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MERRY-GO-DOWN
A GALLERY OF GORGEOUS
DRUNKARDS THROUGH THE AGES
COLLECTED FOR THE USE INTEREST
ILLUMINATION AND DELECTATION OF
SERIOUS TOPERS
by RAB NOOLAS
AND DECORATED BY HAL COLLINS
Kctttaa
THE MANDRAKE PRESS 41 MUSEUM STREET
LONDON
Vill CONTENTS
PAGE
The Discourse of the Drinkers Rabelais
54
Credimus
Rabelais 58
The Eight Kinds of Drunkenness Nashe
59
Falstaff in Praise of Sack Shakespeare
62
The Drunken Mens Banket John Eliot
62
Master Merry-Thought Beaumont and
Fletcher 69
Drunkards in El Dorado Sir Walter Raleigh
70
Strange Pageantries Sir John
Harington 71
Of Hym That Brought a Botell to
a Preste Anon
73
What's Your Ale ? Beaumont
and
Fletcher 74.
A Monk's Life Cooke
77
The Common Singing-Men Earle
78
Drink and Welcome John Taylor
79
Barnabies Summons Anon
81
Wine and Wenches Anon
83
Lovers of Musick Anthony a
Wood 83
A Petition
Anon 84
Conceits & Flashes & Whimzies Anon
86
Joan's Ale
Anon 87
A Ligg of Good Noses Anon
90
Drunkards Reconciled Pepys
93
The Drunkard's Speech Oldham
94
A Beastly Prank
Rochester 98
A Bishop & a Doctor Aubrey
101
A Drunken Club Darby
102
The Four Drunken Maidens Anon
in
A Toping Song Anon
112
The Praise of Yorkeshire Ale G. M.
114
What Am'rous Youth Ned Ward
117
Wine v. Woman Anon
118
The Tippling Philosophers Anon
119
The Oxford Tutor's Advice to His
Pupils Anon
123
The Lubber Power James
Thomson 126
CONTENTS ix
PAGE
In Memory of Thomas Fletcher From a Tombstone 129
A Moral Man Thomas
Turner 130
Interruptions James
JVoodforde 133
Next Morning Anon
134
Dr. Johnson on Drunkenness Boswell
136
Boswell Drunk Lord
Eldon 139
I Love It
Boswell 140
The Vicar and Moses Anon
142
George Morland's Bub George Dawe
145
Song of the Bridegroom George Colman
146
Portrait of a Nobleman SirN.W. Wraxall
148
Grog
Anon 150
A Cobler and His Wife Anon
152
Reeling Drunk Byron
1^4
The Leaky Vessel Anon
\ee
Expiation
Peacock iro
Intellectual Discussion Peacock
160
The Drunkenness of Seithenyn Peacock
163
A Cure for Hiccups Nimrod
171
The World's a Tun Alexander
Smith 172
Lord Alcohol T. L.
Beddoes 173
Bon-Bon
Edgar Allan Poe 174
Song Against the Beer-Taxes Anon
180
Vicar and Goat Borrow
181
A Precious Couple Borrow
183
The Sunday Beer Bill is Repealed Anon
18 r
The Pope
Lever 186
We're a' Blind Drunk Anon
187
We Won't Go Home Till Morning Anon 190
The Rosy
Dickens 191
Mrs. Gamp
Dickens 192
Pecksniff at Todgers's Dickens
194
The Maltworm's Madrigal Austin Dobson
200
Sick Dick ; or, the Drunkard's
Tragedy F. B. Neuburg 202
Among the Pirates Capt. Johnson 204
X CONTENTS
PAGE
On the Nail Isaac
Disraeli 205
Wormwood
Marie Corelli 208
Alcohol and the Absolute William James
211
A Drunken Song in the Saurian
Mode Rab
Noolas 212
Mothers' Ruin Rab
Noolas 213
Everybody was Drunk Norman Douglas
214
The Drunken Wizard Bruce Blunt
220
A Patriot
News Item 221
Seen at Sea
News Item 222
A Spirited Testimonial Anon
223
All off for a Buster James Joyce
114.
Epilogue
F. Sans-Terre 229
COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Grateful acknowledgment is due to the following owners of
copyright extracts used in compiling this book : The Oxford
University Press (Diary of a Country Parson) ; Mr. Humphrey
Milford and Mr. Alban Dobson (The Maltworms Madrigal);
John Lane The Bodley Head Limited (Thomas Turner's Diary) ;
Mr. Norman Douglas, and Martin Seeker Ltd. (South Wind) ;
Messrs. Methuen & Co. Ltd., and The Trustees of the Marie
Corelli Estate (Wormwood) ; Messrs. Longmans Ltd. (William
James : Varieties of Religious Experience) ; and to Mr. James
Joyce (Ulysses),
£r£j|S^HIS book of topers was made by topers for topers
ES&^w t0 rea^« Not since that incomparable Encomium
K^jf^S) of Ebriety was launched, two centuries ago, upon
1*h3k^£ an England more worthy than ours to receive it,
has toping been treated as an objective and inescapable
fact, without any moral implications whatever. We are
entirely unconcerned with morality. This book is for
the delight of the converted : to the unconverted it is as
likely to prove an Awful Warning as an Incitement to
Carouse. Our object being to amuse, we could wish, with
the immortal Mr. Keith, that " the English still possessed
a shred of the old sense of humour which Puritanism, and
dyspepsia, and newspaper-reading, and tea-drinking have
nearly extinguished. It ought to be revived afresh. Noth-
ing like a good drunkard for that purpose. As a laughter-
provoking device it is cheaper and more effective than
any pantomime yet invented ; and none the worse, surely,
for being a little old-fashioned ? "
Alas, that such a fashion should ever grow old 1 But
in spite of all the efforts of our rulers to make us realise that
" THE OLD DAYS OF THE RIGHT OF EVERY MAN TO DO
AS HE LIKES WITH HIS OWN ARE A RELIC OF THE EIGH-
TEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES AND WILL NOT WORK
in the twentieth," there are still certain stalwarts (as
has been most abundantly proved by some of our acquain-
tance) who temulently emulate the feats of valiance des-
cribed in these pages, which we fling, symbolically, with
the worst will in the world, full in the face of every advocate
of Prohibition.
RAB NOOLAS
*i
IN
THE BEGINNING
ND Noah began to be an husbandman, and he
planted a vineyard : and he drank of the wine,
and was drunken; and he was uncovered within
his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw
the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren
without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid
it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and
covered the nakedness of their father ; and their faces were
backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And
Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger
son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a
servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.
[Genesis ix., 20.]
AND LOT WENT UP
ND Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the
mountain, and his two daughters with him; for
he feared to dwell in Zoar : and he dwelt in a
cave, he and his two daughters. And the first
born said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is
not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner
of all the earth : Come, let us make our father drink wine,
and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of
our father. And they made their father drink wine that
night : and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father ;
and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she
arose. And it came to pass on the morrow that the firstborn
said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesterday with my
father : let us make him drink wine this night also ; and
go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed
of our father. And they made their father drink wine that
night also : and the younger arose, and lay with him ; and
he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their
*atner'
[Genesis xix., 30.]
AN
OBSERVATION ON BEER-DRINKERS
S|||£^§§ RISTOTLE says, in his book on Drunkenness,
2jfT\j||g they who have drunk beer, which they call flvov
Swi||?w fall on their backs. For he says, " there is a
V&&&33&3 peculiarity in the effects of the drink made
from barley, which they call ttivov, for they who get
drunk on other intoxicating liquors fall on all parts of their
body ; they fall on the left side, on the right side, on their
faces, and on their backs. But it is only those who get
drunk on beer who fall on their backs, and lie with their
faces upwards."
[aristotle. Fragment quoted by Athenaeus.]
t
MERRY-GO-DOWN
3
HOLY HEATE
T is supposed that Solon and Arcesilaus were good
drinkers : and Cato was taxed for drunkennes:
but whosoeuer reprocheth him in this sort,
shall rather proue that this crime of drunkennesse
is an honest thing, then that Cato behaued himselfe dis-
honestlie. But neither is it to be done often, lest the mind
should contract some euell custome, although at sometimes
a man ought to giue him liberty, and present some meanes
of delight, and lay aside for a while the ouer seuere and sober
maner of life. For if we giue credite to the Greeke Poet:
Its sometimes pleasure to be mad and foolish.
Or Plato : He that is in his right wits, looseth his labour
to goe and knocke at the gate of the Muses, or Aristotle :
There was neuer any great wit that had not some spice of
folly ; if the minde bee not stirred, and as it were mounted
above it selfe, hee can speake nothing highly, nor aboue
others. After hee hath contemned vulgar and ordinary
things, and that a holy heate hath raised him aboue ordinary,
then beginneth he to sing with a mortall mouth, I know not
what that is more then humane. As long as hee is in him-
selfe, hee can attaine to nothing that is hie and difficult. Hee
must desist from his usuall custome, and rowse himselfe, and
bite the bridle betwixt his teeth, and beare away him that
gouerneth him, and carrie him thither whether of himselfe
hee was affraide to ascend.
[seneca. De tranquillitate animi.
Trans, Thomas Lodge > 1614.]
THE
SYMPOSIUM
UDDENLY they heard a loud knocking at the
door of the vestibule, and a clamour as of revellers,
attended by a flute-player.
" Go, boy," said Agathon, " and see who is
there : if they are any of our friends, call them in ;
if not, say that we have already done drinking."
A minute afterwards, they heard the voice of Alcibiades
in the vestibule excessively drunk and roaring out : " Where
is Agathon ? Lead me to Agathon ! "
The flute-player, and some of his companions then led
him in, and placed him against the door-post, crowned with
a thick crown of ivy and violets, and having a quantity of
fillets on his head.
" My friends," he cried out, " hail ! I am excessively
drunk already, but I'll drink with you, if you will. If not,
we will go away after having crowned Agathon, for which
purpose I came. I assure you that I could not come yester-
day, but I am now here with these fillets round my temples,
that from my own head I may crown him who, with your
leave, is the most beautiful and wisest of men. Are you
laughing at me because I am drunk ? Ay, I know what I
say is true, whether you laugh or not. But tell me at once
whether I shall come in, or no. Will you drink with me ? "
Agathon and the whole party desired him to come in,
and recline among them ; so he came in, led by his com-
panions. He then unbound his fillets that he might crown
Agathon, and though Socrates was just before his eyes, he
did not see him, but sat down by Agathon, between Socrates
and him, for Socrates moved out of the way to make room
for him. When he sat down, he embraced Agathon and
crowned him, and Agathon desired the slaves to untie his
sandals, that he might make a third, and recline on the same
couch.
" By all means," said Alcibiades, " but what third com-
panion have we here ? " And at the same time turning
round and seeing Socrates, he leaped up and cried out:—
4
MERRY-GO-DOWN 5
" O Hercules ! what have we here ? You, Socrates,
lying in ambush for me wherever I go ! and meeting me
just as you always do when I least expected to see you !... "
Saying this, he took the fillets, and having bound the head
of Socrates, and again having reclined, said : " Come, my
friends, you seem to be sober enough. You must not flinch,
but drink, for that was your agreement with me before I
came in. I choose as president, until you have drunk
enough—myself. Come, Agathon, if you have got a great
goblet, fetch it out. But no matter, the wine-cooler will
do ; bring it, boy ! "
[plato : Symposium. Translated by Shelley.]
B
6
MERRY-GO-DOWN
ALEXANDER DIES DRUNK
ROTEAS the Macedonian was a very great
drinker, as Ephippus tells us in his treatise on the
Funeral of Alexander and Hephaestion : and he
had an admirable constitution, and he had prac-
tised drinking to a great degree. Accordingly, Alexander,
having once asked for a cup containing two choes, and having
drank from it, pledged Proteas ; and he, having taken
it, and having sung the praises of the king a great deal,
drank it in such a manner as to be applauded by every one.
And presently Proteas asked for the same cup again, and
again he drank and pledged the king. And Alexander,
having taken the cup, drank it off in a princely manner,
but he could not stand it, but leaned back on the pillow,
letting the cup fall from his hands ; and after this he fell
sick and died, Bacchus, as it is said, being angry with him
because he had besieged his native city of Thebes.
[athenaeus, x. 44. Tongas translation, 1848.]
THE GOAL OF DRINKING
NACHARSIS the Scythian, when a prize for
drinking was proposed at the table of Periander,
demanded the prize, because he was the first
man to be drunk of all the guests who were present ;
as if to get to the end were the goal to be aimed at, and the
victory to be achieved in drinking as in running a race.
[athenaeus, x. 50.]
OW
Antiochus the king, who was surnamed
Epiphanes, was also a good drinker,—the one, I
mean, who had been a hostage among the Romans,
whom Ptolemy Euergetes mentions in the third
book of his Commentaries, and also in the fifth; saying that
he turned to Indian revellings and drunkenness, and spent a
vast quantity of money in those practices ; and for the rest of
the money which he had at hand, he spent a part of it in his
daily revels, and the rest he would scatter about, standing in
the public streets, and saying, " Let whoever chance gives it
to, take it;" and then, throwing the money about, he would
depart. And very often, having a plaited garland of roses
on his head, and wearing a golden embroidered robe, he
would walk about alone, having stones under his arm, which
he would throw at those of his friends who were following
him. And he used to bathe also in the public baths, anointed
all over with perfumes; and, on one occasion, some private
individual, seeing him, said : " You are a happy man, O
king, you smell in a most costly manner:" and he, being
much pleased, said, " I will give you as much as you can desire
of this perfume." And so he ordered an ewer containing more
than two choes of thick perfumed unguent to be poured over
his head ; so that the multitude of the poorer people who
were about all collected to gather up what was spilt ; and, as
the place was made very slippery by it, Antiochus himself
slipped and fell, laughing a great deal, and most of the bathers
did the same.
[athenaeus, x. 52.]
7
DRUNKENNESSE REIGNETH
SSjjSS F all nations, the Parthians would have the glory
djgg|$3k for this goodly vertue of wine-bibbing : and
jljWjJS among the Greekes, Alcibiades indeed deserved
Ssw23w the best name for this worthy feat. But here with
us at Rome Novellius Torquatus a Millanois, wan the name
from all Romans and Italians both. This Lombard had
gone through all honourable degrees of dignitie in Rome ;
he had been Pretor, and attained to the place of a Proconsull.
In all these offices of state he woon no great name : but for
drinking in the presence of Tiberius', three gallons of wine
at one draught and before he tooke his breath againe, he
was dubbed knight by the surname of Tricongius, as one
would say, The three gallon knight: not The thrice gallant
knight : and the Emperour, sterne, severe, and cruell
otherwise though he was, now in his old age (for in his
youthfull daies hee was given overmuch to drinking of
wine whereupon he was called Biberius Mero, for Tiberius
Nero) would delight to behold this renowned and worthie
knight, with great wonder and admiration. For the like
rare gift and commendable qualitie, men thinke verily
that C. Piso first rise : and afterwards was advanced to the
Provostship of the citie of Rome, by the said Tiberius :
and namely, for that in his court being now Emperor, he
sat two daies and two nights drinking continually, and
never stirred foot from the bourd. And verily Drusus
Caesar (by report) in nothing more resembled his father
Tiberius, than in taking his drinke. But to return again to
noble Torquatus, herein consisted his excellencie, That he
did it according to art [for this you must take withall, there
is an art of Drinking, grounded upon certaine rules and
precepts.] Torquatus (I say) drank he never so much, was
not known at any time to falter in his tongue, never eased
himselfe by vomiting, never let it go the other way under
bourd : how late soever he sat up at the wine overnight,
he would be sure to relieve the morning watch and sentinell.
He drunke most of any man at one entire draught before
8
the
pot went from his head ; and for smaller draughts
besides, he went beyond all other in number ; his wind he
never tooke while the cup was at his mouth, but justly
observed the rule of drinking with one breath ; he was not
known to spit for all this : and to conclude, he would not
leave a drop behind in the cup, not so much as would dash
against the pavement, and make the least sound to be
heard : a speciall point and precise law to prevent the deceit
of those that drinke for a wager. A singular glorie no
doubt in him, and a rare felicitie. Tergilla challenged
M, Cicero the younger, sonne to that M. Cicero the famous
Oratour, and reproched him to his face, that ordinarily
he drunke two gallons at ones : and that one time above
the rest when he was drunke, he flung a pot at M. Agrippa
his head. And truly this is one of the fruits and feats of
drunkennesse. But blame not young Cicero^ if in this
point yet hee desired to surmount him that slew his father,
M. Antonius I meane ; for he before that time strained
himselfe, and strove to win the best game in this feat, making
profession thereof, as may appeare by a booke that he
compiled and set forth with this title, Of his owne drunken-
nesse : wherein he was not ashamed to avow and justifie
his excesse and enormities that way : and thereby approved
(as I take it) under pretence and colour of his drunkennesse,
all those outrages of his, all those miseries and calamaties
9
10
MERRY-GO-DOWN
that hee brought upon the whole world. This treatise
he vomited and spued out a little before the battle of Actium,
wherein he was defeated : whereby it may appeare very
plainely, that as hee was drunken before with the bloud of
citizens, so still hee was the more bloud-thirstie. For this
is a propertie that necessarily followeth this vice, that the
more a man drinketh, the more he may, and is alwaies drie.
