men of music. And I admire that our friend Erato,
that abominates all flourishing in songs, and blames good Agatho, who
first in his tragedy of the Mysians ventured to introduce the chrom