CHAPTER XI.

ENGLAND FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT DAY.

Before entering upon the consideration of the drinking habits of the English in Protestant times, it will only be fair and impartial to state the plea which has been urged in favour of the mediæval taverns; and we have the less hesitation in so doing, inasmuch as the justification for their existence on the grounds advanced no longer holds good in the present day. The village tavern, it is said, was not what it is to-day—a resort for the idle and dissolute; it was the “public-house,” where men of all ranks met together and enjoyed each other’s society—where, indeed, distinctions between the hall, castle, and the cottage were for the time obliterated. By some writers it is thought that the clergy themselves did not absolutely discountenance taverns for the laity, especially after the “ales” and similar meetings had been removed to the places called “church-houses” from within the precincts of the churches themselves. “When, therefore, the bishops ordered the clergy to expend less time in alehouses,” says one author, “it is not to be inferred that the bishops regarded these places as necessarily vicious and scandalous; the fair inference from the episcopal injunction being that the chiefs of the Church wished to impress upon the subordinate priests that the obligations of the clerical office required them to exercise forbearance with respect to social enjoyments.”[261] That this statement is in the main accurate was shown in our last chapter, and it is confirmed by a reference to the canons and injunctions of the Church. For example: “Canon 30.—A priest should not drink in taverns _like laymen_.”[262] Again, “But we do not comprise in this prohibition strangers who are travelling, and those who come together in fairs or markets, although they meet in taverns.”[263] And, “They (priests) are forbidden to enter taverns for drinking, unless they are on a journey, or to take part in drinking assemblies,” &c.[264]

As to the statement that various ranks of society met in the tavern for social converse, those who hold that to be the case might have added that the extension of national liberty was in part due to the opportunities which were afforded for discussion in such places of resort. Nay, although we have said that their continued existence can no longer be justified on the old grounds in our time, yet it is impossible to overlook the fact that there are even now exceptional instances where the “public-house” is the only place which affords sufficient accommodation for meetings of any considerable magnitude. That was, no doubt, much more generally the case in the Middle Ages, when there were no assembly-rooms, no public halls, no schoolhouses, nor any other buildings of a like character.

It is a matter of history that at the period of the Reformation the court of England was one of the most dissolute in Europe, and in the reign of Henry VIII. it was held in bad repute even amongst the Germans, drunken as they confess themselves to have been. A quaint story is told, upon what appears to be good authority, how Henry himself managed to make an envoy of the German court, who belonged to one of the orders of temperance, violate his pledge, and how he then assured him that if his master would only visit England, he would not lack boon-companions.[265] Nor was the intoxication confined to men only. It is said that in the time of James I. the revels instituted by the Queen were frequently disgraced by the drunkenness of the court ladies; and one of the guests at an entertainment given by the Earl of Salisbury in honour of the visit of King Christian of Denmark wrote a letter from which the following is an extract:—

“Those whom I never could get to taste good liquor now follow the fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. After dinner, the representation of Solomon his temple, and the coming of the Queen of Sheba was made, or, as I may better say, was meant to have been made.... The lady who did play the queen’s part did carry most precious gifts to both their majesties, but forgetting the steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets in his Danish Majesty’s lap, and fell at his feet, though I rather think it was on his face. Much was the hurry and confusion,—cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majesty then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba, but he fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to his inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a little defiled with the presents of the queen.... The entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters went backward or fell down, wine did so occupy their upper chambers. Now did appear in rich dress Hope, Faith, and Charity. Hope did assay to speak, but wine did render her endeavours so feeble that she withdrew. Faith was then alone. For I am certain she was not joyned with good works, and left the court in a staggering condition. Charity came to the King’s feet, and seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had committed; in some sort she made obeysance and brought gifts.... She then returned to Hope and Faith, who were ...”

