So have I seen in days of yore a dame,
At Winchester, who seventy winters knew,
Not more nor less, my mistress then yclept,
Hight Margaret, deceas’d long since I trow,
Whose fate I thus bemoan’d in song sublime.
She’s gone, alas! the beauteous nymph is dead,
Dead to my hopes, and all my eager wishes:
Such is the state of poor unhappy man,
All things soon pass away, nought permanent,
That rolls beneath the vortex of the moon.
So when we’ve screw’d up to the highest Peg1
Our ample lines of future happiness,
Some disappointments dire, or chance disastrous,
Snaps the extended chords. Oh! then farewell,
No more shall visual ray of form acute
Affect her wondrous mien. Farewell those lips
Of sapphire tincture, gums of crocus die
Freed from th’ungrateful load of cumbrous teeth.
Mantle farewell, of grograin brown compos’d,
Studded with silver clasp in number plural:
With jacket short, so famous, tory red,
Not hemm’d, but bound about with good galloon
Of deepest mazarine (delightful hue!)
Farewell (I sighing speak) those non-such shoes
Of obfusc colour (heel of form cylindrous)
Worn only upon days non-ferial.
In love’s true knot of verdant ferrit tied.
But Oh! farewell, a long and last farewell,
To large Ampull with vital water fraught,
Wherein the effluvia soft and delicate
Of dulcet aniseseed (not coriander)
In its capacious rim of form anguillar
Whirl in sweet vortex. Hence it was observ’d,
The subtile matter, when in throat retir’d,
Kept still its roulant quality, and oft
Would mount in circling spires to pericranium
Of she-philosopher, when in elbow chair,
Deep and profound, would the grave matron reve,
And learnedly pronounce (like great Renatus2)
With equal verity the world turns round.
Secondly and foremost, you should have added at the end of the philosophers chapter, the song of the Tippling Philosophers, which I send you here enclosed.
The bookseller to whom I mentioned this, fancied truly, that you might think it too mean and trifling to insert. But without troubling myself to know, whether this be your sentiment, or whether he spoke this of his own head, I shall trouble myself to tell you, as this song is taken from an excellent French one, which you may find in a very famous book3, and which (to follow your method) you may know by the note at the bottom. The song (whether you have ever seen it, or not, I neither know, nor do I care) is as follows, and will go with the same tune as the English (if I am not mistaken).
1. You must remember my Mrs.’s name was Margaret.
2. Des Cartes’s christian name.
3. Fureteriana, p. 205.
CHANSON A BOIRE.
I.
Je cherche en vin la vérité,
Si le vin n’aide a ma foiblesse,
Toute la docte antiquité
Dans le vin puisa la sagesse.
Oui c’est par le bon vin que le bon sens eclate
J’en atteste Hypocrate,
Qui dit qu’il faut a chaque mois
Du moins s’enivrer une fois.
II.
Socrate cet homme discret
Que toute la terre revere,
Alloit manger au cabaret
Quand sa femme etoit en colere.
Pouvons-nous mieux faire que d’imiter Socrate
Et de suivre Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
III.
Platon est nommé le divin
Parce qu’il etoit magnifique,
Et qu’il regala de son vin
La cabale philosophique.
Sa table fût toujours splendide et delicate,
Il suivit Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
IV.
Aristotle bûvoit autant,
Et nous avons lieu de le croire
De ce qu’Alexandre le grand,
Son disciple, aimoit tant a boire,
Qu’il degela cent fois sur les bords de l’Euphrate
En suivant Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
V.
L’on veut que Diogene aimoit l’eau,
Mais il n’eut point cette folie,
Il se logea dans un tonneau
Pour sentir le gout de la lie.
Et pour mieux boire au pot, il jetta la sa jatte
Et tint pour Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
VI.
Democrite près de sa fin,
Par une invention jolie,
En flairant seulement le vin,
De trois jours prolonga sa vie.
