Not even popes, saints, or bishops were exempt from accusations of loving the juice of the grape, or of the apple, too well. We read in the adages of Erasmus that it was a proverb amongst the Germans that the lives of the monks consisted in nothing but eating and drinking. One H. Stephens says on this subject, in his apology for Herodotus:—

“But to return to these proverbs, theological wine, and the abbot’s, or prelate’s, table. I say {12} that without these one could never rightly understand the beautiful passage of Horace:—

nor this other:—

Modern popes have always had a reputation for abstemiousness; but this same Mr. Stephens—who must have been somewhat of a slander-monger—in his same apology for Herodotus (what about the apology for Stephens?) mentions a popular little song of the day, which commenced:—

And I can recall a cheery, albeit most likely libellous, song, which some of us used to sing at school, beginning:—

It appears to be a fact that many former popes drank hard; and if Petrarch is to be believed, the long stay made by the court of Rome at Avignon was on account of the excellence of the French wines; and that it was merely for that {13} reason that they stayed so long in Provence, and removed with so much reluctance.

Now for the saints. Although the fact of his drinking deep has been denied, St. Augustine appears to have confessed to “a day out” occasionally, in some such words as these: “Thy servant has been sometimes crop-sick through excess of wine. Have mercy on me, that it may be ever far from me.”

Amongst the bishops one instance must suffice. “Pontus de Thiard,” as appears from an old translation of the works of an eminent Frenchman, “after having repented of the sins of his youth, came to be bishop of Chalons-sur-Soane; but, however, he did not renounce the power of drinking heavily, which seemed then inseparable from the quality of a good poet. He had a stomach big enough to empty the largest cellar; and the best wines of Burgundy were too gross for the subtility of the fire which devoured him. Every night, at going to bed, besides the ordinary doses of the day, in which he would not suffer the least drop of water, he used to drink a bottle before he slept. He enjoyed a strong, robust, and vigorous health, to the age of fourscore.” Dear old Pontus!

Of all other mighty men, Alexander the Great serves to best point the moral of the evils of intemperance. Wearied of conquering, this hero gave himself up to debauchery in its worst and wildest forms. He killed his foster-brother in a fit of drunkenness, and sub­se­quent­ly, at the bidding of “lovely Thais,” queen of the {14} Athenian demi-monde, set fire to, and burnt to the ground, Persepolis, the wonder of the world. What an awakening Alec must have had! Not that he was the first, nor yet the last, man to make a fool, or rogue, of himself, at the bidding of the (alleged) gentler sex. Cleopatra corrupted a few heroes, and as for La Pompadour -- but those be other stories. Alexander the Great, who had lost most of his greatness by that time, died from the effects of chronic alcoholism; although they didn’t tell me as much as this at school.

Cambyses was but little removed from a sot. This prince, having been told by one of his courtiers that the people thought Cambyses indulged in too many “drunks” for the good of the nation, reached for his best bow and his sharpest arrow, and, the courtier having retired out of range, shot the courtier’s son through the heart; after which the prince enquired of the courtier: “Is this the act of a drunkard?” which reminds me of a more modern anecdote, of a Piccadilly roysterer. But some men can shoot straighter, and ride better, and write more poetically, when under the influence of the rosy god; and had this courtier been a man of the world he would not have touched on the subject of ebriation to his prince. For ebriates are but seldom proud of their weaknesses.

Darius, the first King of Persia, commanded that this epitaph, which is here translated, should be placed on his tomb: “I could drink much wine and bear it well.” Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, took too much wine on {15} occasion; to corroborate which fact we have the exclamation of the good lady whose prayer for justice he had refused to hear — this is a quotation beloved of members of Parliament—“I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.” Dionysius the younger, tyrant of Sicily, frequently had vine-leaves in his hair for a week at a time; he drank himself almost blind, and his courtiers, in order to flatter him, pretended to be blind too, and neither ate nor drank anything unless it were handed to them by Dionysius himself. Tiberius was called Biberius, because of his excessive attachment to the bowl; and, in derision, they changed his surname of Nero to Mero. Bonosus, according to his own historian, Flavius Vobiscus, was a terrible soaker, and used to make the ambassadors, who came from foreign parts, even more drunk than himself, in order that he might discover their secret instructions.

I cannot glean from the ancient records that any monarch who reigned over Great Britain was an habitual drunkard, an absolute and confirmed sot. But many of them were given to conviviality, notably Richard of the Lion Heart, Bluff King Hal — who had gout badly, and suffered also from obesity and other things—and the Merry Monarch. A story is told of the Second Charles, that when dining with the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Viner, on one occasion—it was probably a 9th of November dinner at the Mansion House—the King noticed that most of the guests were uncomfortably uproarious, and, with his suite, rose to leave the banqueting chamber. Whereupon the Lord Mayor hastily {16} pursued him, caught hold of his robe, and exclaimed: “Sire, you shall take t’other bottle.” The King stopped, and with a graceful smile repeated a line of the old song, “He that is drunk is great as a king,” and with this compliment to his host, he returned, and took “t’other bottle.”