And herein spake to good purpose a certaine Embassadour
of the Scythians, saying, That the Parthians the more they
drunke, the thirstier they were.
As touching the nations in the West part of the world,
they have their drinkes also by themselves made of corne
steeped in water, i.e. malt whereof they will drinke to the
utterance, and be drunke : and namely in Spaine and
Fraunce, where the manner of making the same is all one,
howsoever they have divers names. And in Spain they
have devised means that these drinks (Ale or Beere) will
abide age, and continue stale. In iEgypt likewise they have
invented such kind of drinks made of corne : so that no
part or corner of the world there is, but drunkennesse
reigneth.
[pliny. Natural History, XIV., 22.
Trans. Dr. Philemon Holland, 1601.]
BACCHIC TREES
N the end we arose up, and divided our selves :
thirtie we left to guard our ship : my selfe, and
twentie more, went to discover the Island, and had
not gone above three furlongs from the sea thorough
a wood, but we saw a brasen pillar erected, whereupon
Greeke letters were engraven, though now much worne
and hard to be discerned, importing, Thus Jarre travelled
Hercules and Bacchus : there were also neare unto the place,
two portraitures cut out in a rock. The one of the quantitie
of an acre of ground, the other lesse : which made mee
imagine the lesser to be Bacchus, and the other Hercules :
and giving them due adorations, we proceeded on our
journey : and farre wee had not gone, but we came to a
river, the streame whereof seemed to runne with as rich wine,
as any is made in Chios, and of a great breadth, in some places
able to beare a ship, which made mee to give the more
credit to the inscription upon the pillar, when I saw such
apparant signs of Bacchus peregrination : we then resolved
to travel up the streame, to finde whence the river had
his originall : an4 when we were come to the head, no
spring at all appeared, but mightie great vine trees of in-
finite number, which from their roots destilled pure wine
which made the river run so abundantly : the streame was
also well stored with fish, of which we tooke a few, in taste
and colour much resembling wine, but as many as eate of
them, fell drunke upon it : for when they were opened and
cut up, we found themm to be full of lees : afterwards wee
mixed some fresh-water fish with them, which allayed
the strong taste of the wine.
IX
12
MERRY-GO-DOWN
We then crost the streame where we found it passable,
and came among a world of vines of incredible number,
which towards the earth had firme stocks and of a good
growth, but the tops of them were women, from the hips
upwards, having all their proportion perfeat and compleat :
as painters picture out Daphne, who was turned into a
tree when she was overtaken by Apollo : at their fingers
ends sprung out branches full of grapes, and the haire of
their heads was nothing else but winding wires and leaves,
and clusters of grapes : when we were come to them they
saluted us, and joyned hands with us, and spake unto us
some in the Lydian and some in the Indian language, but
most of them in Greeke : they also kist us with their mouthes,
but hee that was so kist fell drunke, and was not his owne
man a good while after : they could not abide to have any
fruit pulled from them, but would roare and crie out pitifully,
if any man offered it : some of them desired to have carnall
mixture with us, and two of our company were so bold as
to entertaine their offer, and could never afterwards be loosed
from them, but were knit fast together at their nether
parts, from whence they grew together, and their fingers
began to spring out with branches, and crooked wiers, as
if they were ready to bring out fruit : whereupon wee for-
sooke them and fled to our shippes.
[lucian. The True History. Trans. Francis Hickes, 1634.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
13
TRIMALCHIO DRUNK
WORD in your ears : if you own a penny, you're
worth a penny. A man's as good as his in-
come. Have a long look in my direction, fables
come true, a frog yesterday, a fairy prince to-
day, and now I think of it, Stichus, get out the shroud I'm
going to be carried out in ; and some of the ointment too,
while you're about it, and just a moistening of that vintage
they'll be washing my corpse down with."
Stichus hurried off and came back into the dining-
room laden with the white winding-sheet and the gown of
office for the funeral. Trimalchio bade us feel them and
see the class of wool they were woven of. Then with a grim
laugh, " Take good care, Stichus," he said, " that no mice
or moths riddle them, or I'll roast you alive, you know.
I mean to be carried out in state so that all the crowd will
cheer and say a blessing."
And he uncorked the flask of the ointment and anointed
us all with ity saying, " I hope you'll find the stuff as fragrant
when I'm dead as I do now."
And not content with that, he had a bowl filled with
the wine, and said, " Now you must imagine to yourselves
you're guests at my wake."
The whole affair was growing intolerable. Trimalchio,
who by this time was rolling drunk, belched out a summons
for yet another turn, a set of trumpeters. When they ar-
rived, he propped himself up on a mound of cushions and
stretched his body out rigidly on its death-bed. " Pretend
I'm dead," he said, " go on, say what a fine fellow I was."
The trumpeters blared out into a funeral march. One
of the troupe, a slave of the undertaker who was the most
respectable member of the party, blurted out such a terrific
bray that the whole neighbourhood was aroused, and the
patrol of the local watch thought Trimalchio's house must
have caught fire. They rushed up, broke in the front door,
and started to do their duty of causing a turmoil with axes
and buckets of water. The opportunity was too good to
miss ; we said good-bye to Agamemnon, and went off
helter-skelter as though we were really escaping from a
burning house.
[petronius : Satyricon, trans. Jack Lindsay.]
A
GORGEOUS GALLERY
from
brietatis Enconium OR, THE PRAISE OF
DRUNKENNESS. WHEREIN is authenti-
cally, and most evidently proved, the Necessity
of frequently getting Drunk; and, That the
Practice of getting Drunk is most Antient, Primitive, and
Catholic. CONFIRMED By the Example of Heathens,
Turks, Infidels, Primitive Christians, Saints, Popes, Bishops,
Doctors, Philosophers, Poets, FreeMasons, and other Men of
Learning matt Ages. BY BONIFACE OINOPHILUS, de
Monte Fiascone, A.B.C. . . . LONDON : Printed for E.
CURLL, over against Catherine Street, in the Strand.
1723. Price 2s. 6d.
THAT THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS GOT DRUNK
HERE is no one that has ever so little dipped into
Ecclesiastical History, but knows very well, that in
the Primitive Church it was a Custom to appoint
solemn Feasts on the Festivals of Martyrs. This
appears by the Harangue of Constantine, and from the Works
of St. Gregory Nazianzen, and St. Chrysostom. People
generally got drunk at these Feasts ; and this Excess was
looked upon as a Thing that might be permitted. This
evidently appears by the pathetic Complaint of St. Augustin
and St. Cyprian : The former of these Holy Fathers ex-
presses himself after this manner.—" Drunken Debauches
pass as permitted amongst us, so that People turn them into
solemn Feasts, to honour the Memory of the Martyrs ;
and that, not only on those Days which are particularly
consecrated to them (which would be a deplorable Abuse to
those, who look at these things with other Eyes than those of
the Flesh) but in every Day of the Year."
St. Cyprian, in a Treatise attributed to him, says much
the same thing. " Drunkenness, says he, is so common
with us in Africa that it scarce passes for a Crime. And do
we not see Christians forcing one another to get Drunk, to
celebrate the Memory of the Martyrs ! "
MERRY-GO-DOWN 15
But it was not only at these Repasts that the Christians
got Drunk, they did the same on several Occasions ; and
'twas on this Account that St. Augustin wrote to his dear
Alipius in these Terms. " However the Corruption of
Manners, and the Unhappiness of the Times, have induced
us to wish, I do not say that People should get drunk in
particular Houses, but that they should not get drunk any
where else."
Cardinal du Perron tells us, " That the Manichceans
said, that the Catholicks were People much given to Wine,
but that They never drank any."
Against this Charge St. Augustin no otherwise defends
them, than by Recrimination. He answers, " That it was
true, but that They (the Manichcsans) drank the Juice of
Apples, which was more delicious than all the Wines and
Liquors in the World. And so does Tertu/Iian, which
Liquor pressed from Apples, he says, was most strong and
vinous. His Words are, Succum ex pomis vinosissimun. Here
one may observe also, That the Use of Cyder was very
primitive and antient, but as strong and delicious as it
was, the Catholicks stuck close to the Juice of the Grape,
as what was intirely orthodox and no wise conversant with
the Hereticks of those Days."
l6 MERRY-GO-DOWN
OF POPES, SAINTS, AND BISHOPS, THAT USED TO GET DRUNK
FTER having spoken of the Drunkenness of
Church-Men in general, it will not, perhaps, be a
Thing altogether needless, to put the whole in
the clearest Light, to confirm what has been said,
by the Example of Popes, Saints, and Bishops, who have
practised that laudable Custom of getting Drunk.
A little Song, mentioned by H. Stephens in his Apology
for Herodotus, affords Matter of Speculation in relation to the
Sobriety of Sovereign Pontiffs.
" Le Pape qui est a Rome
Boit du Vin comme un autre Homme
Et de I'Hypocras aussi.
" The Pope at Rome, his Holiness
Of Wine drinks many a hearty Glass,
And pleasant Hypocras also,
As any other Man I trow."
If one reads over the Popes Lives, we shall be fully
convinced, that these Holy Fathers were no Enemies to
Wine. Alexander the fifth was a great Drinker, and that
too of strong Wines, says his own Historian, Theodoric
de Neim. If one may give any Credit to the Letters of the
King of Spain's Ambassador to his Master, Sixtus Quintus
was a terrible Drunkard.
And Pope Boniface instituted Indulgences for those
who should drink a Cup of Grace (called since St. Boni-
face's Cup.) A plain Argument, that his Sanctity did not
hate Wine.
This puts me in mind of what I have formerly read,
tho' the Author's Name is now slipped out of my Memory,
that when Cardinal Pignate//i, afterwards Innocent the 12th,
was advanced to the Papacy, his Name signifying little
Pots or Mugs, three of which he bore for his Arms ; and
whose Mother was of the House of Caraffa, which signifies
a Jug, a French Man made these Lines.
MERRY-GO-DOWN \~]
" Nous devons tous boire en repos
Sous le regne de ce saint pere
Son nom ses armes sont des pots
Une Caraffe etoit sa mere
Celebrons done avec eclat
Get auguste Pontificat
" Under this Holy Father's Reign
Hang Sorrow, let us ne'er complain ;
I think all of us should turn Sots,
And fuddle with one another,
His Name, and so his Arms, are Pots,
And a Gallon Pot was his Mother ;
Then let us brightly celebrate
This most august Pontificate."
In the main, this is nothing but a little punning or
playing with Words, but it is one of those agreeable Trifles
that may now and then be worth our thinking on.
One may add to the Number of such Popes as loved
Fuddling, all those who sat at Avignon ; for if we believe
Petrarch, the long Residence that the Court of Rome made
at Avignon was only to taste the good French Wines ; and
that it was merely on that Account they stayed so long in
Provence, and removed with so much Reluctance.
Let us now pass on to Saints and Bishops. I shall
only instance one of each, because I hate Prolixity. The
first Saint that presents himself to me is the renowned St.
Augustin, who himself owns, that he used to get drunk
sometimes. Crapula autem nonnunquam surrepit servo tuo
misereberis ut Ionge fiat a me. Thy Servant has been some-
times Crop-sick thro' Excess of Wine, Have Mercy on me,
that it may be ever far from me. It is true M. Cousin
maintains against my Author, M. Petit, the Journal des
Scavans, of the Year 1689, 27 June* tnat St. Augustin,
however, never got drunk. The Arguments on both Sides
you may find in Bayle's Dictionary, under the Article
Augustin. But yet there are somewhere in St. Augustin
these Words, viz. My Soul certainly being a Spirit cannot
dwell in a dry Place. Anima mea certe quia Spiritus est,
in sicco habitare non potest,
i8
MERRY-GO-DOWN
I shall make no Comment upon these Words, only insert
one already made, which I take from M. Duchat in his
Remarks on Rabelais. On these Words of Saint Augustin,
says he, mentioned in the second Part of the Decretals,
caus. 32.q.2.c.9. the Commentator says, " And this is an
Argument for the Normans, 'English, and Poles, that they may
drink largely, that the Soul may not live in the Dry." To
which Peter Chatelain, a Flemish Physician, made this
pleasant Addition, "It is very probable that the Commen-
tator was an entire Stranger to the Nature of the Flemings"
And, perhaps, this Argument from St. Augustine's
Words, is as just, as One of a merry Fellow I know, who would
prove, from St. Paul's going to the Three Taverns, That he
loved a hearty Bottle.
A CATALOGUE OF SOME ILLUSTRIOUS TOPERS
AMBTSES was also very much given to Wine, as
may be judged by what I am going to say. This
Prince having been told by one of his Courtiers,
That the People took notice to get drunk too often,
taking some Time after his Bow and Arrow, shot the Son
of that Courtier through the Heart, saying no more than
this to the Father. Is this the Act of a Drunkard ?
Darius, the first King of Persia, had these words put
upon his Tomb.
I could drink much Wine and bear it well.
King Antigonus may come in here. Milan reports
of this Prince, That one Day when he was much in drink
meeting Zeno the Philosopher, whom he had a great Kindness
for, he kissed him, and promised to give him whatever he
would desire. Zeno only answered very mildly, Go and ease
your Stomach by vomitting, that's all I ask of you at present.
Philip, King of Macedon, got drunk sometimes ; wit-
ness what a Woman, whom he had not done Justice to, said
to him, viz. I appeal from Philip drunk, to Philip when
sober.
But I should never have done, if I endeavoured to give a
List of all the Kings that got drunk.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
l9
OF FREE MASONS, AND OTHER LEARNED MEN THAT USED TO
GET DRUNK
ARTHUIS may also be reckoned amongst those
learned Topers, if what Coloniez says be true.
" I knew," says he, " some learned Men in Holland,
who spoke of Scriverius as of a Man extremely
Amorous. M. Vossius, amongst others, related to me one
Day, That Barthius being come from Germany to Har-
laem to see Scriverius, had in his Company a Lady perfectly
beautiful, whom Scriverius had no sooner seen, but he
found means to make Barthius drunk, that he might enter-
tain the Lady with greater Liberty, which he accomplished.
It was not, however, so well managed, but Barthius coming
to himself, had some reason to suspect what had past, which
grew so much upon him, that he took the Lady along with
him in a Rage, and drowned her in the Rhine."
THE GREAT BUCHANAN
HE great Buchanan, so famous for his fine
Writings, was a terrible Drinker, if we may give
any Credit to Father Garasse. What follows is
taken out of his Doctrine Curieuse, p. 748.
" I shall," says he, " recount to our new Atheists, the
miserable End of a Man of their Belief and Humour, as to
eating and drinking. The libertine having passed his
debauched Youth in Paris and Bordeaux, more diligent in
finding out Tavern Bushes than the Laurel of Parnassus ;
and being towards the latter End of his Life, recalled into
Scotland to instruct the young Prince James Vlth, continuing
his Intemperance, he grew at last so dropsical by drinking,
that by way of Jeer he said he was in Labour. Vino inter-
cute, not aqua intercute. As ill as he was, he would, however,
not abstain from drinking Bumpers, and them too all of
pure Wine, as he used to do at Bourdeaux. The Physicians
who had care of his Health, by order of the King, seeing
the extravagant Excesses of their Patient, told him roundly,
and in a kind of Heat, That he did all he could to kill himself,
and that, if he continued this Course of Life, he could
20
MERRY-GO-DOWN
not live above a Fortnight, or Three Weeks, longer. He
desired them then to hold a Consultation amongst themselves,
and let him know, how long he might live if he abstained
from Wine. They did so, and told him, He might, on that
Condition, live five or six Years longer. Upon which he
gave them an Answer worthy his Humour. Go, says he,
with your Regimens and Prescriptions; and know, that I
had rather live three Weeks, and get drunk every Day, than
six Tears without drinking Wine. And as soon as he had thus
dismissed the Physicians, he caused a Barrel of Wine of
Grave to be placed at his Bed's Head, resolving to see the
Bottom of it before he died, and carried himself so valiantly
in this Encounter, that he drank it up to the Lees, fulfilling
literally the Contents of this quaint Epigram of Epigonus
upon a Frog, who falling into a Pipe of Wine, cried out,
(pev rives vScop
iriovdi p.avir\v cruxfipova /uaivojuevoi
Having Death and the Glass between his Teeth, the Ministers
visited him to bring him to himself, that he might take
Resolution to die with some Thought and Reflection, one
of them especially exhorted him to recite the Lord's Prayer,
upon which, opening his Eyes, he looked very ghastly upon
the Ministers ; And what is that, says he, that you call the
Lord's Prayer ? The Standers by answer'd, It was the
Our Father ; and that, if he could not pronounce that
Prayer, they desired him that at least he would recite some
Christian Prayer, that he might die like a good Man. For
my part, replied he, I never knew any other Prayer than this,
" Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis,
Contractum nullis ante cupidinibus.