Le vin retarde plus la mort, qu’il ne la hâte,
Temoin notre Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
VII.
Heraclite toujours etoit
En pleurs a ce que dit l’histoire,
Mais ce que le vin lui sortoit
Par les yeux à force de boire.
Par ce remede seul il guerissoit sa rate
Comme ordonne Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
VIII.
Epicure sans contredit,
De bons bûveurs est le vrai pere,
Et sa morale nous induit
Au plaisir, a la bonne chere.
En vain l’homme ici bas d’un autre bien se flatte;
Suivons donc Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
IX.
Esope quelque fois la nuit,
De complot avec la servante,
Chalumoit sans faire de bruit
Les tonneaux de son maitre Xante.
Il en eut mis dix pots sous sa grosse omoplate,
Il suivit Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
X.
Galen, ce fameux docteur
En traittant du jus de la vigne,
Dit qu’il faut defendre le cœur
Contre la qualité maligne
Qui trouble nos humeurs, les altere et les gâte
Et rapporte Hypocrate,
Qui dit, &c.
THE TIPLING PHILOSOPHERS.
I.
Diogenes, surly and proud,
Who snarl’d at the Macedon youth,
Delighted in wine that was good,
Because in good wine there is truth;
But growing as poor as a Job,
Unable to purchase a flask,
He chose for his mansion a tub,
And liv’d by the scent of the cask, &c.
II.
Heraclitus ne’er would deny,
To tipple and cherish his heart,
And when he was maudlin he’d cry,
Because he had empty’d his quart:
Tho’ some are so foolish to think
He wept at men’s folly and vice,
’Twas only his fashion to drink
Till the liquor flow’d out of his eyes.
III.
Democritus always was glad
Of a bumper to cheer up his soul,
And would laugh like a man that was mad,
When over a good flowing bowl.
As long as his cellar was stor’d,
The liquor he’d merrily quaff,
And when he was drunk as a lord
At those that were sober he’d laugh.
IV.
Copernicus too like the rest,
Believ’d there was wisdom in wine,
And thought that a cup of the best
Made reason the better to shine.
With wine he’d replenish his veins,
And make his philosophy reel,
Then fancy’d the world, like his brains,
Turn’d round like a chariot wheel.
V.
Aristotle, that master of arts,
Had been but a dunce without wine,
And what we ascribe to his parts,
Is due to the juice of the vine.
His belly most writers agree,
Was as big as a watering-trough,
He therefore leap’d into the sea,
Because he’d have liquor enough.
VI.
Old Plato, that learned divine,
He fondly to wisdom was prone,
But had it not been for good wine,
His merits had never been known;
By wine we are generous made,
It furnishes fancy with wings,
Without it we ne’er shou’d have had
Philosophers, poets, or kings.
Thirdly and lastly, I wish in Chap. XXIII. in your answer to the objection, “That one cannot trust a man that gets drunk,” you had been pleased to have taken notice of the taciturnity and continency of the right worshipful the free masons in this respect. For though otherwise they are free enough of speech, yet I do assure you, as to secrets, though some of them love the creature very heartily, and carouse abundantly, yet has it never been known, though never so fuddled, (for free masons will get fuddled,) that they ever discovered any of their secrets. This is irresistible, irrefragable, irrefutable, or if you will, to speak (norunt dialectici) in stylo infinito, non-resistible, non-refragable, and non-refutable, and, indeed, is my Argumentum palmare Scotisticum.
But, and Fourthly also, and Finally, you will give me leave to remark to you, That in relation to St. Boniface’s cup, which you take notice of in Chap. XI. p. 68, l. 13, I do assure you, sir, the practice was some years ago, to my certain knowledge, much in vogue, (and, as I am credibly informed, is still wonderfully catholic,) and, by the bye, take the following relation.
