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what he does consume produces certain effects upon his system. The Russian, therefore, may take six glasses a-day, and be as temperate as the Italian who takes four, or the Indian who takes two. But even when this is acceded to, the balance of sobriety will be found in favour of the south the inhabitants there not only drink less, but are, bona fide, more seldom intoxicated than the others. Those who have contrasted London and Paris, may easily verify this fact; and those who have done the same to the cities of Moscow and Rome, can bear still stronger testimony. Who ever heard of an Englishman sipping eau sucrée, and treating his friends to a glass of lemonade? Yet such things are common in France; and, of all the practices of that country, they are those most thoroughly visited by the contemptuous malisons of John Bull.

It is a common belief that wine was the only inebriating liquor known to antiquity; but this is a mistake. Tacitus mentions the use of ale or beer as common among the Germans of his time. By the Egyptians, likewise, whose country was ill adapted to the cultivation of the grape, it was employed as a substitute for wine. Ale was common in the middle ages; and Mr. Park states that very good beer is made, by the usual process of brewing and malting, in the interior of Africa. The favourite drink of our Saxon ancestors was ale or mead. Those worshippers of Odin were so notoriously addicted to drunkenness, that it was re

garded as honourable rather than otherwise; and the man who could withstand the greatest quantity was looked upon with admiration and respect: whence the drunken songs of the Scandinavian scalds; whence the glories of Valhalla, the fancied happiness of whose inhabitants consisted in quaffing draughts from the skulls of their enemies slain in battle. Even ardent spirit, which is generally supposed to be a modern discovery, existed from a very early period. It is said to have been first made by the Arabians in the middle ages, and in all likelihood may lay claim to a still remoter origin. Alcohol was known to the alchymists as early as the middle of the twelfth century, although the process of preparing it was by them, at that time, kept a profound secret. The spirituous liquor called arrack, has been manufactured in the island of Java, as well as in the continent of Hindostan, from time immemorial. Brandy appears to have been known to Galen, who recommends it for the cure of voracious appetite ;* and its distillation was common in Sicily at the commencement of the fourteenth century. As to wine, it was so common in ancient times as to have a tutelar god appropriated to it: Bacchus and his companion Silenus are as household words in the mouths of all, and constituted most important features of the heathen mythology. We have all heard of the Falernian and Campanian wines, and of the wines of

* Good's Study of Medicine, vol. i. p. 113; second Edition.

Cyprus and Shiraz. Indeed, there is reason to believe that the ancients were in no respect inferior to the moderns in the excellence of their vinous liquors, whatever they may have been in the variety. Wine was so common in the eastern nations, that Mahomet, foreseeing the baleful effects of its propagation, forbade it to his followers, who, to compensate themselves, had recourse to opium. The Gothic or dark ages seem to have been those in which it was least common: in proof of this it may be mentioned, that in 1298 it was vended as a cordial by the English apothecaries. At the present day it is little drunk, except by the upper classes, in those countries which do not naturally furnish the grape. In those that do, it is so cheap as to come within the reach of even the lowest.*

In speaking of drunkenness, it is impossible not to be struck with the physical and moral degradation which it has spread over the world. Wherever intoxicating liquors become general, morality has been found on the decline. They seem to act

The quantity of wine raised in France alone is almost incredible. The vineyards in that country are said to occupy five millions of acres, or a twenty-sixth part of the whole territory. Paris alone consumes more than three times the quantity of wine consumed in the British Isles. It is true that much of the wine drank in the French capital is of a weak quality, being used as a substi tute for small beer. But after every allowance is made, enough remains to show clearly, if other proofs were wanting, how much the use of wine here is restricted by our exorbitant duties. It would be well for the morals of this country if the people abandoned the use of ardent spirits, and were enabled to resort to such wines as the French are in the habit of drinking.

like the simoom of the desert, and scatter destruction and misery around their path. The ruin of Rome was owing to luxury, of which indulgence in wine was the principal ingredient. Hannibal's army fell less by the arms of Scipio than by the wines of Capua; and the inebriated hero of Macedon after slaying his friend Clytus, and burning the palace of Persepolis, expired at last of a fit of intoxication, in his thirty-third year. A volume might be written in illustration of the evil effects of dissipation; but this is unnecessary to those who look carefully around them, and more especially to those who are conversant with the history of mankind. At the same time, when we speak of drunkenness as occurring in antiquity, it is proper to remark, that there were certain countries in which it was viewed in a much more dishonourable light than by any modern nation. The Nervii refused to drink wine, alleging that it made them cowardly and effeminate: these simple people had no idea of what by our seamen is called Dutch courage; they did not feel the necessity of elevating their native valour by an artificial excitement. The ancient Spartans held ebriety in such abhorrence, that, with a view to inspire the rising' generation with a due contempt of the vice, it was customary to intoxicate the slaves and exhibit them publicly in this degraded condition. By the Indians, drunkenness is looked upon as a species of insanity; and, in their language, the word ramgam, signifying a drunkard, signifies also a madman. Both

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the ancients and moderns could jest as well as moralize upon this subject. "There hangs a bottle of wine," was the derisive exclamation of the Roman soldiery, as they pointed to the body of the drunken Bonosus, who, in a fit of despair, suspended himself upon a tree. "If you wish to have a shoe of durable materials," exclaims the facetious Matthew Langsberg, "you should make the upper leather of the mouth of a hard drinker for that never lets in water."

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If we turn from antiquity to our own times, we shall find little cause to congratulate ourselves upon any improvement. The vice has certainly diminished among the higher orders of society, but there is every reason to fear that, of late, it has made fearful strides among the lower. Thirty or forty years ago, a landlord did not conceive he had done justice to his guests unless he sent them from his table in a state of intoxication. This practice still prevails pretty generally in Ireland and in the highlands of Scotland, but in other parts of the kingdom it is fast giving way: and it is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when greater temperance will extend to these jovial districts, and render their hospitality a little more consonant with prudence and moderation. The increase of drunkenness among the lower classes may be imputed to various causes, and chiefly to the late abandonment of part of the duty on rum and whiskey. This was done with a double motive of benefiting agriculture and commerce, and of driving

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