" Cynthia's fine Eyes, me wretched, first could move,
Before that Time I knew not what was Love.
And scarce had he repeated Ten or Twelve Verses of that
Elegy of Propertius, but he expired, surrounded with Cups
and Glasses, and of him one may really say, that he vomited
his Purple Soul out, Purpurceam vomit ille Amman."
MERRY-GO-DOWN
21
ARMENIANS
HE Armenians never drink till at the End of their
Meals. After they have said Grace the Dishes
are remov'd, in order to bring in the Desert, and
then they prepare themselves to drink to excess. He
that treats thinks he has handsomely acquitted himself of
his Entertainment, if his Guests cannot find the Door when
they have a mind to go home, which would very often
happen, without the Assistance of their Servants, who lead
them, and yet have not Power enough sometimes to keep
them from falling down in the Room, or in the Street, which
is a great Satisfaction to the Host ; for if he finds any of
them Master of so much Judgment as to guide himself,
tho' he reels never so much, he laments very much, as having
the Misfortune of spending his Money to no purpose.
IN GOOD COMPANY
NE must not get drunk but in good Company.
That is to say, with good Friends, People of Wit,
Honour, and good Humour, and where there is
good Wine. For example, a Man in former
Times would have done very ill to get drunk with Helio-
gabalus, whose Historian reports that after having made his
Friends drunk, he used to shut them up in an Apartment,
and at Night let loose upon them Lions, Leopards and
TygerSy which always tore to pieces some of them. On
the other Hand, the best Wine in the World will taste
very bad in bad Company. 'Tis therefore that Martial
reproaches one, that he spoiled his good Wine with his
silly Babbling.
c
CONFESSIO GULE
OW by-gynneth Gloton for to go to shryfte,
And kayres hym to-kirke-ward hus coupe to
shewe.
Fasting on a Fryday forth gan he wende
By Betone hous the brewestere that bad him good morwe,
And whederwarde he wolde the brew-wif hym asked.
" To holy churche," quath he " for to hure masse,
And sitthen sitte and be yshriuen and synwe namore."
" Ich haue good ale, godsyb Gloton, wolt thow
assaye ?"
" What hauest thow," quath he " eny hote spices ? "
" Ich haue piper and pionys and a pound of garlik,
A ferthing-worth of fynkelsede for fastinge-daies."
Then goth Gloton yn and grete othes after.
Sesse the sywestere sat on the benche,
Watte the warynere and hus wif dronke,
Thomme the tynkere and tweye of hus knaues,
Hicke the hakeneyman and Houwe the neldere,
Claryce of Cockeslane the clerk of the churche,
Syre Peeres of Prydie and Purnel of Flaundres,
An haywarde and an heremyte, the hangeman of Tynorne,
Dauwe the dykere with a dosen harlotes,
Of portours and of pykeporses and pylede toth-drawers,
A rybibour and a ratoner, a rakere and hus knaue,
A ropere and a redyngkynge, and Rose the disshere,
Godefray the garlek-mongere and GrifFyn the Walish ;
And of vp-holders an hep erly by the morwe
Geuen Gloton with glad chere good ale to hansele.
Clemment the cobelere cast of hus cloke,
And to the newe fayre nempned hit to selle.
Hicke the hakeneyman hitte hus hod after,
And bad Bette the bouchere to be on hus syde.
Ther were chapmen y-chose the chaffure to preise ;
That he that hadde the hod sholde not habbe the cloke ;
The betere thung, by arbytours sholde bote the werse.
Two rysen rapliche and rounede to-geders,
22
MERRY-GO-DOWN 23
And preysed the penyworthes apart by hem-selue,
And ther were othes an hepe for other sholde haue the werse,
Thei couthe nouht by here conscience a-corde for treuthe,
Tyl Robyn the ropere aryse thei bysouhte,
And nempned him a nompeyr that no debate were.
Hicke the hakeneyman hadde the cloke,
In couenant that Clemment sholde the coppe fylle,
And haue the hakeneymannes hod and hold hym y-serued ;
And who repentyde rathest shold aryse after,
And grete syre Gloton with a galon of ale.
Ther was lauhyng and lakeryng and " let go the
coppe ! "
Bargeynes and beuereges by-gunne to aryse,
And setyn so til euesong rang and songe vmbwhyle,
Til Gloton hadde yglobbed a gallon and a gylle.
Hus guttes gonne godely as two gredy sowes ;
He pissede a potell in a pater-noster-while,
And blew hus rounde rewet atte rygbones ende,
That alle that herde that home hulde here nose after,
And wusched hit hadde be wexed with a wips of breres.
He myghte nother stappe ne stonde tyl he a staf
hadde.
Thanne gan he go lyke a glemannes bycche,
Som tyme asyde and som tyme a-rere,
As ho so laith lynes for to lacche foules.
And whenne he drow to the dore, thanne dymmed
hus eyen ;
He thrumbled at the threshefold and threw to the erthe.
Tho Clement the cobelere cuhte hym by the mydel,
For to lyfte hym on loft he leyde hym on hus knees ;
Ac Gloton was a gret cherl and gronyd in the liftynge,
And couhed vp a caudel in Clementis lappe ;
Ys non so hongry hounde in Hertforde-shire,
That thorst lape of that leuynge so vnloueliche hit smauhte.
With al the wo of the worlde hus wif and hus wenche
Bere hym to hus bedde and brouhte hym ther-ynne;
And after al this excesse he hadde an accidie,
He slep Saterday and Sonday tyl sonne yede to reste.
Thenne awakyde he wel wan and wolde haue ydronke ;
The ferst word that he spak was " ho halt the bolle ? "
[william langland : Piers the P/owman.]
MUNCEY, TUMPHA AND MYFMAFFEMOSE
jUNCEY, tumpha, myfmaffemose. There were
three good women who went ouer for refrechment
and tried among themselves which of them could
best keep herself from tipsiness. They stayed there
till night, and when they came out of the inn door, seeing
the moon shining bright, one said Muncy. She meant to
say The moon schnyte. The second said Tumpha. She
meant to say Thy tongue fayleth. The third said Myfmaffe
mose. She meant to say Ye bethe dronke bothe. Which
was the best of them ?
[From an early xv century ms.]
24
DRONKESCHIPE
RONKESCHIPE,
Which berth the cuppe felaschipe.
Ful many a wonder doth this vice,
He can make of a wisman nyce,
And of a fool, that him schal seme
That he can al the lawe deme,
And yiven every juggement
Which longeth to the firmament
Bothe of the sterre and of the mone ;
And thus he makth a gret clerk sone
Of him that is a lewed man.
Ther is nothing which he ne can,
Whil he hath Dronkeschipe on honde,
He knowth the See, he knowth the stronde,
He is a noble man of armes,
And yit no strengthe is in his armes :
Ther he was strong ynouh tofore,
With Dronkeschipe it is forlore,
And al is changed his astat,
And wext anon so fieble and mat,
That he mai nouther go ne come,
Bot al togedre him is benome
The pouer bothe of hond and fot,
So that algate abide he mot.
And alle hise wittes he foryet,
The which is to him such a let,
That he wot nevere what he doth,
Ne which is fals, ne which is soth,
Ne which is dai, ne which is nyht,
And for the time he knowth no wyht,
That he ne wot so moche as this,
What maner thing himselven is,
Or he be man, or he be beste.
That holde I riht a sori feste,
*J
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Whan he that reson understod
So soudeinliche is woxe wod,
Or dies lich the dede man,
Which nouther go ne speke can.
Thus ofte he is to bedde broght,
Bot where he lith yit wot he noght,
Till he arise upon the morwe ;
And thanne he seith " O what a sorwe
It is a man be drinkeles ! "
So that halfdrunke in such a res
With dreie mouth he sterte him uppe,
And seith, " Nou baillez ga the cuppe."
That made him lese his wit at eve
Is than a morwe at his beleve ;
The cup is al that evere him pleseth,
And also that him most deseseth ;
It is the cuppe whom he serveth,
Which alle cares fro horn kerveth
And alle bales to him bringeth :
In joie he wepth, in sorwe he singeth,
For Dronkeschipe is so divers,
It may no whyle stonde in vers.
He drinkth the wyn, bot ate laste
The wyn drynkth him and bint him faste.
[john gower : Conjessio Amant'ts
MERRY-GO-DOWN
27
WITH DOLL
Doll thy ale, doll thy ale, doll!
Ale make many a man to have a doty poll,
LE make many a man to stik at a brere ;
Ale make many a man to ly in the miere ;
And ale make many a man to slepe by the Here.
With doll !
Ale make many a man to stombel at a stone ;
Ale make many a man to go dronken home ;
And ale make many a man to breke his tone.
With doll !
Ale make many a man to draw his knife ;
Ale make many a man to make grete strife ;
And ale make many a man to bete his wife.
With doll !
Ale make many a man to wet his chekes ;
Ale make many a man to ly in the stretes ;
And ale make many a man to wet his shetes.
With doll !
Ale make many a man to stombell at the blokkes ;
Ale make many a man to make his hed have knokkes ;
And ale make many a man to sit in the stokkes.
With doll !
Ale make many a man to rine over the falows ;
Ale make many a man to swere by God and Allhalows ;
And ale make many a man to hang upon the galows.
With doll !
[From a late xv century MS.]
THE
TUNNYNG OF ELYNOUR RUMMYNG
ELL you I chyll
If that ye wyll
A whyle be styll
Of a comely gyll
That dwelt on a hyll
But she is not gryll
For she is somwhat sage
And well worne in age
For her vysage
It woldt aswage
A mannes courage.
Her lothely lere
Is nothing clere,
But ugly of chere
Droupy and drowsy
Scuruy and lowsy
Her face all bowsy
Comely crynklyd
Woundersly wrynklyd
Lyke a rost pygges eare
Brystled with here.
28
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Her lewde lyppes twayne
They slauer men sayne
Lyke a ropy rayne
A gummy glayre
She is vgly fayre
Her nose somdele hoked
And camously croked
Neuer stoppynge
But euer droppynge
Her skynne lose and slacke
Greuyned lyke a sacke
With a croked backe.
Her eyen gowndy
Are full vnsowndy
For they are blered
And she gray hered
Jawed lyke a Jetty
A man wolde haue pytty
To se howe she is gumbed
Fyngered and thumbed
Gently Joynted
Gresed and anoynted
Up to the knockles
The bones her huckels
Lyke as they were with buckels
Togyder made fast
Her youth is farre past
Foted lyke a plane
Legges lyke a crane
And yet she wyll iet
Lyke a Joylyfet
In her furred flocket
And graye russet rocket
With symper the cocket
Her huke of Lyncole grene
It had ben hers I wene
More then fourty yere
And so doth it apere
For the grene bare thredes
Loke lyke sere wedes
Wyddered lyke hay
30 MERRY-GO-DOWN
The woll worne away
And yet I dare saye
She thynketh her selfe gaye
Upon the holy daye
Whan she doth her aray
And gyrdeth in her gytes
Stytched & pranked with pletes
Her kyrtell Brystowe red
With clothes vpon her hed
That wey a sowe of led
Wrythen in wonder wyse
After the sarasyns gyse
With a whym wham
Knyt with a trym tram
Upon her brayne pan
Lyke an Egypcyan
Lapped about
Whan she goeth out
Her selfe for to shewe
She dryueth downe the dewe
With a payre of heles
As brode as two wheles
She hobles as she gose
With her blanket hose
Ouer the falowe
Her shone smered wyth talowe
Gresed vpon dyrt
That baudeth her skyrt.
And this comely dame
I vnderstande her name
Is Elynour Rummynge
At home in her wonnynge
And as men say
She dwelt in Sothray
In a certayne stede
Bysyde Lederhede
She is a tonnysh gyb
The deuyll and she be syb.
But to make vp my tale
She breweth noppy ale
MERRY-GO-DOWN
And maketh thereof port sale
To trauellyrs to tynkers
To sweters to swynkers
And all good ale drynkers
That wyll nothynge spare
But drynke tyll they stare
And brynge them selfe bare
With now away the mare
And let vs sley care
As wyse as an hare.
Come who so wyll
To Elynoure on the hyll
With fyll the cup fyll
And syt there by styll
Erly and late
Thyther cometh Kate
Cysly and Sare
With theyr legges bare
And also theyr fete
Hardely full vnswete
With theyr heles dagged
Theyr kyrtelles all to iagged
Theyr smockes all to ragged
With tytters and tatters
Brynge dyshes and platters
With all theyr myght runnynge
To Elynour Rummynge
To haue of her tunnynge
She leneth them of the same
And thus begynneth the game
Some wenches come vnlased
Some huswynes come unbrased
With theyr naked pappes
That flyppes and flappes
It wygges and it wagges
Lyke tawny saffron bagges
A sorte of foule drabbes
All scuruy with scabbes
Some be flybytten
Some skewed as a kytten
32 MERRY-GO-DOWN
Some with a sho cloute
Bynde their heddes about
Some haue no herelace
Theyr Iockes aboute theyr face
Theyr tresses vntrust
All full of vnlust
Some loke strawry
Some cawry mawry
Full untydy tegges
Lyke rotten egges
Such a lewde sorte
To Elynour resorte
From tyde to tyde
A byde a byde
And to you shall be tolde
Howe hyr ale is solde
To mawte and to molde
Some haue no mony
That thyder commy
For theyr ale to pay
That is a shreud aray
Elynour swered nay
Ye shall not bere awaye
Myne ale for nought
By hym that me bought.
With hey dogge hay
Haue these hogges away
With get me a stafPe
The swyne eate my draffe
Stryke the hogges with a clubbe
They haue dronke up my swyllyng tubbe
For be there neuer so moche prese
These swyne go to the hye dese
The sowe with her pygges
The bore his tayle wrygges
His rumpe also he frygges
Agaynst the hye benche
With fo ther is a stenche
Gather vp thou wenche
Seest thou not what is fall
MERRY-GO-DOWN 33
Take vp
dyrt and all
And bere out of the hal
God gyne it yll preuynge
Clenly as yuell cheuynge.
But let vs turne playne
There we lefte agayne
For as yll a patch as that.
The hennes ron in the mashfat
For they go to roust
Streyght ouer the ale Joust
And donge whan it commes
In the ale tunnes
Than Elynour taketh
The mashe bolle and shaketh
The hennes donge awaye
And skommeth it into a tray
Where as the yeest is
With her maungy fystis
And somtyme she blennes
MERRY-GO-DOWN
The donge of her hennes
And the ale togyder
And sayth gossyp come hyder
This ale shalbe thycker
And floure the more quycker
For I may tell you
I lerned it of a Jewe
Whan I began to brewe
And I haue found it trew
Drinke now whyle it is new
And ye may it broke
It shall make you loke
Yonger than ye be
Yeres two or thre
For ye may proue it by me
Behold she sayd and se
How bright I am of ble
Ich am not cast away
That can my husband say
Whan we kys and play
In lust and in Iykyng
He calleth me his whytyng
His mullyng and his nytyng
His nobbes and his conny
His swetyng and his honny
With bas my prety bonny
Thou art worth good and monny
This make I my falyre fonny
Tyll that he dreme and dronny
For after all oure sport
Than wyll he rout and snort
Than swetely togither we ly
As two pygges in a sty.
In stede of coyne and monny
Some brynge her a conny
And some a pot with honny
Some a salt and some a spone
Some their hose some theyr shone
Some go streyght thyder
Be it slaty or slyder
They holde the hye waye
MERRY-GO-DOWN
They care not what men saye
Be that as be maye
Some lothe to be espyde
Some start in at the backesyde
Ouer the hedge and pale
And all for the good ale
Some bryngeth her husbandis hood
By cause the ale is good
Another brought her his cap
To offer to the ale tap
With flaxe and with towe
And some brought sowre dowe
With hey and with howe
Sit we downe a rowe
And drynke tyll we blowe
And pype tyrly tyrlowe.
Lo here is an olde typpet
And ye wyll gyue me a syppet
Of your stale ale
God sende you good sale
And as she was drynkynge
She fyll in a wynkynge
Wyth a barly hood
She pyst where she stood
Than began she to wepe
And forth with fell on slepe
Elynour toke her vp
And blessed her wyth a cup
Of newe ale in cornes
Ales founde therin no thornes
But supped it up at ones
She founde therein no bones.