But we must conclude in more refined phraseology than that used by the writer ... who were in the hall engaged in operations inconsistent with the healthy and sober condition in which ladies should be at a royal entertainment.[266]

We will, however, not dwell upon the drinking habits of the middle and lower classes prior to the Commonwealth. What change there was in their condition was due to the action of the Puritans, who, both before and during the civil war, presented a marked contrast to the Cavaliers or Royalists. The character and conduct of the two parties may be studied in the writings of historians of the time, as well as in those of modern authors, and notably in the pages of Macaulay and Walter Scott.[267] The Puritans were grave in their demeanour, sober in their habits, modest and plain in their speech and attire. By these characteristics they desired to be known. The Cavaliers swore, drank, affected an air of gallantry towards the female sex, with whom their relations were of the loosest, and in everything they sought to avoid what they called the prudery and hypocrisy of the Roundheads. When the latter obtained the ascendancy, they set about executing the most drastic reforms throughout the land. Maypoles were cut down in various parts of the country, and all the amusements of the period, such as theatrical performances, entertainments on the village green and at fairs, bowls, horseracing, and bearbaiting, were either absolutely forbidden or strongly denounced and discountenanced. But what gave greater dissatisfaction than any other of their proceedings was the suppression of Christmas festivities; and when, in 1644, the Long Parliament gave orders that the 25th December should be observed as a day of prayer and fasting, that act was considered such an infringement of the public liberties, that it was almost universally resisted, and in many places collisions took place between the populace and the local authorities.

These extreme measures of repression on the part of the Puritans led to the result which might be anticipated. They gave courage to those who were anxious for the return of royalty, and reconciled many to its reinstatement who would otherwise have struggled for the maintenance of republican institutions; and when Charles II. was once more safely enthroned, there followed a reaction in morals which has left to that period the unenviable notoriety of being the most corrupt and dissolute in the whole history of our country. Debauchery and drunkenness prevailed in almost every rank of society, but chiefly amongst the higher and middle classes. The King set the example, and history abounds with tales of the debauchery of the court. We are told that when William, Prince of Orange, came over to visit his intended, “one night at a supper given by the Duke of Buckingham, the King made him (the Prince) drink very hard. The heavy Dutchman was naturally averse to it, but being once entered, was the most frolicsome of the company; and now the mind took him to break the windows of the chambers of the maids of honour, and he had got into their apartments had they not been timely rescued. His mistress” (the princess, afterwards Queen Mary), “I suppose,” adds the narrator, “did not like him the worse for such a notable indication of his vigour.”[268] Another well-known story is related of the same monarch. On one occasion, when he was dining with the Lord Mayor, Sir Robert Viner, and the guests as well as his lordship had imbibed more than was consistent with propriety in the presence of their sovereign, the latter intimated to his suite his intention to withdraw; and he had succeeded in making his escape from the banqueting hall, when he was hastily pursued by the Lord Mayor, who caught hold of his robe, exclaiming, “Sir, you shall stay and take t’other bottle.” The airy monarch looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and with a smile and graceful air repeated this line of the old song, “He that is drunk is as great as a king,” and with this compliment to his host, he immediately returned and “took t’other bottle.”

These Lord Mayors’ banquets are deserving of a passing notice. One of them, given in 1663, is described by Pepys. It was served at one o’clock, and a bill of fare was placed with every salt cellar, 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 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 guests invited to entertainments. The dinner, he says, was provided by the Mayor and two sheriffs for the time being, and the whole cost was from £700 to £800. We are not told what wines were drunk, but a list of those which were served at a similar banquet on Lord Mayor’s Day, 1782,[269] may be of interest. It will give some idea of the quantity and character of the drinks consumed at such entertainments:—

Port, 438 bottles. Lisbon, 220 ” Madeira, 90 ” Claret, 168 ” Champagne, 143 ” Burgundy, 116 ” Malmsey or sack, 4 ” Brandy, 4 ” Hock, 66 ” ---- Grand total, 1249 bottles.