In the beginning of the last wars, when I was very young, I had the misfortune to be prisoner in Luxembourg, and not too civilly treated by the governor, the morose Count Dautel. Close confinement, (though in the postmaster’s house,) with the unusual smell of the stoves, (for it was in the cold month of March,) made me very ill, and worse, in all probability, should have been, had I not obtained the liberty of the town, which, after many fruitless solicitations, I despaired, from the ill-natured governor, nor should ever have had, were it not by the pressing instance of Father Cripps, a German Franciscan friar, of the convent of Luxembourg, whom they called there Heer1 Cripps, being confessor to the governor, and having been once sent on a message of moment from him to the king of Spain, Philip the Fifth, now reigning.
This Father was really a good man, and a man of honour; him I gained by the good-nature of the postmaster, whose son was then in his noviceship, in the noviciate of their Order at Ulflingen. I need not tell you, that by noviceship is meant that year of probation, which those who have a mind to enter into any religious order in the church of Rome, must pass through, before they can be professed, or take their vows. This you, who have been abroad, must know as well as I.
This good father, with much ado, obtained what I desired from the governor, who he said was, homo mirabilis in negotiis suis, which, by the sequel of his discourse, I understood signified, a very strange man in his affairs. Gratitude obliged me to invite this reverend father to a glass of Rhenish, the wine of the country, which, he frankly accepted of in the afternoon, and, indeed, drank very plentifully, more Germanorum, as you have described. But though he would drink largely as well as his companion, yet I must own, that in none of the many merry bouts we had together (for he visited me very often afterwards, as I did him, I never saw him so far advanced as to lose his reason) he never failed a large glass brimful to St. Boniface, which he drank to the pious memory of the good Father, ad piam memoriam boni patris, and sometimes only to the good Father, ad bonum patrem. I found afterwards the same laudable custom of St. Boniface’s cup in the Low Countries, France and Italy, &c. amongst the religious.
And now, before I subscribe myself,
Sir,
Your most obedient, &c.
give me leave to tell you, that the French religious, who do not speak much Latin, drink healths in their own language. But I was surprised, when I heard in a certain monastery every one of the fathers drink a full glass to each other in these words, “a bumper,” as I thought. I am obliged to your reverence (reverend father, said I to the procurator, who sat next me, and drank to me in the same words) in drinking in our country language, you do me a great deal of honour. It may be your country phrase, said the prior to me, very gravely, for what I know; your countrymen make use of a great many of our words, but the thing itself, let the word (or vox significans) be what it will, the thing (or res significata) is very laudable, and every one will practise, who has any respect for the sacred see, holy church, and the good of his own soul. Did you never hear of the indulgences that the good father, holy pope St. Boniface, has granted to such as drink his cup, and which we have just now piously done? I ask your reverence’s pardon, reverend father, said I, I thought we had only been drinking a bumper to one another. Seulement au bon pere! replied he a little warmly (for the conversation was all in French, and which word I till then mistook for a bumper.) Why, that is all, said he, mais (continued he) c’êtoit au bon pere Saint Boniface. You see, sir, the double entendre2, and that drinking of bumpers, which some precisians have ignorantly called profane, is a practice very orthodox and catholic.
Heigh Church militant, rare Church militant, dainty Church militant, O!
Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub a dub. Dub. Dub.
Tan. Tan. Tan. Tan. tara rara ra.
Adieu, mon tres-cher,
Votre ami tres-affectioné
&
Valet bien humble
| May 1, 1723, From my Garret in Bandy-legged Walk. |
F. SANS-TERRE. |
P.S. I paid the waterman six-pence.
FINIS.
1. Heer, in High Dutch, is the same as Monsieur in French, and is given to persons of the highest destinction.
2. The transition from au bon pere, which is pure French, to a bumper, is very natural, and infinitely more so, than that golden pippin should be derived from Cooper, which was said to be effected, in process of time, after this manner, Cooper, Hooper, Roper, Diaper, Napkin, Pipkin, King Pepin, Golden Pippin.