Nowe in cometh another rabell
First one with a ladell
Another with a cradell
And with a syde sad ell
And there began a fabell
A clatterynge and a babell
Of foles sylly
MERRY-GO-DOWN
That had a fole with wylly
With iast you and gup gylly
She coulde not lye stylly
Then came in a genet
And sware by saynt Bennet
I dranke not this sennet
A draught to my pay
Elynour I the pray
Of thyne ale let vs assaye.
And haue here a pylche of graye
I were skynnes of conny
That causeth I loke so donny
Another than dyd hyche her
And brought a pottell pycher
A tonnell and a bottell
But she had lost the stoppell
She cut of her sho sole
And stopped there with the hole.
Amonge all the blommer
Another brought a skommer
A fryenge pan and a slyce
Elynour made the pryce
For god ale eche whyt.
Than sterte in made kyt
That had lytell wyt
She semed somdele seke
And brought a peny cheke
To dame Elynour
For a draught of lycour.
Than Margery mylke ducke
Her kyrtell she dyd vptucke
An ynche aboue her kne
Her legges that ye myght se
But they were sturdy and stubbed
Myghty pestels and clubbed
As fayre and as whyte
As the fote of a kyte
She was somwhat foule
Croke necked lyke an oule
And yet she brought her fees
MERRY-GO-DOWN
A cantell of Essex chese
Was well a fote thycke
Full of maggottes quycke
It was huge and greate
And myghty stronge meate
For the deuyll to eate
It was tart and punyete
Another sorte of sluttes
Some brought walnuttes
Some apples some peres
Some brought theyr clyppyng sheres
Some brought this and that
Some brought I wote nere what
Some brought theyr husbands hat
Some podynges and lynkes
Some trypes that stynkes.
But of all this thronge
One came them amonge
She semed halfe a leche
And began to preche
Of the tewsday in the weke
Whan the mare doth keke
Of the vertue of an vnset leke
Of her husbandes breke
With the feders of a quale
She could to burde on sayle
And with good ale barme
She could make a charme
To helpe with all a stytch
She semed to be a wytch
Another brought two goslynges
That were noughty froslynges
Some brought them in a wallet
She was a cumly callet
The goslenges were vntyde
Elynor began to chyde
They be wretchockes thou hast brought
They are shyre shakyng nought.
Maude Ruggy thyther skypped
She was vgly hypped
38 MERRY-GO-DOWN
And vgly thycke lypped
Lyke an onyon syded
Lyke tan ledder hyded
She had her so guyded
Betwene the cup and the wall
That she was there with all
In to a palsey fall
With that her hed shaked
And her handes quaked
Ones hed wold haue aked
To se her naked
She dranke so of the dragges
The dropsy was in her legges
Her face glystryng lyke glas
All foggy fat she was
She had also the gout
In all her ioyntes about
Her breth was soure and stale
And smelled all of ale
Such a bedfellaw
Wold make one cast his craw
But yet for all that
She dranke on the mash fat
There came an old rybybe
She halted of a kybe
And had broken her shyn
At the threshold comyng in
And fell so wyde open
That one myght se her token
The deuyll there on be wroken
What nede all this be spoken
She yelled lyke a calfe
Ryse vp on god's halfe
Sayd Elynour Rummyng
I be shrew the for thy cummyng
And as she at her dyd pluck
Quake quake sayde the duck
In that lampatrams lap
With fy, couer the shap
With sum flyp flap
God gyue it yll hap
Sayd Elynour for shame
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Lyke an honest dame
Up she stert, halfe lame
And skantly could go
For payne and for wo.
In came another dant
With a gose and gant
She had a wyde wesant
She was nothynge plesant
Necked lyke an Olyfant
It was a bullyfant
A gredy cormerant
Another brought her garlyke hedd
Another brought her bedes
Of Jet or of cole
To offer to the ale pole
Some brought a wymble
Some brought a thymble
Some brought a sykle lace
Some brought a pyncase
Some her husbandes gowne
Some a pyllowe of downe
Some of the napery
And all this shyfte they make
For the good ale sake
A strawe said Bele stande vtter
For we haue egges and butter
And of pygeons a payre
Than sterte forth a fysgygge
And she brought a bore pygge
The flesshe there of was ranke
And her brethe strongely stanke
Yet or she wente she dranke
And gat her great thanke
Of Elynour for her ware
That she thyder bare
To paye for her share
Nowe truly to my thynkynge
This is a solempne drynkynge
Soft quod one hyght Sybbyll \
MERRY-GO-DOWN
And let me with you bybyll
She sate downe in the place
With a sory face
Whey wormed about
Garnysshed was her snout
With here and there a puscull
Lyke a scabbyd muscull
This ale sayd she is noppy
Let vs syppe and soppy
And not spyll a droppy
For so mote I hoppy
It coleth well my croppy.
Dame Elynour sayde she
Haue here is for me
A clout of London pynnes
And with that she begynnes
The pot to her plucke
And dranke a good lucke
She swynged vp a quarte
At ones for her parte
Her paunche was so puffed
And so with ale stuffed
Had she not hyed a pace
She had defoyled the place.
Than began the sporte
Amonge that dronken sorte
Dame Elynour sayde they
Lende here a cocke of hey
To make all thynge cleane
Ye wote well what we meane.
But syr amonge all
That sate in that hall
There was a pryke me denty
Sat lyke a seynty
And began to paynty
As though she wolde faynty
She made it as koye
As a lege moy
She was not halfe so wyse
MERRY-GO-DOWN 41
As she was peuysshe nyse
She sayde neuer a worde
But rose from the borde
And called for our dame
Elynour by name
We supposed I wys
That she rose to pys
But the very grounde
Was for to compound
With Elynour in the spence
To paye for her expence
I haue no penny nor grote
To paye sayde she god wote
For wasshyng of my throte
But my bedes of amber
Bere them to your chamber.
Than Elynour dyd them hyde
Within her beddes syde
But some than sate ryght sad
That nothynge had
There of their awne
Neyther gelt nor pawne
Suche were there menny
That had not a penny
But whan they shulde walke
Were fayne with a chalke
To score on the balke
Or score on the tayle
God gyue it yll hayle
For my fyngers ytche
I haue written so mytche
Of this mad mummyge
Of Elynour Rummynge
Thus endeth the gest
Of this worthy fest
QUOT SKELTON LAUREAT
4*
MERRY-GO-DOWN
HOW SKELTON HANDLED THE FRYER
S skelton ryd into ye countre, there was a frere
that happened in at an alehouse wheras Skelton
was lodged, and there the frere dyd desire to haue
lodgyng. The alewife sayd, Sir, I haue but
one bed, whereat master Skelton doth lye. Syr, sayd the
frere, I pray you that I maye lye with you. Skelton said,
Master freere, I doo vse to haue no man to lye with me.
Sir, sayd the frere, I haue lyne with as good men as you,
and for my money I doo looke to haue lodgynge as well
as you. Well, sayde Skelton, I dooe see than that you wyll
lye with me. Yea, syr, sayd the frere. Skelton did fill
all the cuppes in the house, and whitled the frere, that at
the last, the frere was in myne eames peason. Then sayde
Skelton, Mayster freere, get you to bed, and I wyll come to
bed within a while. The frere went, and dyd lye vpright,
and snorted lyke a sowe. Skelton wente to the chaumber
and dyd see that the freere dyd lye soe ; sayd to the wyfe,
Geue me a washyng betle. Skelton then caste down the
clothes, and the freere dyd lye starke naked : then Skelton
dyd shite vpon the freeres nauil and bellye ; and then he
did take the washyng betle, and did strike an hard stroke
vppon the nauill & the bellye of the freere, and dyd put
out the candell, and went out of the chaumber. The freere
felt hys bellye, & smelt a foule sauour, had thought hee
had ben gored, and cried out and sayde, Helpe, helpe,
helpe, I am kylled ! They of the house with Skelton wente
into the chaumber, and asked what the freere dyd ayle.
The freere sayde, I am kylled, one hathe thrust me in the
bellye. Fo, sayde Skelton, thou dronken soule, thou doost
lye ; thou haste beshytten thyselfe. Fo, sayde Skelton,
let vs goe out of the chaumber, for the knaue doothe stynke.
The freere was ashamed, and cryed for water. Out with
the whoreson, sayd Skelton, and wrap the sheetes togyther,
and putte the freere in the hogge stye, or in the barne.
The freere said, geue me some water into the barne : and
there the freere dyd wasshe himselfe, and dydde lye there all
the nyght longe. The chaumber and the bedde was
dressed, and the sheetes shyfted ; and then Skelton went to
bed.
[Merie Tales of Skelton.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN 43
RUTTEKIN
Hoy da, hoy da, Joly Ruttekin I
Hoy da, hoy da, lyke a Ruttekin !
Hoy da 1
UTTEKIN is com unto oure towne
In a clooke withoute cote or gowne
Save a raggid hode to kouer his crowne,
Like a Ruttekin.
Ruttekin can speke no Englisshe,
His tonge rennyth all on buttyrd fyssh
Besmerde with grece a bowte his dishe,
Like a Ruttekin.
Rutteklh shall bryng you all good luk,
A stoup of bere up at a pluk,
Till his brayne be as wise as a duk,
Like a Ruttekin.
When Ruttekin from borde will ryse
He will pis a galon pot full at twise,
And the ouerplus under the table of the new gyse,
Like a Ruttekin, hoyda !
[From an early xvi century ms. song-book.]
A
MERRY BALLAD OF VINTNERS
Y dint of dart, by push of sharpened spear,
By sweep of scythe or thump of spike-set mace,
By poleaxe, steel-tipped arrow-head or shear
Of double-handed sword or well-ground ace,
By dig of dirk or tuck with double face,
Let them be done to death ; or let them light
On some ill stead, where brigands lurk by night,
That they the hearts from out the breasts may tear,
Cut off their heads, then drag them by the hair
And cast them on the dunghill to the swine,
That sows and porkers on their flesh may fare,
The vintners that put water in our wine.
Let Turkish quarrels run them through the rear ;
And rapiers keen their guts and vitals lace ;
Singe their perukes with Greek fire, ay, and sear
Their brains with levins ; string them brace by
brace
Up to the gibbet ; or for greater grace,
Let gout and dropsy slay the knaves outright ;
Or else let drive into each felon wight
Irons red-headed in the furnace-flare.
Let half a score of hangmen flay them bare ;
And on the morrow, seethed in oil or brine,
Let four great horses rend them then and there,
The vintners that put water in our wine.
Let some great gunshot blow their heads off sheer;
Let thunders catch them in the market-place ;
Let rend their limbs and cast them far and near,
For dogs to batten on their bodies base ;
44
MERRY-GO-DOWN 45
Or let the lightning-stroke their sight efface.
Frost, hail and snow let still upon them bite :
Strip off their clothes and leave them naked quite,
For rain to drench them in the open air ;
Lard them with knives and poniards, and then bear
Their carrion forth and soak it in the Rhine ;
Break all their bones with mauls, and do not spare
The vintners that put water in our wine.
ENVOI
Prince, may God curse their vitals ! is my prayer ;
And may they burst with venom all, in fine,
These traitorous thieves, accursed and unfair,
The vintners that put water in our wine.
[francois villon : trans. John Payne.J
MERRY-GO-DOWN
BALLAD AND ORISON
OAH, that first the vine planted ;
Lot, too, that in the grot drank high,
By token that Love (the trickster !) led
Your daughters lewdly to draw you nigh,
(I say't not to flout you withal, not I)
Architriclinus, learn'd in the bowl,—
I pray you all three to set in the sky
Good Master Cotard, honest soul.
He was of your lineage born and bred ;
He drank of the best and dearest ; ay,
Though he'd never a stiver to stand him in stead,
The best of all topers he was : for why,
Never good liquor found him shy ;
None could the pot from his grasp cajole.
Fair Lords, do not suffer in hell to sigh
Good Master Cotard, honest soul.
I've seen him oft, when he went to bed,
Totter for tipple as like to die ;
And once he gat him a bump on the head
'Gainst a butcher's stall, as he staggered by.
Brief, one might journey far and nigh
For a better fellow to toss off a bowl.
Let him in, if you hear him the wicket try :
Good Master Cotard, honest soul.
ENVOI
He scarce could spit, he was always so dry ;
And ever " My throat's like a red-hot coal !
Parched up with thirst, he was wont to cry :
Good Master Cotard, honest soul.
[francois villon : trans. John Payne.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
47
CHYMIST v. VINTNER
HEN the Wines doe rope or beginne to faile or
faint in themselves, either in substaunce or in
colour, either by age, by the fault of Caske, soyle,
salt water, or other accident, then manie tymes thes
Vintener is driuen to his hard shiftes, and then hee helpeth
himselfe with Allome, with Turnsole, Starch, and with manie
other Drugges, and aromaticall ware which hee fetcheth
from the Apothecarie, the particulars whereof I coulde set
downe and applie even as they have beene a long time (till
within these fewe yeeres) practized in one of the most
autentique Tauernes of my time. But my purpose is onely
to put some in minde of their grosse night-woorkes which
discouer themselves by Candlelight at their Celler Win-
dowes, wishing them to leaue all vnwholesome practizes
for mans bodie.
[Sir hugh platt : 1593.]
4«
MERRY-GO-DOWN
AWAY TO TWIVER
ND did you not hear of a mirth that befel,
The morrow after a wedding day,
At carrying a Bride at home to dwell,
And away to Twiver, away, away !
The Quintain was set, and the Garlands were made,
'Tis pity old Custom should ever decay :
And woe be to him that was horst on a Jade,
For he carried no credit away, away !
We met a Consort of Fiddle-dedees,
We set them a Cock-horse and made them to play
The winning of Bullen and Upsyfrees ;
And away to Twiver, away, away !
There was ne'er a Lad in all the Parish
That would go to the Plow that day
But on his fore-horse his Wench he carries :
And away to Twiver, away, away !
The Butler was quick, and the Ale he did tap,
The Maidens did make the Chamber full gay :
The Serving-men gave me a Fudling-cap,
And I did carry it away, away !
The Smith of the Town his Liquor so took,
That he was persuaded the ground look'd blue ;
And I dare boldly to swear on a book
Such Smiths as he there be but a few.
A Posset was made, and the women did sip,
And simpering said they could eat no more ;
Full many a Maid was laid on the lip :
I'll say no more, but so give o'er.
[anon : xvi century.}
MERRY-GO-DOWN
49
THE
TAPSTER
jHE Tapster's hat was all in blew,
Beseeming well his nut-browne hew :
His nose was ruddy, as I weene,
And bending as the faucons beene.
His thin-set heire along did sit,
Which represents a woodcock's wit ;
Yet bald withall was Typsay found,
With eares side-hanging like a hound.
His eyes mere fiery on each side,
His mouth was open, gaping wide ;
His lippes great as a cable-rope,
His teeth white, as washt in sope.
A bristled beard did flower his cheekes,
His breath was sweete, as unset leekes :
Upon his chinne a wart did grow ;
Bacchus thereby might well him know :
About his neck he wore a ruffe,
A quarter long, which was enuffe.
His jacket grey, well fac'd with furre,
His voyce was like a barking curre.
His shoulders did like horseloves stand,
As pillars to uphold his band :
His back was ridged like a boare,
His belly like a tunne before.
There hangs a tap betweene his legs,
From whence he turneth foorth his dregs.
On either hand was placed a cuffe,
And bravely was he breecht in buffe.
His leggs they were so crooked seene,
A yoked hog might run betweene.
One foot was of the largest sice,
The other clubbed crabtree wise.
[Bacchus' Bountie : Describing the debonaire
Deitie of his bountifull Godhead^ in the
Royall Observance of his great Feast of
Penticost. Necessarie to be read and marked
of all, for the Eschuing of like Enormities.
By Philip Foulface of Ale-foord, Student
in good Eelloship. J 593*]
A
REVEREND ROUT
S Bacchus was thus most busie among his friends,
behold a reverend route resorted towardst his court
with a trumpet before them ; sounding most
melodiously in token of great joy, for that they
were so near the pleasant paradice of god Bacchus.
Who they were, from whence they came, and in what
maner they appeared in presence, followeth as thus :
First of all, came David Drie-throat, from Lesbona in
Portugale ; in his hand he held a peece well fild with
wine of Canary, which with cap and knee he presented to
god Bacchus, and gave place to the rest.
Secondly, came Alexander Addlehead, from Dun Baur,
a Scot, who offered to his god a dozen of red herrings, to
season his mouth, before he sate downe to taste his liquor.
Thirdly, there skipt in a Spaniard, of the city of Log-
ronio, named Blayner Bloblip, who gratifying his god with
two limons, and an orange pill, with a most lowly legge he
lept aside.
Fourthly, came wallowing in a Germane, borne in
Mentz, his name was Gotfrey Grouthead ; with him he
brought a wallet full of woodcocks' heads ; the braines
thereof, tempered with other sauce, is a passing preservative
against the ale-passion, or paine in the pate.