From that time to the present there has not been any very material change in the descriptions of the wines which are drunk at Lord Mayors’ feasts, except that the heavier wines have been to some extent displaced by those of a lighter description. Thus, at various banquets which were given between 1860 and 1876, the following descriptions were consumed on Lord Mayor’s Day:—Various kinds of port, sherry, madeira, hock, claret, champagne, and moselle. In other respects great changes have, however, taken place at these feasts. Earthenware drinking vessels are no longer in vogue, “trenchers” are changed, napkins and knives are not wanting, and guests do not (with the knowledge of their host) walk off with their spoons and forks!

But to resume. Hard-drinking was not confined to kings and Lord Mayors, and one of the practices amongst all classes of society which had the effect of stimulating excess, and of which we are not yet completely rid, was the drinking of healths. A French writer who visited England about the close of the seventeenth century, and who described the ludicrous grimaces which accompanied the ceremony, says that “whilst in France the custom had disappeared from polite society, any one in England who drank at table without doing so to the health of some person present would be considered as drinking on the sly, and that it would be regarded as an act of incivility.”[270]

How rapidly the indulgence in intoxicating drink increased from the Commonwealth to the eighteenth century we are able to learn from the poets and moralists of the time, as well as from the graphic pictures of life which have been bequeathed to us by the pencil of Hogarth; but before reverting to the oft-told tale, we have to speak of a satisfactory phase in the drinking customs of the country, which commenced at the epoch under consideration, and which is happily still in steady progress. We mean the introduction into England of those non-alcoholic beverages which we find to have exercised so potent and beneficial an influence upon the morals of German society. Tea was first imported into England from the Netherlands in 1666 by Lords Arundel and Ossory, but it was then only used medicinally, its price (about 60s. per lb.) being for a long time a virtual prohibition against its use as a beverage. Coffee was, however, a much more popular article of consumption. The first coffee-house is said to have been opened in Paris in 1643; and either in 1652 or 1657 (writers differ as to the date) the first was established in London. Coffee was soon served in taverns along with wine, beer, and tobacco, and although it met with opposition from the satirical writers of the day, it was drunk by men of every class, from the labourers and apprentices to the members of the Privy Council, and it interfered considerably with the consumption of alcoholic drinks. There were ere long coffee-houses for all ranks of society, such as the “Grecian” in Threadneedle Street, said to have been the first opened, where noblemen and the committee of the Royal Society met, and many others of more modest pretensions, for the accommodation of merchants, tradesmen, and the labouring classes.

The character of the clubs, too, was changed by the introduction of tea and coffee and chocolate. Those institutions had existed from the reign of Elizabeth, the first having been the “Mermaid” in Friday Street, founded by Sir Walter Raleigh; and the other leading men connected with it were Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher. Ben Jonson founded a club which met at the “Devil” Tavern between Temple Bar and the Temple Gates, for which he wrote a code of rules in Latin verse called “Leges Conviviales.”[271] The clubs found no favour with the Puritans, who endeavoured to abolish them; whilst in Charles II.’s time the coffee-houses were so inconvenient to royalty, that an attempt was made to suppress them. The latter incident occurred in 1675, when on the 29th December a royal proclamation ordered them to be closed, “because in such houses, and by the meeting of disaffected persons in them, divers false, malicious, and scandalous reports were devised and spread abroad, to the defamation of His Majesty’s Government, and the disturbance of the peace of the realm.” The dissatisfaction caused by this proceeding was, however, so great that the proclamation was soon withdrawn.