The immortal Pepys describes a Lord Mayor’s Feast which was given in 1663. It was served at one o’clock, and a bill of fare was placed, together with a salt-cellar, in front of every guest; whilst at the end of each table was a list of “persons proper” there to be seated. Pepys was placed at the merchant-strangers’ table, “where ten good dishes to a mess, with plenty of wine of all sorts.” Napkins and knives were, however, only supplied at the Lord Mayor’s table to him and the Lords of the Privy Council; and Pepys complains bitterly that he and those who were seated with him had no napkins nor change of trenchers, and had to drink out of earthen pitchers. He, however, took his spoon and fork away with him, as was customary in those days with all guests invited to entertainments. But as each guest brought his own tools, nobody was the worse for this custom. The dinner, says Pepys, was provided by the Mayor and two sheriffs for the time being, and the whole cost was between £700 and £800.

We are not told what was drunk at the Mansion House on that occasion, but I have a list before me of the potables served at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in 1782—more than a century later—which seems deserving of mention in this little work:— {17}

There be several remarkable features in the above list. I had imagined that a taste for claret had not been fully acquired by the British ratepayer until some years later than this; whilst the virtues of champagne could not have been fully recognized. Lisbon, I conceive to have been another sort of port, and this seems to have been neck-and-cork above all other vintages in popular favour. The taste for such mawkish stuff as malmsey must have been at vanishing point; whilst one is led to ask what, with only such a minute allowance of sack, did these feasters drink with their soup? Was the succulency of calipash and calipee known in those days; and if so, where was the harmless necessary milk-punch? But the most remarkable feature of all in the above catalogue is the meagre allowance of brandy for the crowd. The parable of the loaves and fishes would not appear more miraculous than that, in these later days, a multitude could be filled, after a big dinner, with four bottles of cognac! And this despite the fact of whisky having almost entirely usurped the place of the other strong-water. {18}

One hundred years ago, to be “drunk as a lord” was considered the height of human happiness. And at this period the Church had not severed its old connection with alcohol. In fact intemperance was encouraged by our pastors and masters; and in certain districts of England the churchwardens, at Whitsuntide, made collections of malt from the parishioners, and this was brewed into strong ale, and sold in the churches, the money so obtained being expended on the repairs of the sacred edifices; and it was a frequent and a saddening spectacle to see men who had drunk not wisely reeling about the aisles. Until as late as 1827—in which year the license was withdrawn—a church and a tavern were covered by the same roof, in the parish of Deepdale, a village between Derby and Nottingham; and a door which could be opened at will led from the altar to the tap-room.

A Romish priest wrote in praise of the bowl as follows:—

Which comforting and jovial sentiments were thus adapted for the use of colleges and private bars, by Dean Aldrich, D.D., the great master of logic at Oxford:—

But after all no nation ever did themselves so well, in the matter of wines, as the inhabitants of bad old ancient Rome.

“It was to excess of drinking,” wrote Whyte Melville, in The Gladiators, “that the gluttons of that period looked as the especial relief of every entertainment; since the hope of each seemed to be that when thoroughly flooded, and so to speak washed out with wine, he might begin eating again. The Roman was no drunkard, like the barbarian, for the sake of that wild excitement of the brain which is purchased by intoxication. No, he ate to repletion that he might drink in gratification. He drank to excess that he might eat again.”

Further on the same writer remarks: “Whilst marvelling at the quantity of wine consumed by the Romans in their entertainments, we must remember that it was the pure and unadulterated juice of the grape, that it was in general freely mixed with water, and that they imbibed but a very small portion of alcohol, which is the destructive quality of all stimulants.”

As to the Roman vintages being “in general freely mixed with water,” I have grave doubts. I have an idea that Maecenas would have made it particularly warm for that slave who might have dared to water his old Falernian; and, take them altogether, an amusement-loving, and playgoing public, for whom the legitimate drama took the form of certain brave men and fair women being torn and eaten by wild beasts, would hardly have been content with such drink for babes as “claret cold.” {20}

Ancient poets were not less backward than modern votaries of the muses; and it is related of the poet Philoxenus that he was frequently heard to express the wish that he had a neck as long as a crane’s, that he might the longer have the pleasure of swallowing wine, and of enjoying its delicious taste. I have heard the same wish expressed, during much more recent years.

One more old song, translated from a French chanson À boire, and I take my leave of the awful habits of the ancients (I trust) for ever. It is called

[Neither the air, nor the chorus, of this song is given in the old MS. But I would suggest the old air of “Wednesbury Cocking,” with a little “tol-de-rol” at the finish of each verse.]