Fifthly, came posting in one Peers Spendall from
Brundusium, an Italian frier, with a pot full of holy water,
sprinkling to and fro, and round about him, to drive away
the divell, least hee should chaunce to come invisible and
deceave them of their drinke.
The sixth was one Frauncis Franckfellow, a Corinthian,
in the coasts of Achaia ; with him he brought a box of
oyle, that Bacchus therewith might baste his belly, when it
was ready to crack, with licking up overlavishly the small
crums that tumbled out of his tunne.
The seventh was one Simon Swil-kan ; he came from
Colops, a citie in Africa ; and presented to Bacchus a but-
50
MERRY-GO-DOWN 51
tock of bacon ; which, broyled on the coals, and so eaten,
will set a man on longing for his liquor before sunneshine,
bee the morning never so moysty.
The eighth was of Capsa, a toune well known in Numi-
dia ; his name was Geffery Goos-cap, and with him hee
brought a nightcap for god Bacchus* great godhead ;
least, through his hot compotations in the day, his head
should crow with cold consumptions in the night.
The ninth was a jolly gentlewoman, named Mistris
Merigodown ; she came from Archelais, a citie of Cappa-
docia, with a fanne of fethers in one hand, and a looking-
glasse in the other, which both she gave to Bacchus : the
one to gather winde, least his breath shoulde faile him when
he blew a long blast in a wine pot ; the other to see his
nose, least, continuing overlong in a fierie colour, it shoulde
chance to be changed into a carbuncle.
The tenth was one Philip Filpot, brought up in Varica,
a citie of Iberia, and one of the sect of Saint Sinckator.
\Clnque-Quatre : a back-gammon player.] This Philip was
a phisition, and brought to his god Bacchus a certaine
potion, marveilous in operation ; of which, whoever hee
were that did drinke, after hee had been well whitled, by
vertue thereof, if he once were asleepe, shoulde never awake
till hee were wiser.
The eleventh was a Jewe, borne in Joppa ; he had to
name Christopher Crabface, a man famous in astrologie ;
he brought in his hand a prognostication newly composed,
which hee bestowed on god Bacchus : in which booke hee
had largely set down divers detriments accidentall to this
yeare. Especially this I noted, that many drunkards, whiles
they looked upwards on high towards the man in the moone,
shall breake their necks downwards below in the bottome of a
ditch.
The twelfth was Gilbert Goodfellow, from Arbila, an
Assyrian ; this Gilbert was a butcher, and brought with
him an hog's head, a sheepe's tongue, and a calves' chauldron ;
the hog's head for harnesse against entreatie ; the sheepe's
tongue to temper his owne the better in telling of a true
tale ; and a calve's chauldron to wrap up his noddle, least
in the ende of a banquet his inward heate should fume out
with a farewell to all good felloship.
The thirteenth came from Choka, a citie in Arabia,
52 MERRY-GO-DOWN
named Nicholas Neverthrive ; he brought with him a
pudding-pie, pretilie powdered with such hot spices as his
countrie plentifully dooth afforde ; which, being once
tasted, dooth marvellously encrease a moystie appetite,
which Bacchus receaved very thankfully.
The fourteenth was called Hodge Heaviebreech ; he
came from Miserga, a citie in the confines of Persia. Hodge
by his occupation was a cardmaker, who, for the zeale he
had to god Bacchus and all good fellows, offered up to him
that renowned ruffier, the Knave of Clubs, with a box of
trim-trillilles, commonly called, the Dice ; the one to aide
him in a needeles combat ; the other, after his losse, to
serve him instead of recreation.
The fifteenth was one Maudlen Moonface, a mery
gentlewoman of Dublin, a citie in Ireland ; with her she
brought a glasse ful, nose high, of aquavitas, the operation
whereof is no less monstrous than marveilous ; for, being
drunk in a morning, it so warmeth the heart, as if the body
were in a bath ; whose inward heats, when they begin to
bud forth, transform themselves into goosberry-grapes to
be seen most plainely as under a vizard of glistening glasse.
The sixteenth was a pleasant Parthian of the stately
citie Catompylon, called Loblurchall ; this youth was a
feate fellow, and a fine faulkner ; with him he carried
a water-wagtaile, readie to flie at the fairest goose in Win-
chester ; which present god Bacchus accepted very grate-
fully.
The seventeenth was borne in India, at a fair citie
called Tyndis ; this forsooth, was a coy dame, called Cate
Crashpot; she came clincking a quart-pot for sweet musicke,
instead of the tabret, to which maner of melodie, god
Bacchus listened exceedingly.
The eighteenth was one Baudwin Barrelbelly, from
Ormusa, a place sufficiently knoune in the ile of Cyprusse ;
with him he brought a firkin full of wine of Basterdes,
assuring god Bacchus on his fidelitie, that so many as he
made thereof partakers with him, as long as they applied
themselves to the harty carouse, should never be haunted
by death, and faile footing.
The nineteenth came from Garma in ^Ethiopia, called
Goody Goodale ; she (in token of pure devotion) delivered
to Bacchus a sack full of groate, and a sack full of hops,
MERRY-GO-DOWN 53
standing stoutly in this opinion, that the barley-broath,
above all other, did beare away the bell, and that neither
grape nor berry might in any respect be compared to the
majestie of the mault.
The twentieth was a worthie yeoman, one Tom Tospot ;
he came from Friburgum, an Helvetian ; he, as willing to
please himselfe, as to honour his god, presented to Bacchus,
a dainty devised compound of sundry simples pastiewise, as
the trimming of tripes, the fat of chitterlings, and the marrow
of sweet-souse, lapt up altogether within the crusty walls of
paste-royal, in so much, that a world of belly-cheere was
contained therein ; which god Bacchus received with so
greate thankes, that he promised to honour the eating thereof,
with the best increments of his overflowing tunne.
[Philip Foulface.]
E
THE
DISCOURSE OF THE DRINKERS
HEN did they fall upon the chat of victuals and
some belly furniture to be snatched at in the very
same place, which purpose was no sooner mentioned,
but forthwith began flaggons to go, gammons to
trot, goblets to fly, great bowles to ting, glasses to ring,
draw, reach, fill, mixe, give it me without water, so my
friend, so whip me off this glasse neatly, bring me hither
some claret, a full weeping glasse till it run over, a cessation
and truce with thirst. Ha, thou false Fever, wilt thou
not be gone ? by my figgins, godmother, I cannot as yet
enter in the humour of being merry, nor drink so currantly
as I would. You have catch'd a cold, gamer, yea forsooth,
Sir ; by the belly of Sanct Buf, let us talk of our drink, I
never drink but at my hours, like the Pope's Mule, and I
never drink but in my breviary, like a faire father Gardien.
Which was first, thirst or drinking ? Thirst, for who in the
time of innocence would have drunk without being athirst ?
nay, Sir, it was drinking ; for privatio praesupponit habitum.
I am learned, you see : Fecundi calices quern non jecere
disertum ? we poor innocents drink but too much without
thirst : not I truly, who am a sinner, for I never drink
without thirst, either present or future, to prevent it, as you
know, I drink for the thirst to come ; I drink eternally,
this is to me an eternity of drinking, and drinking of eternity ;
let us sing, let us drink, and tune up our round-lays; where
is my funnel ? What, it seems I do not drink but by an
Attourney ? do you wet your selves to dry, or do you dry to
wet you ? pish, I understand not the rhethorick (Theorick,
I should say) but I help my self somewhat by the practice.
Baste, enough, I sup, I wet, I humect, I moisten my gullet,
I drink, and all for fear of dying ; drink alwayes and you
shall never die : if I drink not, I am a ground dry, gravelled
and spent, I am stark dead without drink, and my soul
ready to flie into some marish amongst Frogs ; the soul
never dwells in a dry place, drouth kills it. O you butlers,
creators of new formes, make me of no drinker a drinker, a
34
MERRY-GO-DOWN $$
perennity and everlastingnesse of sprinkling, and bedewing
me through these my parched and sinnewy bowels ; he
drinks in vaine, that feels not the pleasure of it ; this entereth
into my veines, the pissing tooles and urinal vessels shall
have nothing of it. I would willingly wash the tripes of the
calf, which I apparelled this morning. I have pretty well
now balasted my stomack, and stuft my paunch : if the papers
of my bonds and bills could drink as well as I do, my credi-
tors would not want for wine when they come to see me,
or when they are to make any formal exhibition of their
rights to what of me they can demand. This hand of yours
spoyles your nose. O how many other such will enter here
before this go out ; what, drink so shallow, it is enough to
break both girds and pettrel ; this is called a cup of dis-
simulation, or flaggonal hypocrisie.
What difference is there between a bottle and a flaggon ?
great difference, for the bottle is stopped and shut up with a
stoppel, but the flaggon with a vice, bravely and well plaid
upon the words. Our fathers drank lustily, and emptied
their cans ; well cack'd, well sung ; come, let us drink :
will you send nothing to the river, here is one going to wash
the tripes : I drink no more then a spunge, I drink like a
Templar Knight : and I, tanquam sponsus, and I, sicut
terra sine aqua ; give me a synonymon for a gammon of
bacon ? it is the compulsory of drinkers : it is a pully ;
by a pully-rope wine is let down into a cellar, and by a
gammon into the stomach ; hei ! now boyes hither, some
drink, some drink, there is no trouble in it, respice personam,
pone pro duos, bus non est in usu. If I could get up as well
as I can swallow down, I had been long ere now very high
in the aire.
Thus became Tom Tosse-pot rich, thus went in the
Taylors stitch ; thus did Bacchus conquer th' Inde, thus
Philosophy Melinde : a little raine allayes a great deale of
winde : long tipling breaks the thunder. But if there
came such liquor from my ballock, would you not willingly
thereafter suck the udder whence it issued ; here, page, fill ;
I prethee, forget me not when it comes to my turne, and I
will enter the election I have made of thee into the very
register of my heart; sup, Guillot, and spare not, there is
yet somewhat in the pot. I appeale from thirst, and dis-
claim its jurisdiction. Page, sue out my appeale in forme,
this remnant in the bottome of the glasse must follow its
Leader. I was wont heretofore to drink out all, but now I
leave nothing. Let us not make too much haste, it is re-
quisite we carry all along with us ; hey day, here are tripes
fit for our sport, and in earnest excellent Godebillios of the
dun Oxe (you know) with the black streak. O for God's
sake let us lash them soundly, yet thriftily. Drink, or I will.
No, no, drink I beseech you ; sparrows will not eate unlesse
you bob them on the taile, nor can I drink if I be not fairly
spoke to. The concavities of my body are like another Hell
for their capacity. Lagonaedatera, there is not a corner,
nor cunniborow in all my body where this wine doth not
ferret out my thirst. Ho, this will bang it soundly, but
this shall banish it utterly. Let us winde our homes by the
sound of flaggons and bottles, and cry aloud, that whoever
56
MERRY-GO-DOWN $J
hath lost his thirst, come not hither to seek it. Long
clysters of drinking are to be voided without doors : the
great God made the Planets, and we make the platters neat.
I have the word of the Gospel in my mouth, Sitio. The
stone called Asbestos, is not more unquenchable, then the
thirst of my paternitie. Appetite comes with eating saies
Angeston, but the thirst goes away with drinking. I have
a remedy against thirst, quite contrary to that which is
good against the biting of a mad dog. Keep running
after a Dog, and he will never bite you, drink alwayes
before the thirst, and it will never come upon you. There
I catch you, I awake you. Argus had a hundred eyes for his
sight, a butler should have (like Briareus) a hundred hands
wherewith to fill us wine indefatigably. Hey now lads, let us
moisten our selves, it will be time to dry hereafter. White
wine here, wine boyes, poure out all in the name of Lucifer,
fill here you, fill and fill (pescods on you) till it be full.
My tongue peels. Lanstrinque, to thee, Countreyman, I
drink to thee good fellow, camarade to thee, lustie, lively,
Ha, la, la, that was drunk to some purpose, and bravely
gulped over. O lachryma Christi, it is of the best grape ;
i'faith, pure Greek, Greek, O the fine white wine, upon my
conscience it is a kinde of tafFatas wine, hin, hin, it is of one
eare, well wrought, and of good wooll ; courage, camrade,
up thy heart billy, we will not be beasted at this bout, for I
have got one trick, ex hoc in hoc, there is no inchantment, nor
charme there, every one of you hath seene it, my prentiship
is out, I am a free man at this trade. I am prester mast,
(Prish)-Brum I should say master past. O the drinkers,
those that are a dry, O poore thirsty souls, good Page my
friend, fill me here some, and crowne the wine, I pray thee,
like a Cardinal, Natura abhorret vacuum. Would you say
that a flie could drink in this, this is after the fashion of
Swisserland, clear ofF, neat, supernaculum, come, there-
fore blades to this divine liquor, and celestial juyce, swill it
over heartily, and spare not, it is a decoction of Nectar and
Ambrosia.
[rabelais. Gargantua and PantagrueJ.]
5«
MERRY-GO-DOWN
CREDIMUS
HEREFORE here we hold not that Laughing,
but that Drinking is the distinguishing Character
of Man. I don't say Drinking, taking that word
singly and absolutely in the strictest Sense ; No,
Beasts then might put in for a share ; I mean drinking cool
delicious Wine. For you must know, my Beloved, that by
Wine we become Divine ; neither can there be a surer
Argument, or a less deceitful Divination. Your Academics
assert the same when they make the Etymologie of Wine,
which the Greeks call 0IN02, to be from Vis, Strength,
Vertue and Power ; for 'tis in its power to fill the Soul
with all Truth, Learning and Philosophy.
[rabelais.]
THE
EIGHT KINDS OF DRUNKENNESS
IfjjV VjfOR haue we one or two kinde of drunkards
f jjj^PI onely, but eight kindes. The first is Ape drunke,
I («Pli anc* ^e ^eaPes> anc* smgs> and hollowes, and
^**^^ daunceth for the heauens : the second is Lion
drunke, and he flings the pots about the house, calls his
Hostesse whore, breakes the glasse windowes with his
dagger, and is apt to quarrell with any man that speaks to
him: the third is Swine drunke, heauy, lumpish, and sleepie,
and cries for a little more drinke, and a fewe more cloathes :
the fourth is Sheepe drunke, wise in his owne conceipt, when
he cannot bring foorth a right word, the fifth is Mawdlen
drunke, when a fellow will weepe for kindnes in the midst of
his Ale, and kisse you, saying ; By God Captaine I loue
thee, goe thy waies thou dost not thinke so often of me as
I do of thee, I would (if it pleased God) could I not loue thee
59
60 MERRY-GO-DOWN
so well as I doo, and then he puts his finger in his eie, and
cries : the sixt is Martin drunke, when a man is drunke
and drinkes himselfe sober ere he stirre : the seuenth is
Goate drunke, when in his drunkennes he hath no minde
but on Lechery : the eighth is Foxe drunke, when he is
craftie drunke, as many of the Dutch men bee, will neuer
bargaine but when they are drunke. All these species and
more I haue seene practised in one Company at one sitting,
when I haue beene permitted to remaine sober amongst
them, onely to note their seuerall humors. Hee that
plies any one of them harde, it will make him to write
admirable verses, to haue a deepe casting head, though
hee were neuer so verie a Dunce before.
T Gentlemen, all you that will not haue your
discommod- braines twise sodden, your flesh rotten with
drunklnnesse the Dn>psie, that loue not to goe in greasie
dublets, stockings out at the heeles, and weare
alehouse daggers at your backes, forsweare this slauering
brauery, that will make you haue stinking breathes,
and your bodies smell like Brewers aprons : rather
keepe a snufFe in the bottome of the glasse to light
you to bed withall, than leaue neuer an eye in your
head to lead you ouer the threshould. It will bring you in
your olde age to be companions with none but Porters and
Car-men, to talke out of a Cage, railing as drunken men
are wont, a hundred boies wondering about them ; and
to die sodainly as Fol Long the Fencer did, drinking Aqua
vitce. From which (as all the rest) good Lord deliuer
Pierce Penilesse.