With the clubs and coffee-houses some of the greatest English names are associated. At Will’s Coffee-house, in Bow Street, Dryden reigned supreme; at Button’s, in Great Russell Street, Addison was the presiding genius. Addison, by the way, moralist as he was, was addicted to something much stronger than coffee; he entered largely into, if he did not lead, the dissipation of his day. Samuel Johnson, as is well known, was quite an enthusiast in the matter of clubs and taverns. His principal haunt was the “Turk’s Head” in Gerard Street, where the Literary Club met, including, amongst others, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick (who also frequented the Bedford in Covent Garden, along with Foote, Quin, and others), Oliver Goldsmith, Burke, and Sheridan. Johnson also went to the Essex Club in Essex Street, and the King’s Head beefsteak house. Our space will not allow us to enumerate the various clubs of the time, but in order to show what extension had been given to the system in later days, we may add that in 1801 there was a club called “The King of Clubs,” which met at the “Crown and Anchor” in the Strand, and reckoned among its members Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Abinger, Lord Erskine, and Samuel Rogers. Then, at the opposite end of the social scale, there were the “Bird Fanciers,” who met at a pothouse in Rosemary Lane; the “Flat Cap,” where market-women assembled, and “young gentlemen and gallants paid their court to those ladies with burnt brandy and formidable mugs of porter;” the “Thieves,” at the Half-Moon in the Old Bailey; the “Lying Club,” where whoever told the truth between six and ten was fined a gallon of wine; the “Bold Bucks,” who drove the neighbourhood of St. Mary-le-Strand crazy with bands of music during the performance of divine service, and then sat down to feast on “Holy Ghost Pie;” and the “Sword Clubs,” whose members took possession of the town after supper, “holding their swords against every man, whilst every man’s sword was held against them.”[272]

As this notice of the clubs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may possibly find its way to posterity, it is but just to add regarding those of the present day that they are amongst the noblest institutions of our country. This is certainly not the place to expatiate upon their services to the state, and it must suffice to say that they are the centres of political and intellectual activity. All that we have to note concerning them in relation to our subject is, that they are certainly not conducted on teetotal principles. In most of them the wines are selected by a committee of connoisseurs, and one, in which the “feast of reason and the flow of soul” are supposed to predominate, manages to expend £2000 annually in wines and spirits. A well-known French writer has been at the trouble to ascertain what quantity of wine is usually consumed at our metropolitan clubs, and he sets it down at a pint per diem for each member.[273]

The character of the clubs and taverns in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries demonstrates pretty plainly what was the condition of society at the time; and it could hardly have been worse than it was. Drunkenness and debauchery, accompanied by lawlessness and violence, marked the age. People got drunk at private tables, and quarrelled and fought duels afterwards. Suppers were followed by sallies into the streets and attacks upon the citizens, which often resulted in murder and mutilations, and the newspapers of the last century contain stories of license and depravity which it is difficult to believe even after reading our own police reports or the columns filled with casualties and crimes. For whilst to-day such matters are related of the lower orders, then they characterised the so-called respectable classes of society.[274] As to the poorer classes, they had fallen a prey to a new demon of intoxication—gin—which, along with other spirituous liquors, was fast taking the place of less inebriating beverages, such as ale, porter, and cider.

Although the period of the discovery of distillation is unknown, it is believed to have been not later than about the seventh century of our era. At that time it was described by Geber, supposed to have been an Arab; but his nationality and the precise time at which he wrote, are also enveloped in doubt.[275] The same uncertainty applies to the introduction or discovery of distillation in England. Friar Bacon, who lived in the thirteenth century, is believed to have been acquainted with the process, and “spirits of wine” were certainly known to Raymond Tully, who wrote a book called “Testamentum Novissimum” on the preparation of alcohol in the same century.[276] The perfect chemical separation of alcohol was, however, not effected until the following century (about 1300), by Arnauld de Villeneuve, a famous physician residing in Montpellier, and its analysis was first performed by Th. de la Saussure.[277] In 1430 arrack was first introduced into England from Genoa,[278] and from that time forward the importation and home manufacture of spirituous liquors continued to increase.

In order that the reader may form some idea of the effect which the substitution of spirituous liquors for other intoxicating beverages would have upon the drinking habits of the nation, we append the following tabular statement of the relative proportions of alcohol contained in some of the chief European drinks of present and past times:[279]—

Beverage. Percentage of alcohol.

