hands, thou art better than aqua vitae to fetch life into them, and to send them packing. Thou shalt therefore be taken out of thy proud chariot, and be carted. Yet first will we see what workmanship and what stuff it is made of, to the intent that if it be not dangerous for a city to keep any relic belonging to such a crooked saint, it may be hung up as a monument to shew with what dishonour thou wert driven out of so noble a lodging, to deface whose buildings thou hast been so envious, that when thou hast been left alone by any thing that would take fire, thou hast burnt to the ground many of her goodliest houses.

Candle-light's coach is made all of horn, shaven as thin as changelings are. It is drawn (with ease) by two rats: the coachman is a chandler, who so sweats with yerking them, that he drops tallow, and that feeds them as provender: yet are the lashes that he gives the squeaking vermin more deadly to them than all the ratsbane in Bucklersbury. Painfulness and Study are his two lackeys and run by him: Darkness, Conspiracy, Opportunity, Stratagems and Fear, are his attendants: he's sued unto by diggers in mines, gravers, scholars, mariners, nurses, drunkards, unthrifts and shrode husbands: he destroys that which feeds him, and therefore Ingratitude comes behind all this, driving them before her.

THOMAS DEKKER, The Seuen Deadly Sinnes of London 1606

§4. Temptations

Polonius.

Such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

Reynaldo.

As gaming, my lord?

Polonius. Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing.

Hamlet, II. i. 22-26

A. Drink

Its effects. (a) Falstaff's opinion

A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble fiery and delectable shapes; which, deliver'd o'er to the voice, the tongue, which is the

birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherris is, the warming of the blood; which, before cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice: but the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage; and this valour comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled, with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

2 Henry IV., IV. iii. 103-136

(b) A puritan's opinion

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale? Twelfth Night, II. iii. 123

Spudeus. You spake of drunkenness, what say you of that? Philoponus. I say that it is a horrible vice, and too too much used in Ailgna [England]. Every country, city, town, village and other places hath abundance of alehouses, taverns and inns, which are so fraught with malt-worms, night and day, that you would wonder to see them. You shall have them there sitting at the wine and good-ale all the day long, yea, all the night too, peradventure a whole week together, so long as any money is left; swilling, gulling and carousing from one to another, till never a one can speak a ready word. Then, when with the spirit of the buttery they are thus possessed, a world it is to consider their gestures and demeanours, one towards another and towards every one else. How they stut and stammer, stagger and reel to and fro like madmen....and which is

most horrible, some fall to swearing, cursing and banning, interlacing their speeches with curious terms of blasphemy, to the great dishonour of God, and offence of the godly ears present.

Sp. But they will say that God ordained wines and strong drinks to cheer the heart and to sustain the body withal, therefore it is lawful to use them to that end.

Philo. Meats (moderately taken) corroborate the body, refresh the arteries and revive the spirits, making them apter, every member, to do his office as God hath appointed; but being immoderately taken (as commonly they be), they are instruments of damnation to the abusers of the same, and nourish not the body, but corrupt it rather, casting it into a world of diseases. And a man once drunk with wine or strong drink rather resembleth a brute beast than a Christian man. For do not his eyes begin to stare and to be red, fiery and bleared, blubbering forth seas of tears? Doth he not froth and foam at the mouth like a boar? Doth not his tongue falter and stammer in his mouth? Doth not his head seem as heavy as a millstone, he not being able to bear it up? Are not his wits and spirits, as it were, drowned? Is not his understanding altogether decayed? Do not his hands, and all his body vibrate, quaver and shake, as it were, with a quotidian fever? Besides these, it casteth him into a dropsy or pleurisy, nothing so soon; it enfeebleth the sinews, it weakeneth the natural strength, it corrupteth the blood, it dissolveth the whole man at the length, and finally maketh him forgetful of himself altogether, so that what he doth being drunk, he remembreth not being sober. The drunkard, in his drunkenness, killeth his friend, revileth his lover, discloseth secrets, and regardeth no man. He either expelleth all fear of God out of his mind, all love of his friends and kinsfolks, all remembrance of honesty, civility, and humanity; so that I will not fear to call drunkards beasts, and no men; and much worse than beasts, for beasts never exceed in any such kind of excess or superfluity, but alway modum adhibent appetitui, they measure their appetites by the rule of necessity, which, would God, we would do.

PHILIP STUBBES, The Anatomie of Abuses 1583 (2nd ed.)