[thomas nashe. Pierce Penilesse his Svp-
plication to the Dive 11.]
h
♦*•
w
OiUC
Swine Drunke
61
62
MERRY-GO-DOWN
FALSTAFF IN PRAISE OF SACK
WOULD you had but the wit : 'twere better
then your Dukedome. Good faith, this same young
sober-blooded Boy doth not loue me, nor a man
cannot make him laugh : but that's no maruaile,
hee drinkes no Wine. There's neuer any of these demure
Boyes come to any proofe : for thinne Drinke doth so
ouer-coole their blood, and making many Fish-Meales,
that they fall into a kinde of Male Green-sicknesse : and
then, when they marry, they get Wenches. They are
generally Fooles, and Cowards ; which some of vs should be
too, but for inflamation. A good Sherris-Sack hath a two-
fold operation in it : it ascends me into the Braine, dryes
me there all the foolish, and dull, and cruddie Vapours,
which enuiron it : makes it apprehensiue, quicke, for-
getiue, full of nimble, fierie, and delectable shapes ; which
deliuer'd o're to the Voyce, the Tongue, which is the Birth,
becomes excellent Wit. The second propertie of your
excellent Sherris, is, the warming of the Blood : which
before (cold, and setled) left the Liuer white, and pale ;
which is the Badge of Pusillanimitie, and Cowardize;
but the Sherris warmes it, and makes it course from the
inwards, to the parts extremes : it illuminateth the Face,
which (as a Beacon) giues warning to all the rest of this
little Kingdome (Man) to Arme : and then the Vitall
Commoners and in-land pettie Spirits, muster me all to their
Captaine, the Heart ; who great, and pufft vp with his
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-worke :) and Learning, a
meere Hoord of Gold, kept by a Devill, till Sack commences
it, and sets it in act, and vse. Hereof comes it, that Prince
Harry is valiant : for the cold blood hee did naturally
inherite of his Father, hee hath, like leane, stirrill, and bare
Land, manured, husbanded, and tyll'd, with excellent
endeauour of drinking good, and good store of fertile
Sherris, that hee is become very hot and valiant. If I had
a thousand Sonnes, the first Principle I would teach them,
should be to forsweare thinne Potations, and to addict
themselves to Sack.
[william Shakespeare : Henry IV, part IL]
THE
DRUNKEN MENS BANKET
SERUANT .*
HAT wine pleaseth it you to drinke sir ? Will
you drinke Gascon wine ?
nich : Whence comes this so bloodie and blacke
wine ?
iohn : Tis Orleans wine. I would rather drinke of this
small wine of Rochell.
nich : Thers verie good claret : which turnes the wind
mill neare it.
steuen : What wine drinke ye cousin ?
geneuesa : A sack of Spaine : which wets well, and
washeth the braine.
steuen : I had rather drinke a cup of Rhenish wine :
for it make a man speake Latin fine.
nich : Thers nothing more greeuous then to die for
thirst in a banquet.
iohn : Some wine here ho ! When I was at Rome,
I dranke of most excellent wines in the Cardinall Caraffaes
Celler. I dranke Romanesco, Greco, lachryma Christt !
sweete wine, sharpe, milde, and greene, for I was verie
familier with his yeoman of Celler.
nich : Muscadine liketh me verie well.
63
64 MERRY-GO-DOWN
steuen : So doth it our English dames also.
will : This wine begins to wane, to be sowre, and waxe
mustie.
iohn : The wine of Spaine and Italie beare well their
water, and will keepe well beside.
gen : Poure me my glasse halfe full of water.
steuen : You christen your wine, and make it a good
Christian.
iane : Thats not done amisse.
iohn : You marre the wine, putting too much water
in: I will not drinke with you. I loue it when it is
simple, pure, and neat, not brewed, as they do in many
parts of the world, to make of one tun two.
will : That is a small matter.
iohn : Worse do the vintners of London, who put in
lime, brimstone, honie, allume, and other more beastly
things to be spoken, and nothing is more hurtfull to mens
bodies, whome men ought to chastise publikely as theeues
and murtherers : for thence proceed infinit maladies, and
specially the goutes. Maisters ye eat nothing, I pray you
drinke and pledge me a carouse.
nich : Lets drink ho : truly tis to day a faire weather
to drinke in, so is it euery day.
iohn : Drinke we, I drinke to you with all my heart,
and be yee the very well welcome. Feare not least wine
and victuals faile here : for when the heauen should be of
brasse, and earth yron, yet wine should not want vs, were it
for seuen, yea, for eight yeares, A longer time then the
famine lasted in iEgypt ywis.
iane : Let vs drinke then together by good accord
in charitie.
steuen : I am yours. You are mine.
gen : I drinke to you, you shall pledge me, if you please.
will : Hem, ha-hem.
nich : It is good and very fresh, as you would say, in
the beginning of the second degree : to euery one tis not
allowed to drinke so good.
iohn : To euery one tis not granted to dwell at Corin-
thum.
steuen : In wine is truth, that is to say, In wine in
truth.
iohn : Harke my friend, I will tell thee a thing in thine
MERRY-GO-DOWN 65
eare, tell no body if thou loue me, it shall rest secret be-
tweene vs two : it is, that I find the wine better and more
pleasant to my tast than I was woont: more then I was wont
I feare the meeting of a bad cup of wine, and to tell you
the plaine truth, the odour of wine how much more it is
delicious, smirking and surpassing, by so much more celes-
tiall and delicate is it then oile.
steuen : That is spoken like a man of learning.
iohn : I will tell other stories. Tarry a little that I
deduce a dram out of this bottell : Lo here my very and sole
Helicon. See here my Fountaine Caballine. This is mine
onely Enthusiasmos.
nich : Here drinking, I deliberate, I discourse, I resolue
and conclude. After the conclusion, I laugh, I write, I
compose, I drinke.
iohn : Ennius, the father of Latine Poets, drinking did
write, writing did drinke.
nich : Aeschylus (if you giue credit to Plutarchus in his
bankets) did drinke composing, did compose drinking.
steuen : Homer never wrot fasting.
nich : Cato neuer tooke pen in hand, but after drinking.
To the end that you say not that I liue without example
of men laudable and best accounted of.
iohn : Is there any one that will dispute with me of these
intricat problems of thirst and drinking : I haue no lesse
studied Magicke, Negromancie, Alchimie, the Caballis-
ticke science and Geomancie, then the Philosophic of
Hermes Trismegistus.
iane : These are high matters, and profound sciences.
iohn : By our holy Lady, we must be merrie : Draw,
bring boy, fill wine, ho diuell, poure, I will drinke for my
part more then fiue and twentie or thirtie three tuns, before
that I die.
nich : Is there no more wine ? We are then aground,
and in the deserte of Arabia.
iohn : Tis whot. O how drie I am : As a land without
water.
iane : I beleeue that none of you drinkers doubt of it.
steuen : Is there good store of wines in Gascony this
yeare ?
iohn ; I hope then that we Englishmen shall find in-
fallible remedies against all alterations and thirsts.
66
MERRY-GO-DOWN
nich : I drinke to ye all. You seeme to me true Christ-
ians : for I drinke not to these dogs the Turkes, Mahome-
tains, I denie and renounce them for villains.
iane : The reason why ?
nich : I will tell you how these diuell Turks are ac-
cursed to drinke no drop of wine. If no other mischiefe were
in the Alcoran of Mahound, yet would I neuer be of his law.
iohn : Worthie of eternall memorie and everlasting
praise was the holy man Noe (to whom we are bounden
and greatly beholding for that he planted the vine, whence
floweth this Angelicall, delicious, celestiall, ioious, deifying
liquor. The poore man was deceiued in drinking it, for
hee knew not the vertue and power thereof). Haue you
vnderstood me all this while ?
nich : Drinke then a good draught without water, for
if ye beleeue it not, here is a fig for my God-son.
iohn : Where are these diuell Greekes, who in Alexan-
ders daies were renowned drinkers ? O the poore goblins
are dead.
nich : We read that these fine Italian daemons haue
drunke well heretofore : and especially in Iulius Caesars
time, when they made their horses, mules, and mares drinke
carousse.
iohn : I am, beleeue me a good fellow and a boon com-
panion.
nich : I loue to drinke neat, and I eat willingly salt
meat, and moreouer I loue to drinke of the best, so doth
euery honest man ywis.
steuen : Neuer noble man hateth the good wine.
iohn : Drinke we, drinke we then, as do the camels
and dromedaries in the Carauana, drinking for the thirst
past, for the thirst present, and for the thirst to come.
steuen : So dranke Hercules.
nich : Truce of thirst, league of hunger.
iohn : I am no more angrie I thanke God and you. I
am gay as a Papingeay, perke as a sparhawke, merrie as a
butternie.
nich : Truly it is written by your goodly Euripides, and
Silenus the famous carowser speakes it.
Mad is the man^ and starke out of his wit:
Who drinks carrouse^ and laugheth not a whit.
MERRY-GO-DOWN 6j
iohn : Considering that it is a great while since I was a
scholler in Apollos schoole, and drank my fill of fount
Caballine, among the merrie muses, since that time I find
this nectar diuine. this wine precious, this muscadel delicate.
iane : Gossip faire and softly, you rage in your quicke
swallowing.
iohn : The dill take me, thou hast not found thy little
sippers of London, who drinke but out of one pipe.
iane : You haue a good throat to swallow downe.
nich : O fellow mine, if I could mount up as well as I can
poure downe, I should already be aboue the sphere of the
Moone with Empedocles.
iohn : But I know not what the diuell this means. This
wine is so good and pleasant. The more I drinke, the more
thirst I haue. I beleeue the shadow of these cups, doth
engender drie mouthes, as the moone doth merrigalds.
iane ; This Liuerots head is good for those that haue
the gout.
steuen : We shall eate few greene geese this yeare.
nich : I had broke my fast well : but therefore will I
eat neuer the lesse. For I haue a stomacke paued and hol-
low as saint Benets boote.
iane : Ha my friend, giue me some pigge.
nich : Diabolo, theres no more liquors, I renounce my
life, I die for thirst.
iohn : Draw, giue here, turne, broile, poure to me
without water : so my friends, firke me this glasse finely.
Ha false feuer wilt thou not packe hence ?
iane : By me fe Gossip I cannot enter into the bets.
iohn : You are acold, my loue. I marry, lets speake of
drinking. I drinke not but at my houres, as doth the
Popes mule. I haue great thirst.
nich : Which was first, thirst or drinking ?
iohn : Drinking. For Privatio presupponit habitum. I
am a clerke, I tell you. Foecundi calices quern non jecere
disertum.
nich : Lets sing, lets drinke, lets poure it in. Where is
my tonnell ?
steuen : What ? I drinke but by a letter of Attornie.
nich : Wet you to drie, or drie you to wet ?
steuen : By my fay I vnderstand not the Rhetoricke.
With the pratticque I helpe myselfe a little.
68 MERRY-GO-DOWN
iohn : Courage, I wet, I moisten, I drinke, and all for
feare to die.
nich : Drinke alwayes, you shall neuer die.
iohn : If I drinke not, I am dead.
steuen : For conclusion of mine oration, I will say vnto
you, that as for me, I thinke I am descended of some rich
king or prince in old time. For you neuer saw man, who
had a greater desire to be a king, and rich, then my selfe,
to the end to make good cheare, to take no pains at all, to
care for nothing, and to enrich my friends and all honest
and learned men.
[John Eliot : The Parlement of Prat/ers.]
MASTER MERRY-THOUGHT
OLD MER :
HO can sing a merrier noate
Than he that cannot change a groat ?
Not a Denier left, and yet my heart leapes, I do
wonder yet, as old as I am, that any man will
follow a Trade, or serve, that may sing and laugh, and walke
the streets, my wife and both my sonnes are I know not
where, I have nothing left, nor know I how to come by meate
to supper, yet am I merry still ; for I know I shall finde it
upon the Table at sixe a Clock, therefore hang Thought.
I would not be a Servingman to carry the cloke-bag still,
Nor would I be a Fawlconer the greedie Hawkes to fill.
But I would be in a good house, and have a good Master
too.
But I would eat & drink of the best, & no work would I do.
This is it that keeps life and soule together, mirth, this is
the Philosophers stone that they write so much on, that
keeps a man ever young.
Enter a Boy
boy : Sir, they say they know all your mony is gone,
and they will trust you for no more drinke.
old mer : Will they not ? let 'em choose, the best is, I
have mirth at home, and need not send abroad for that ;
let them keepe their drinke to themselves.
For Jillian of Berry, she dwels on a Hill,
And she hath good Beere and Ale to sell,
And of good fellows she thinkes no ill,
And thither will wee go now, now, now, and thither
Will we go now.
And when you have made a little stay,
You need not aske what is to pay,
But kiss your Hostesse and go your way. And
thither, &c.
69 f
JO MERRY-GO-DOWN
Enter another Boy
2. boy : Sir, I can get no bread for supper.
old Mer : Hang bread and supper, let's preserve our
mirth, and we shall never feel hunger, I'le warrant you, let's
have a Catch, boy follow me, come sing this Catch.
Ho, ho, no body at home, meate nor drinke, nor money ha we
none, Jill the pot Eedy, never more need I.
[beaumont and fletcher : The Knight of
the Burning Pestle.]
DRUNKARDS
IN EL DORADO
jHOSE Guianians and also the borderers, and all
others in that tract which I haue seen are mar-
ueylous great drunkardes, in which vice I think
no nation can compare with them and at the
times of their solemne feasts when the Emperor carowseth
with his Captayns, tributories, & gouernors, the manner is
thus. All those that pledge him are first stripped naked, &
their bodies annoynted al ouer with a kinde of white Bal-
samum: (by them called Curca'i) of which there is plenty
and yet very deare amongst them, and it is of all other
the most pretious whereof we haue had good experience :
when they are annointed all ouer, certaine seruants of the
Emperor hauing prepared gold made into fine powder
blow it thorow hollow canes vpon their naked bodies, untill
they be al shining from the foote to the heade, & in this sort
they sit drinking by twenties and hundreds & continue
in drunkennes sometimes sixe or seuen daies together.
[sir w. ralegh : The Discoverie of the
large, rich and bewtrful Empyre of
Guiana 1596.]
STRANGE PAGEANTRIES
CAME here a day or two before the Danish
King came, and from the day he did come untill
this hour I have been well nigh overwhelmed
with carousal and sports of all kinds.
The sports began each day in such manner and such sorte,
as well nigh persuaded me of Mahamets paradise. We had
women, and indeed wine took, of such plenty, as would have
astonished each sober beholder. Our feasts were magni-
ficent, and the two royal guests did most lovingly embrace
each other at table. I think the Dane hath strangely
wrought on our good English nobles ; for those, whom I
could never get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion,
and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their
sobriety, and are seen to roll about in intoxication. In
good sooth, the Parliament did kindly to provide his Majestie
so seasonably with money, for there hath been no lack of
good livinge ; shows, sights, and banquetings from morn
to eve. One day a great feast was held, and, 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, before their Majesties, by
device of the Earl of Salisbury and others. But alass !
as all earthly thinges do fail to poor mortals in enjoyment,
so did prove our presentment hereof. The Lady who did
play the Queens part, did carry most precious gifts to both
their Majesties ; but, forgetting the steppes arising to the
canopy, overset her caskets into his Danish Majesties lap,
and fell at his feet, tho I rather think it was in 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 an inner chamber and laid on a bed of state ; which was
not a little defiled with the presents of the Queen which had
been bestowed on his garments ; such as wine, cream,
jelly, neverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The
7«
J2 MERRY-GO-DOWN
entertainment and show went forward, and most of the
presenters were 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 rendered her endeavours so feeble that she with-
drew, and hoped the King would excuse her brevity. Faith
was then all 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 sorte
she made obeysance and brought giftes, but said she would
return home again, as there was no gift which Heaven had
not already given to his Majesty ; she then returned to
Hope and Faith, who were both sick and spewing in the
lower hall. Next came Victory in bright armour, and pre-
sented a rich sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put
it by with his hand ; and by a strange medley of versification,
did endeavour to make suit to the King ; but Victory did
not tryumph long, for, after much lamentable utterance,
she was led away like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the
outer steps of the anti-chamber. Now did Peace made
entry, and strive to get foremoste to the King ; but I grieve
to tell how great wrath she did discover unto those of her
attendants, and, much contrary to her semblance, most
rudely made war with her olive branch, and laid on the pates
of those who did oppose her coming. I have much marvalled
at these strange pageantries, and they do bring to my remem-
brance what passed of this sort in our Queens days ; of which
I was sometime an humble presenter and assistant ; but I
never did see such lack of good order, discretion, and sob-
riety, as I have now done. I have passed much time in
seeing the royal sports of hunting and hawking, where the
manners were such as made me devise the beasts were
pursuing the sober creation, and not more in quest of exer-
cise or food. I will now, in good sooth, declare to you, who
will not blab, that the gunpowder fright is got out of all our
heads, and we are going on, hereabouts, as if the devil was con-
triving every man should blow up himself, by wild riot, excess,
and devastation of time and temperance. The great Ladies
do go well-masked, and indeed it be the only show of their
modesty, to conceal their countenance ; but, alack, they meet
with such countenance to uphold their strange doings, that
MERRY-GO-DOWN 73
I marvel not at ought that happens. I do often say (but
not aloud) that the Danes have again conquered the Britains,
for I see no man, or woman either, that now can command
himself or herself. I wish I was at home :—O rus, quando
te aspiciam ?
[sir john harington. Letter.]