German beer, From 1.9 to 4.62 Cider, ” 5.4 ” 7.4 Ale and porter, ” 5.4 ” 8.5 Very strong ale, ” 10.5 ” 12.4 Moselle and Rhine wines, ” 7.5 ” 9.5 Claret, ” 8.0 ” 9.0 Champagne, ” 11.5 ” 14.1 Sherry, ” 15.4 ” 16.0 Port, ” 15.0 ” 20.7 Madeira, ” 19.0 ” 19.8 Marsala, ” 19.9 ” 20.0 Gin (London), ” 31.73 ... Geneva spirit, ” 49.4 ... Brandy, ” 50.4 ” 53.6 Whisky, ” 59.2 ” 59.4 Rum, ” 72.7 ” 77.1

And proof spirit consists of 49.2 per cent. of alcohol and 50.98 of water.

Thus it will be seen that a man might drink without any greater effect ten times as much of the old as he could of the new beverages, and when we come to inquire how much of these were consumed, we shall have no difficulty in understanding what a terrible influence they exercised upon the morals of the age.

In the year 1694, with an estimated population of about 5,800,000 souls, the quantity of British spirits upon which duty was charged in England was, according to one author, 810,096 gallons;[280] according to another, 754,300 gallons.[281] (The discrepancy is immaterial for our purpose.) But forty-two years later—in 1736, the _annus mirabilis_ in the history of drink—although the population had only increased to 6,200,000, the consumption of spirits had risen to 6,116,473 gallons, or nearly a gallon per head of the inhabitants.

The reason why we have called 1736 the _annus mirabilis_ in the history of drink is because it was on the 29th September of that year that the “Gin Act” came into operation, and the passing of that Act was considered a necessity consequent upon the awful prevalence of drunkenness in all classes of society.

How great was the debauchery of the age may be seen, not alone from the statistics here given, but it may be read in the pages of contemporary history. Those who have perused accounts of the parliamentary debates, or the published notices and correspondence of the time, know into what a deplorable condition the lower and middle classes were fallen, and how openly they were tempted to still lower depths of depravity. That announcements were hung out before the gin-shops informing passers-by that they could get drunk for a penny, and dead drunk for twopence, and that when they were in the desired state, clean straw would be gratuitously provided for them in convenient cellars, has become a matter of history.[282] So also the fact that the inducements to drink which were so generously offered were as readily accepted, and the state of the city of London became so dangerous and disgraceful, that at length the Grand Jury of Middlesex made a presentment asking the Legislature for repressive measures. It was then that Sir Joseph Jekyll introduced and carried through Parliament the famous “Gin Act,” of which the following is a copy:—

“Whereas the excessive drinking of spirituous liquors by the common people tends not only to the destruction of their health and the debauching of their morals, but to the public ruin;

“For remedy thereof—

“Be it enacted, that from September 29th no person shall presume, by themselves or any others employed by them, to sell or retail any brandy, rum, arrack, usquebaugh, geneva, aqua vitæ, or any other distilled spirituous liquors, mixed or unmixed, in any less quantity than two gallons, without first taking out a license for that purpose within ten days at least before they sell or retail the same; for which they shall pay down £50, to be renewed ten days before the year expires, paying the like sum, and in case of neglect to forfeit £100, such licenses to be taken out within the limits of the penny post at the chief office of Excise, London, and at the next office of Excise for the country. And be it enacted that for all such spirituous liquors as any retailers shall be possessed of on or after September 29th, 1736, there shall be paid a duty of 20s. per gallon, and so in proportion for a greater or lesser quantity above all other duties charged on the same.

“The collecting the rates by this Act imposed to be under the management of the commissioners and officers of Excise by all the Excise laws now in force (except otherwise provided by this Act), and all moneys arising by the said duties or licenses for sale thereof shall be paid into the receipt of His Majesty’s Exchequer distinctly from other branches of the public revenue; one moiety of the fines, penalties, and forfeitures to be paid to His Majesty and successors, the other to the person who shall inform on any one for the same.”