OF HYM THAT BROUGHT A BOTELL TO A
PRESTE
ERTAYNE vycars of Poules, disposed to be mery
on a Sonday at hye masse tyme, sente another
madde felowe of theyr acquointance unto a folysshe
dronken preest to gyue hym a bottell, whiche man
met with the preest upon the toppe of the stayres by the
chauncell dore, and spake to him and sayd thus : syr, my
mayster hath sente you a bottell to put your drynke in,
because he can kepe none in your braynes. This preest,
therwith beynge very angry, all sodenly toke the bottell,
and with his fote flange it downe into the body of the
churche upon the gentlemans hede.
[A Hundred Mery Ta/ys.]
WHAT'S YOUR ALE
Musicke. Enter young Love/esse and Widdow, going to be
Married: with them his Comrades
widdow :
RAY sir cast off these fellowes, as unfitting for your
bare knowledge, and farre more your company: ist
fit such Ragamuffins as these are should beare the
name of friends ? and furnish out a civill house ?
y'are to bee married now, and men that love you must
expect a course far from your old carrier : If you will
keepe um, turn um to th' stable, and there make um groomes:
and yet now I consider it, such beggars once set a horse
backe, you have heard will ride, how farre you had best
to looke to.
cap. : Heare you, you that must be Lady, pray content
your selfe and thinke upon your carriage 'soone at night,
what dressing will best take your Knight, what wastcote,
what cordiall will doe well i' th morning for him, what tryers
have you ?
wi. : What doe you meane Sir ?
cap. : Those that must switch him up : if he start well,
feare not but cry Saint George, and beare him hard : when
you perceive his wind growes hot and wanting, let him a
little downe, 'is fleet nere doubt him, and stands sound.
wi. : Sir, you heere these fellowes ?
yo. lo. : Merry companions, wench, merry companions.
wi. : To one another let um bee companions, but good
Sir not to you : you shall be civill and slip off these base
trappings.
cap. : He shall not need, my most sweet Lady grocer,
if hee bee civill, not your powdered Suger, not your Reasens
shal perswade the Captaine to live a Coxcome with him :
let him be civill and eate i' th' Arches, and see what will
come on't.
po. : Let him bee civill, doe : undoe him : I, thats
74
MERRY-GO-DOWN 75
the next way. I will not take (if hee be civill once) two
hundred pounds a yeare to live with him : bee civill ?
theres a trimme perswasion.
cap. : If thou beest civill Knight, as love defends it, get
thee another nose, that will be puld off by the angry boyes,
for thy conversion : The Children thou shalt get on this
Civilian cannot inherit by the law, th' are Ethmcks, and all
thy sport meere Morall lechery : when they are growne
having but little in um, they may proove Haberdashers, or
grosse Grosers, like their deare damme there : prethe be
civill Knight, in time thou maist read to thy houshold and
bee drunke once a yeare : this would shew finely.
yo. lo. : I wonder sweet hart you will offer this, you do
not understand these Gentle men : I will be short and pithy :
I had rather cast you of by the way of charge : these are
Creatures, that nothing goes to the maintenance of but
Come and Water. I will keepe these fellowes iust in the
Competency of two Hennes.
wi. : If you can cast it so Sir, you have my liking, if they
eate lesse, I should not be offended : But how these, Sir, can
live upon so little as Corne and Water, I am unbeleeving.
yo. lo. : Why prethee sweet hart what's your Ale ?
is not that Corne and Water my sweet Widdow ?
wi. : I but sweete Knight, where's the meat to this, and
cloathes that they must looke for ?
yo. lo. : In this short sentence Ale, is all included :
Meate, Drinke, and cloth : these are no ravening foot-men,
no fellowes that at Ordinaries dare eate their eighteene
pence thrice out before they rise, and yet goe hungry to
play and crack more nuts then would suffice a dozen Squirrels;
besides the din, which is damnable : I had rather raile, and
bee confin'd to a Boatmaker, then live among such rascalles ;
these are people of such a cleane discretion in their diet, of
such a moderate sustenance, they they sweat if they but
smell hot meate. Porredge is poyson, they hate a Kitchen,
as they hate a Counter, and show em but a Fetherbed they
swound. Ale is their eating, and their drinking surely,
which keepes their bodies cleere, and soluble. Bread is a
binder, and for that abolisht even in their Ale, whose lost
roome fills an apple, which is more ayre, and of subtiller
Nature. The rest they take, is little, and that little, as little
easie : For like strict men of order, they doe correct their
76 MERRY-GO-DOWN
bodies with a bench, or a poore stubborne table ; if a chimney
offer it selfe with some few broken rushes, they are in downe :
when they are si eke, that's drunke, they may have fresh
straw, else they doe despise these worldly pamperings.
For their poore apparrell, tis worne out to the diet ; new they
seeke none, and if a man should offer, they are angry :
scarce to be reconcil'd againe with him : you shall not heare
em aske one a cast doublet, once in a yeere, which is a
modesty befitting my poore friends : you see their Ward-
rope, though slender, competent : For shirts I take it, they
are things worne out of their remembrance. Lowsie they
will bee, when they list, and Mangle, which showes a fine
varietie : and then to cure em, a Tanners limepit, which is
little charge, two dogs, and these ; these two may bee
cur'd for three pence.
wi. : You have halfe perswaded me, pray use your
pleasure : and my good friends since I doe know your
diet, He take an order, meat shall not offend you, you shall
have Ale.
cap. : We aske no more, let it be mighty, Lady : and if we
perish, then our owne sinnes on us.
yo. lo. : Come forward Gentlemen, to Church my
boyes, when we have done, He give you cheere in boules.
[Exeunt.
[beaumont and fletcher. The scornful ladie.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
77
A MONK'S LIFE
I QUis desidiosus est, si quis a labore abhor rens^ si
quis in ocio luxuriari volens; ad sacerdotium con-
volat : quo adepto, statim se cceteris sacerdotibus
voluptatum sectatoribus adjungit, qui magis secundum
Epicurum, quam secundum Christum viventes, et cauponulas
seduli JrequentateSy potando, commessando, pransitando, con-
vivando, cum tesseris et pilo ludendo, tempora tota comsumunt:
crapulati vero et inebriati pugnant, clamant, tumultuantur>
nomen Dei et sanctorum suorum pollutissimis labiis execrantur ;
skque tandem compositumy ex meretricum suarum complexibus
ad divinum altare veniunt ; saith Clemangis, speaking
of your worthies : "If there be any lazy fellow, any that
cannot away with work, any that would wallow in pleasures,
he is hasty to be priested : and, when he is made one, and
hath gotten a benefice, he consorts with his neighbour priests,
who are altogether given to pleasures : and then both he,
and they, live, not like Christians, but like Epicures ;
drinking, eating, feasting and revelling, till the cow come
home, as the saying is ; playing at tables, and at stool-ball ;
and when they are well crammed and tippled, then they fall
by the ears together, whooping, and yelling, and swearing
damnably, by God and all the saints in heaven : and, after
all matters be somewhat pacified, then, arising out of their
whores' laps, they go to the mass."
[ALEXANDER COOKE. Pope Joan.]
78
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE COMMON SINGING-MEN IN CATHEDRALL
CHURCHES
RE a bad Society, and yet a Company of good
Fellowes, that roare deep in the Quire deeper in
the Tauerne. They are the eighth part of speech,
which goe to the Syntasis of Seruice, and are
distinguish^ by their noyses much like Bells, for they
make not a Consort but a Peale. Their pastime or recrea-
tion is prayers, their exercise drinking, yet herein so re-
ligiously addicted that they serue God oftest when they are
drunke. Their humanity is a legge to the Residencer,
their learning a Chapter, for they learne it commonly
before they read it, yet the old Hebrew names are little
beholding to them, for they mis-call them worse then one
another. Though they neuer expound the Scripture, they
handle it much, and pollute the Gospell with two things,
their Conuersation, and their thumbes. Vpon Worky-dayes
they behaue themselues at Prayers as at their Pots, for they
swallow them downe in an instant. Their Gownes are
lac'd commonly with streamings of Ale, the superfluites
of cups or throat aboue measure. Their skill in melody
makes them the better companions abroad, and their An-
themes abler to sing Catches. Long-liu'd for the most part
they are not, especially the base, they ouer flow their banke
so oft to drowne the Organs. Briefly, if they escape arrest-
ing, they dye constantly in Gods Seruice ; and to eake
(take) their death with more patience, they haue Wine and
Cakes at their Funerall : and now they keepe the Church a
great deale better, and helpe to fill it with their bones as
before with their noise.
[john earle. Micro-Cosmographie.]
DRINK AND WELCOME
LE is rightly called Nappy, for it will set a nap
upon a mans threed bare eye when he is sleepy.
It is called Merry-goe-downe, for it slides downe
merrily ; It is fragrant to the sent; It is most
pleasing to the taste ; The flowring and mantling of it (like
Chequer worke) with the Verdant smiling of it, is delightfull
to the sight, it is Touching or Feeling to the Braine and
Heart ; and (to please the senses all) it provokes men to
singing and mirth, which is contenting to the Hearing.
The speedy taking of it doth comfort a heavy and troubled
minde ; it will make a weeping widow laugh and forget
sorrow for her deceased husband ; It is truly termed the
spirit of the Buttry (for it puts spirit into all it enters,)
It makes the footmans Head and heeles so light, that he
seems to me as he runnes ; It is the warmest lineing of
a naked mans Coat {thafs a Bull) It satiates and asswageth
hunger and cold ; with a Toaste it is the poore mans
comfort, the Shepheard, Mower, Plowman, Labourer and
Blacksmiths most esteemed purchase ; It is the Tinkers
treasure, the Pedlers Jewell, the Beggers Joy, and the
Prisoners loving Nurse ; it will whet the wit so sharp, that
it will make a Carter talke of matters beyond his reach ;
It will set a Bashfull suiter a woing ; It heates the chill
blood of the Aged ; It will cause a man to speake past his
owne or any other mans capacity, or understanding ;
It sets an edge upon Logick and Rhetorick ; It is a friend
to the Muses ; It inspires the poore Poet, that cannot com-
passe the price of Canarie or Gascoigne ; It mounts the
Musitian above Eela; It makes the Balladmaker Rime
beyond Reason, It is a Repairer of a decaied Colour in the
face ; It puts Eloquence into the Oratour ; It will make
the Philosopher talke profoundly, the Scholler learnedly,
and the Lawyer Acute and feelingly. Ale at Whitsontide,
or a Whitson Church Ale, is a Repairer of decayed Countrey
Churches ; It is a great friend to Truth, for they that drinke
of it (to the purpose) will reveale all they know, be it never
79
80 MERRY-GO-DOWN
so secret to be kept ; It is an Embleme of Justice, for it
allowes and yeelds measure ; It will put courage into a
Coward, and make him swagger and fight ; It is a seale to
many a good Bargaine. The Physitian will commend it;
the Lawyer will defend it, It neither hurts, or kils, any but
those that abuse it unmeasurably and beyond bearing;
It doth good to as many as take it rightly ; It is as good as a
paire of Spectacles to cleare the eyesight of an old parish
Clarke ; and in Conclusion, it is such a nourisher of
Mankinde, that if my mouth were as bigge as Bishopsgate,
my Pen as long as a Maypole, and my Inke a flowing spring,
or a standing fishpond, yet I could not with Mouth, Pen,
or Inke, speake or write the true worth and worthinesse of
Ale.
[john taylor. Dritike and Welcome. 1637.]
BARNABIES SUMMONS : OR PAIE YOUR GROAT
IN THE MORNING
NTENDED for all Malaga men, called Vintners,
Sack-drawers, white wine, Claret, Rhenish, Bastard
Sherry, or Canary Blades, and Birds, together with
all Ale-Brewers, Beer-brewers, (alias) Hogshead-
fillers, Barrellers, Tapsters, or Firkinners: As also for all
Drawers, Tub-Taysters, Quaffers, Huffers, Puffers, Snuffers,
RufHers, Scufflers, and Shufflers, with Wine-bibbers, Sack-
suckers and Toast-makers ; not forgetting other depending
Officers of a lower Rank, of our stumbling Fraternity, viz.
Benchwhistlers, Lick-wimbles, Suck-spigots, Hawkers, Spew-
terers, Maudliners, Fox-catchers, including in the said Warrant
as a Reserve, our true and trusty Friends for the speedier effect-
ing our designe and purpose, All Vulcans, Crispins, Tinkers,
Pedlars, and of late our endeared friends, the Society of
Upstart Printers, and Newes-mongers ; and excluding by
speciall command, all Three peny Ordinary Sharks, as
Bakers, Weavers, Tailors, Usurers, Snip-eard Scriveners,
Presbyters, either English, Scotch, or Dutch, (but stay
there a little) for though the last of these be good for nothing
else, yet they are stout Drinkers and Drunkards ; and there-
fore if they please to vayle as formerly they have done, and
must doe now, they shall have the benefit of this our War-
rant, provided they neither drink all, nor too much : our
Warrant for the generall content of all BONOS SOCIOS
is set out in maner and forme following, that all whom it
concerne, (as it does too many) may, if they can stand,
understand it.
Ebe Warrant
Know all men by these presents, that we Sir Resolute
Rednose, of the Town of Taplow, in the County of Cumber-
land, with our dear and trusty Cosins, Sir Ferdinando
Fiery-face, Lord Sigismund Ruby-nose, together with our
associates and fellow Commissioners, Sir William Swill-
boule, Sir Gregory Toff-pot, Sir Thomas Spend-all, Sir
81
82
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Alexander Dry-lips, Sir Lewis Licke-spiggot, Edward Bar-
ley, Thomas Malster, Richard Brewer, and Geffrey Tapster,
Esquires, &c. By vertue of a Mandamus, or a fieri facias,
issued unto Jeronymo Tap-lash, do Enact, appoint, and
ordaine, that any and every person, male or female, of what
Country soever, being taken so drunk, that they are without
wit, sence or reason, shall forthwith pay to the under Officers
herein named, viz. to John Bottle-Ale, Willian Suck-all,
Gerard Turn-tub, and Jenkin up Morgan of Ale-ton, or to
their Deputy, or Deputies, the full and just sum of q.d.
without any resistance or delay upon the next Morning ;
but in case any of the Delinquents in the Premises shall bee
so ingenuous as to confesse their fault without distraining,
that then this Penalty shall not extend to above 2d. But
in case the Parties are resolved to ride the old ridden Jade
called Cut, or a Dog of the same Haire next morning, with-
out any remorse, and will presume to hunt the Fox againe,
that then our said Bayliffs, and Deputies are forthwith
either to joyne with them, or else to suspend the execution
of this our said Warrant, till he or they may be sober, which is
much feared will not quickly be effected ; and therefore
for the better and surer progresse herein, that Justice may be
the sooner executed, we enjoyn all Constables of Burroughs
and Parishes as well high and Petty to be assisting to this
our merry Warrant, and do desire them if they or any of
their substitute Officers can find leasure from sleep, or
their nodding benches, to examine the Premises and per-
sons, to shew due respects unto them, considering well that
the case and cause not only hath been their own, but suddenly
and shortly will be again, as soon as they can either meet
with merry Company or good moneys. Hereof they or
any of them are not to faile at their utmost perils. To all
Constables, Headboroughs, and other petty Officers, and
stout Drinkers, whom this specially concernes.
<3ivcn at our flfcannoar of fflusbinG, in tbe
ffull /Iboone TTavern, at Sun rising,
Hnno 155432
"Clpon tbe last oa£ of tbe first of flliarcb,
mt Supra*
MERRY-GO-DOWN
83
WINE AND
WENCHES
jOME, all you deare delights,
More short than are the Nights
Consum'd in Bacchus' drenches.
Ther's nought in this life sweete,
Yf men weare wise to see 't,
But only wine and wenches.
Welcome, circled Armes & rowllinge Eyes,
A laugh that peirceth to the skyes,
A looke that scorns to see the ground,
A tongue that yeilds a winninge sound.
Midnight Bells and partinge bowls
Are the things that glad our soulls.
Then stretch your selues uppon the Taverne Benches :
There's nothinge dainty sweete but wine & wenches.
[From a seventeenth-century song-book.]
LOVERS OF MUSICK
lEING much admired by all lovers of musick, his
company was therefore desired ; and company,
especially musicall company, delighting in drink-
ing, made him drink more than ordinary, which
brought him to his grave.
[Anthony A Wood on Thomas Baltzar
sometime Master of the King's Musick.]
A
PETITION
To the Right Reverend Father in God Lance/lot Lord Bishop
of Winton, and Deane of his Majestes ChappelL
The Peticion of the Subdeane and Gentlemen of his sayd MaUs
ChappelL
UMBLIE shewinge unto your Honor, A *eti™a
preferred
that, whereas Henry Eveseed, one of the against
Yeomen of the Vestry, was heeretofore at 5enry,
J Eveseed
the speciall instance of the Subdeane and
Gentlemen preferred to an extraordinarie place in the
vestrye, to succeade in ordinary uppon the next avoydance,
and then, uppon the misbehaviour of Aldred, at the request
of your suppliantes aforesayd was admitted into ordinarie,
where he hath continued now nine yeares and upward,
at acceptance of which othe (by order of the Reverend our
late Deane) and under his owne hand, as appeareth in our
Register, he yealded himselfe to be deprived of his place if
any way he misbehaved himselfe in his sayd place, since
which tyme he hath misbehaved himselfe continually,
either in disgrace of the whole society in generall or to
sondrie of them in particular, in such sort that it is not
tollerable that he shoulde remaine longer to be indured.