This Act remained nominally in operation for seven years, the first result being an apparent falling off in the consumption of spirits to the extent of nearly 2,000,000 gallons; for whilst, as already stated, the quantity on which duty was paid in the year 1736 was 6,116,473 gallons, that in 1737 was 4,250,399 gallons. The consumption, however, soon rose again; and when, in the year 1743, the “Gin Act” was repealed, it had risen to 8,203,430 gallons.

In the meantime the remedy had proved worse than the disease. Gin riots; false information given by men who made it their profession; violence towards, and even the murder of, such informers; the illicit distillation and sale of spirits under various names all over the country;—these were the fruits of this extreme legislation, and long before the Act was repealed it had ceased to be operative. When its repeal (which was opposed by the bishops) was being discussed in the House of peers, one noble lord stated that for several years the Act had been a dead letter, and that the pathways of London were obstructed by men who were openly selling spirits to the populace, and by those who had drunk them until they were unable to move. But there is an important circumstance in connection with this experiment which is well worthy of being noticed. Whilst the sudden and extreme measure had no permanent effect upon the moral disease which it was intended to cure, but called into action evils which had not previously existed, yet impediments of a less violent and conspicuous character, which were unintentionally thrown in the way of excessive drinking at a subsequent period, seem to have proved more efficacious. For we find that when the duty was afterwards raised from 3d. to 1s. per gallon, the consumption steadily diminished, until, in 1758, it had fallen to 1,849,370 gallons, and it continued to stand at 2,000,000 gallons from 1762 to 1780, after the duty had been still further raised to 2s. 6d. per gallon.[283]

For a long time after the repeal of the “Gin Act,” there is very little improvement to be noticed in the drinking habits of the English people. Moralists, poets, and some of the clergy, were vigorous in their denunciations of the national vice, which, then more them at any other period, seems to have been a fruitful source of crime and villainy. Men of good family and station, who had ruined themselves with drinking and gambling, did not, as to-day, seek relief in the insolvency court or the colonies, but, armed with pistol and blunderbuss, they endeavoured to retrieve their broken fortunes on the highway. The metropolis was the scene of nightly robberies, whilst the neighbouring roads and commons were beset with footpads and mounted highwaymen, so that, as a contemporary (Bishop Benson) wrote, there was “not only no safety of living in this town, but scarcely any in the country now, robbery and murther are grown so frequent. Our people are now become, what they never before were, cruel and inhuman. Those accursed spirituous liquors, which, to the shame of our Government, are so easily to be had, and in such quantities drunk, have changed the very nature of our people; and they will, if continued to be drunk, destroy the very race of people themselves.”[284]

That this was no exaggerated picture of society at that time we have ample testimony in the literature extending over a great part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One of the chief aims of the essayists in such papers as the “Spectator” was “to recover society out of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age had fallen;” and Addison thus describes the typical drunkard of his time:—

“I was only the other day with honest Will Funnell, the West Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through him in the last twenty years of his life, which, according to computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of october, four tuns of port, half a kilderkin of small beer, nineteen barrels of cider, and three glasses of champagne, besides which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention sips, drams, and whets without number. I question not but every reader’s memory will suggest to him several ambitious young men who are as vain in this particular as Will Funnell, and can boast of as glorious exploits.”

If _our_ readers will kindly substitute “bitter” for “october,” “sherry” for “port,” and, leaving all the other drinks as they stand, will throw in a few dozen cases of champagne, and brandy and soda _ad libitum_, we shall have no hesitation in echoing Addison’s concluding sentence, inasmuch as it will obviate the necessity for any further reference to the habits of intemperance which obtain amongst a large circle of fast young gentlemen of our own time!

Of the taverns we have already spoken, and without adopting to the fullest extent the statement which has been made by various historians, that even noble ladies were in the habit of largely patronising such places, we need not hesitate to believe that they were more extensively used by the upper classes than they are at present. But they were then, as now, the ruin of those who visited them:—

“There enter the prude and the reprobate boy, The mother of grief and the daughter of joy, The serving-maid slim and the serving-man stout— They quickly steal in, and they slowly reel out. ... Surcharged with the venom, some walk forth erect, Apparently baffling its deadly effect; But, sooner or later, the reckoning arrives, And ninety-nine perish for one who survives.”[285]

Nor was Scotland a whit better. Here is a picture of the High Street of Edinburgh during the last century:—

“Next to the neighbouring tavern all retired, And draughts of wine their various thoughts inspired; O’er draughts of wine the beau would moan his love, O’er draughts of wine the cit his bargain drove; O’er draughts of wine the writer penned his will, And legal wisdom counselled—o’er a gill.”[286]

Of Ireland we can only add, that from an early period both clergy and laity drank inordinately. They with ourselves began to imbibe spirits, we are told, whilst some other nations were still content with less potent liquors:—

“The Russ drinks quass, Dutch Lubeck beer, And that is strong and mighty; The Briton[287] he metheghlin quaffs, The Irish aqua vitæ; The French affect the Orleans grape, The Spaniard tastes his sherry; The English none of these can ’scape, But he with all makes merry.”[288]

Of the Irish clergy in the twelfth century we have already spoken, and Archbishop Plunkett says of them in his day:[289]—

“Whilst visiting six dioceses of this province, I applied myself especially to root out the cursed vice of drunkenness, which is the parent and nurse of all scandals and contentions. I commanded also, under penalty of privation of benefite, that no priest should frequent public-houses or drink whisky, &c. Indeed, I have derived great fruit from this order, and as it is of little use to teach without practising, I myself never drink at meals(!).... Give me an Irish priest without this vice, and he is assuredly a saint.”

Other writers have confirmed this account of the Irish clergy;[290] and as to the laity, their lavish hospitality, whilst it did honour to their hearts, was the cause of great improvidence and self-indulgence. “Nine gentlemen in ten in Ireland,” wrote Chesterfield, “are impoverished by the great quantity of claret which, from mistaken notions of hospitality, they think it necessary to be drunk in their houses.” Another writer of the eighteenth century says, “Would not a Frenchman give a shrug at finding in every little inn Bordeaux claret and Nantz brandy, though in all likelihood not a morsel of Irish bread.”[291]

That there followed in the train of drunkenness all the evils and diseases of which it is still the fruitful source, it may readily be conceived. This has been shown by William Hogarth in his famous pictures of life in his day,[292] and there is a poem of John Gay, written about the same time, which leaves no doubt upon the subject.

Death, sitting on his throne, declares his intention to name his prime minister, and each disorder puts forth his claim to the office. Fever, gout, an unnameable disease, consumption, plague:—

“All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand— Now expectation hushed the band, When thus the monarch from the throne: ‘Merit was ever modest known. What! no physician speak his right? None here, but fees their toils requite. Let then Intemperance take the wand. You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest (Whom wary men as foes detest), Forego your claim; no more pretend: Intemperance is esteemed a friend; He shares their mirth, their social joys, And as a courted guest destroys. The charge on him must justly fall Who finds employment for you all.’”[293]

Much more might be written concerning the drinking habits of our countrymen in post-Reformation times; but if we mistake not, the reader will be better pleased that we should now draw this chapter to its close. For the changes which took place during the first half of this century may be briefly summed up by saying, that there was a gradual improvement amongst the upper and middle classes. Leaving the curious reader, therefore, to study the pictures of the three-bottle squire, and his friend the fox-hunting parson, by the light of the literature of this century, aided, it may be, by the memory of those who are still alive to relate their own experiences, we shall pass on to the consideration of drink as we find it to-day, and of those varied efforts which are being made for the purpose of diminishing the evils of intemperance.