As first some fower yeares since he beinge infected with a
fowle disease in his groine, to the great offence of all, but
chiefely of those that were constrained by meanes of their
service to lye neere him, uppon which the late Lord Deane
thought him unfitt to serve his Majestie in his progresse into
Scotland. Also since that tyme he hath very much abused
himselfe through drunkennesse ; for the last winter at
Whithall he was drounke many daies together so that he
was alwaies fightinge with his fellowes or the servauntes,
to the great disquiett of the Officers of the Greencloth.
At midnight, and in his mad drounkennesse, he rose out of
his bed naked, and would needes run at a glasse window,
84
MERRY-GO-DOWN 85
where he tare his fleshe with the broken glasse (so) that he
was not hole in a good while after ; in which his sayd
drounkennes one night he came and vomited in a dishe of
pottage which Mr. Harrison and others were eatinge of.
Also at his Majesties last beinge at Greenwich, he soe still
contynuinge his drounkennes that the porters complained
of his continuall late cominge in drounke, at which tymes he
takes occasion to quarell and beate the servauntes. Againe
uppon St. Peter's day last, beinge the day of our feast,
unto which were invited many Officers of the House and
other our good friendes, the sayd Eveseed did violently and
sodenly without cause runne uppon Mr. Gibbons, took him
up and threw him doune uppon a standard wherby he
receaved such hurt that he is not yett recovered of the same,
and withall he tare his band from his neck to his prejudice
and disgrace. Then he proceading from Mr. Gibbons
mett our fellow Mr. Cooke in the chappell, wher he gave him
three blowes in the face, and after that he abused our fellowe
Mr. Crosse and Richard Patten, and was not satisfied with
those abusinges but challenged the field of some of them,
which abuse did tend to our great discreditt, contemning
the Subdeane or any other thing he could say or doe therein.
He reported unto the sergeant that the Subdeane sate in his
Chapter as the knave of clubbs, and the rest of the company
as knaves about him. And now on Monday last the 25th
of this Sept. 1620, after many admonisions given in privat
and publickly in chapter, and hopinge of his amendment
did still forbeare to complain unto your Lordship, but
growing still incorrigible in the sight and hearing of many
of the gentlemen and all his fellowes of the vestry, and that
causelesse he fell into unseemly termes with Mr. Subdeane,
contemning his office, affirming it to be poore, yet himselfe
to be proud therof as the divill, telling him withall that he was
a base fellow intruding him selfe into their office havinge
nothing to doe therin, no not the Deane nor Subdeane
had any thing to doe with them in their office, and threat-
ning our fellow Cooke to tear the flesh of(f) his face, with
many other reproachfull speeches to(o) longe heere to be
spoken of. And lastly the sayd Eveseed hath bin reproved
by the Subdeane and officers of the vestry to be the most
negligent officer in his place that he hath knowne in his
tyme, and that he is become a blasfemer and a filthy speaker
G
86
MERRY-GO-DOWN
in all places, that his company is rejected whersoever he
cometh.
What is heere complayned of wilbe approved unto your
Lordp-, by the gentlemen in generall, or by some of them in
particuler. In testimony whereof seventeen gentlemen have
heerunto subscribed our names.
CONCEITS & FLASHES & WHIMZIES
WO being in a taverne, the one swore the other
should pledge him. Why then, quoth the other,
I will; who went presently doune the staires, and
left him as a pledge for the reckoning.
Certaine Gallants being at a taverne, where they spar'd
no liquor, insomuch that all were well entred ; but one whose
head was somewhat weaker, and therefore lighter, did
nothing but spew, and calling for a reckoning, Why, says
one of his friends, cannot you tell, that have so often cast up,
what you have drunke ?
A drunken fellow, returning home towards evening,
found his wife hard at her spinning ; she reprooving him
for his ill husbandry, and commending herself for her good
huswifery, he told her that she had no great cause to chide :
for, as she had been spinning, he came home all the way
reeling.
Tapsters, said one, should bee men of esteem, because
they are men not only of a high calling, but also of great
reckoning.
[l639-]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
JOAN'S ALE
HERE was a jovial Tinker,
Which was a good Ale drinker,
He never was a Shrinker,
Believe me this is true ;
And he came from the wild of Kent,
When all his Mony was gone and spent,
Which made him look like a Jack-a-Lent,
And Joan's Ale is new,
And Joan's Ale Is new, Boys,
And Joan's Ale is new.
The Tinker he did settle
Most like a Man of Mettle,
And vow'd to pawn his Kettle,
Now mark what did ensue :
His neighbours they flock in apace,
To see Tom Tinker's comely Face,
Where they drank soundly for a space,
Whilst Joan's Ale, &c.
The Cobler and the Broom, Man,
Came next into the Room, Man,
And said they would drink for boon man,
Let each one take his due :
But when good Liquor they had found,
They cast their Caps upon the Ground,
And so the Tinker he drank round,
Whilst Joan's Ale, &c.
The Rag-man being weary,
With the Burden he did carry,
He swore he would be merry,
And spend a Shilling or two :
And he told his Hostess to her Face,
The Chimney-corner was his Place,
And he began to drink apace.
And Joan's Ale, &c.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
The Pedler he drew nigher,
For it was his Desire,
To throw the Rags i' th' Fire,
And burn the bundle Blew,
So whilst they drank whole Flashes,
And threw about the Glasses,
The Rags were burnt to Ashes,
And Joan's Ale, &c.
And then came in a Hatter,
To see what was the matter,
He scorn'd to drink cold Water,
Amongst that Jovial Crew ;
And like a Man of Courage stout,
He took the Quart-Pot by the Snout,
And never left till all was out,
0 Joan's Ale, &c.
The Tailor being nimble,
With Bodkin, Shears and Thimble,
He did no whit dissemble,
1 think his name was True:
He said that he was like to choak,
And he call'd so fast for Lap and Smoak,
Untill he had pawn'd the Vinegar Cloak,
For Joan's Ale, &c.
Then came a pitiful Porter,
Which often did resort there,
Quoth he, I'll shew some sport here,
Amongst this jovial Crew :
The Porter he had very bad luck,
Before that it was ten a Clock,
The Fool got Drunk and lost his Frock,
For Joan's Ale, &c.
The bonny brave Shoo-maker,
A brave Tobacco-taker,
He scorn'd to be a Quaker,
I think his Name was Hugh :
MERRY-GO-DOWN
He caird for Liquor in so fast,
Till he forgot his Awl and Last,
And up the Reckoning he did cast,
Whilst Joan's Ale, &c.
And then came in the Weaver,
You never saw a braver,
With a Silk Man and a Glover,
Tom Tinker for to view :
And so to welcome him to Town,
They every Man spent half a Crown,
And so the Drink went merrily down,
For Joan's Ale, &c.
Then came a drunken Dutch-Man,
And he would have a touch, Man,
But he soon took too much, Man,
Which made them after rue :
He drank so long as I suppose,
'Till greasie Drops fell from his Nose,
And like a Beast befoul'd his Hose,
Whilst Joan's Ale, &c.
A Welch-Man he came next, Sir,
With Joy and Sorrow mixt, Sir,
Who being partly vex'd, Sir,
He out his Dagger drew ;
Cuts-plutter-a-nails, quoth Taffie then,
A Welch-man is a Shentleman,
Come, Hostess, fill's the other Can,
For Joan's Ale, &c.
Thus like to Men of Courage stout,
Couragiously they drank about,
Till such time all the Ale was out,
As I may tell to you ;
And when the Business was done,
They every Man departed home,
And pro mis'd Joan again to come,
When she had Brew'a1 anew.
[Pills to Purge Melancholy.]
9°
MERRY-GO-DOWN
A LIGG OF GOOD NOSES
A Ligg of good Noses set forth in a Jest^
Most fitly compared to whom you think best.
THE LARGEST
Y nose is the largest of all in this place,
Mark how it becometh the midst of my face,
By measure I take it from the end to the Brow,
Four inches by compass, the same doth allow.
Likewise it is forged of passing good metal,
All of right Copper the best in the Kettle,
For redness and goodness the virtue is such,
That all other Metal it serveth to touch.
Old smug, nor the Tinker that made us so merry,
With their brave Noses more red than a Cherry.
None here to my challenge can make a denyal,
When my Nose cometh thus bravely to Tryal.
All Sing
Room for good Noses the best in our Town,
Come fill the Pot Hostis, your Ale it is brown,
For his Nose, and thy Nose, and mine shall not quarrel,
So long as one Gallon remains in the Barrel.
THE LONGEST
Y nose is the Longest no man can deny,
For 'tis a just handful right, mark from mine
eye,
Most seemly down hanging full low to my
Chin,
As into my Belly it feign would look in.
9*
MERRY-GO-DOWN
It serves for a Weapon my mouth to defend,
My teeth it preserveth still like a good friend,
Where if so I happen to fall on the Ground,
My Nose takes the burthen and keeps my face sound.
It likewise delighteth to peep in the Cup,
Searching there deeply till all be drank up,
Then let my Nose challenge of Noses the best,
The longest with Ladies are still in request.
All Sing
Room for, &c.
THE THICKEST
Y nose, it is Thickest and Roundest of all,
Inriched with Rubies the great with the small,
No Gold-smith of Jewels can make the like
show,
See how they are planted here all on a row.
How like a round Bottle it also doth hang,
Well stuffed with liquor will make it cry twang,
With all, it is sweating in the midst of the Cold,
More worth to the Honour than ransoms of Gold.
You see it is gilded with Claret and Sack,
A food and fit cloathing for belly and back,
Then let my Nose challenge of all that be here,
To sit at their Table as chiefest in cheer.
All Sing
Room for, Sec.
We have the best Noses that be in our Town,
If any bring better, come let him sit down.
[Pills to Purge Melancholy.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
93
DRUNKARDS RECONCILED
ITH Sir H. Cholmly to Westminster ; who by the
way told me how merry the King and Duke of
York and Court were the other day, when they
were abroad a-hunting. They come to Sr. G.
Carteret's house at Cranbourne, and there were entertained,
and all made drunk ; and all being drunk, Armerer did
come to the King, and swore to him "By God, Sir," says he,
" you are not so kind to the Duke of York of late as you
used to be." "Not I?" says the King. "Why so?"
" Why," says he, " if you are, let us drink his health."
" Why let us," says the King. Then he fell on his knees,
and drank it ; and having done, the King began to drink
it. "Nay, Sir," says Armerer, "by God, you must do it
on your knees ! " So he did, and then all the company ;
and having done it, all fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin
and kissing one another, the King the Duke of York, and the
Duke of York the King : and in such a maudlin pickle as
never people were : and so passed the day.
[SAMUEL PEPYS.]
A
DITHYRAMBICK
The Drunkard's Speech in a Mash
Written in Aug., 1677.
ffrjWfllES, you are mighty wise, I warrant, mighty wise !
If «w@^ With all your godly Tricks, and Artifice,
gLADS?! Who think to chouse me of my dear and pleasant
Hence holy Sham ! in vain's your fruitless Toil :
Go, and some unexperienc'd Fop beguile,
To some raw ent'ring Sinner cant, and whine,
Who never knew the worth of Drunkenness and Wine.
I've try'd, and prov'd, and found it all Divine :
It is resolv'd, I will drink on, and die,
I'll not one minute lose, not I,
To hear your troublesome Divinity :
Fill me a top full Glass, I'll drink it on the Knee,
Confusion to the next that spoils good Company.
That Gulp was worth a Soul, like it, it went,
And thorowout new Life, and Vigor sent :
I feel it warm at once my Head, and Heart,
I feel it all in all, and all in every part.
Let the vile Slaves of Bus'ness toil, and strive,
Who want the Leisure, or the Wit to live ;
While we Life's tedious journey shorter make,
And reap those Joys which they lack sence to
take.
Thus live the Gods (if ought above ourselves there be)
They live so happy, unconcerned, and free :
Like us they sit, and with a careless Brow
Laugh at the petty Jars of Human kind below :
Like us they spend their Age in gentle Ease,
Like us they drink ; for what were all their Heav'n, alas !
If sober, and compell'd to want that Happiness ?
94
MERRY-GO-DOWN 95
Assist almighty Wine, for thou alone hast Power,
And other I'll invoke no more,
Assist, whilst with just Praise I thee adore ;
Aided by thee, I dare thy worth rehearse,
In Fights above the common pitch of groveling Verse.
Thou art the Worlds great Soul, that heav'nly Fire,
Which dost our dull half-kindled mass inspire.
We nothing gallant, and above our selves produce
Till thou do'st finish Man, and Reinfuse.
Thou art the only source of all, the World calls great,
Thou didst the Poets first, and they the Gods create :
To thee their Rage, their Heat, their Flame they owe,
Thou must half share with Art, and Nature
too.
They owe their Glory, and Renown to thee ;
Thou giv'st their Verse, and them Eternity.
Great Alexander, that big'st Word of Fame,
That fills her Throat, and almost rends the same,
Whose Valour found the World too strait a Stage
For his wide Victories, and boundless Rage,
Got not Repute by War alone, but thee,
He knew, he ne'er could conquer by Sobriety,
And drunk as well as fought for universal Monarchy.
Pox o' that lazy Claret I how it stays ?
Were it again to pass the Seas,
'Twould sooner be in Cargo here,
'Tis now a long East India Voyage, half a year.
'Sdeath ! here's a minute lost, an Age, I mean
Slipt by, and ne'er to be retriev'd again.
For pity suffer not the precious Juice to die;
Let us prevent our own, and its Mortality :
Like it, our Life with standing and Sobriety is pall'd,
And like it too, when dead, can never be recall'd.
Push on the Glass, let it measure out each hour,
For every Sand an Health let's pour :
Swift as the rowling Orbs above,
And let it too as regularly move :
Swift as Heav'ns drunken red-faced Traveller, the Sun,
And never rest, till his last Race be done,
Till time it self be all run out, and we
Have drunk our selves into Eternity.
96 MERRY-GO-DOWN
Six in a hand begin ! we'll drink it twice apeice,
A Health to all that love, and honour Vice.
Six more as oft to the great Founder of the Vine.
(A God he was, I'm sure, or should have been)
The second Father of Mankind I meant,
He, when the angry Pow'rs a Deluge sent,
When for their Crimes our sinfull Race was drown'd,
The only bold and vent'rous man was found,
Who durst be drunk agen, and with new Vice the World
replant.
The mighty Patriarch 'twas of blessed Memory,
Who scap'd in the great Wreck of all Mortality,
And stock'd the Globe afresh with a brave drinking
Progeny.
In vain would spightful Nature us reclaim,
Who to small Drink our Isle thought fit to damn,
And set us out o' th' reach of Wine,
In hope strait Bounds could our vast Thirst confine:
He taught us first with Ships the Seas to roam,
Taught us from foreign Lands to fetch supply.
Rare Art! that makes all the wide World our Home,
Makes every Realm pay Tribute to our Luxury.
Adieu poor tott'ring Reason ! tumble down !
This Glass shall all thy proud usurping Powers drown,
And wit on thy cast Ruins shall erect her Throne :
Adieu thou fond Disturber of our Life ;
That check'st our Joys, with all our Pleasure art at strife :
I've something brisker now to govern me,
A more exalted noble Faculty,
Above thy Logick, and vain boasted Pedantry.
Inform me, if you can, ye reading Sots, what 'tis,
That guides th' unerring Deities :
They no base Reason to their Actions bring,
But move by some more high more heavenly thing,
And are without Deliberation wise :
Ev'n such is this, at least 'tis much the same,
For which dull Schoolmen never yet could find a name,
Call ye this madness ? damn that sober Fool,
('Twas sure some dull Philosopher, some reasoning Tool)
Who the reproachful Term did first devise,
And brought a scandal on the best of Vice.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
97
Go, ask me, what's the rage young Prophets feel,
When they with holy Frenzy reel :
Drunk with the Spirits of infus'd Divinity,
They rave, and stagger, and are mad, like me.
Oh, what an Ebb of Drink have we ?
Bring, bring a Deluge, fill us up the Sea,
Let the vast Ocean be our mighty Cup ;
We'll drink't, and all its Fishes too like Loaches up.
Bid the Canary Fleet land here : we'll pay
The Freight, and Custom too defray :
Set every man a Ship, and when the Store
Is emptied ; let them strait dispatch, and Sail for more :
'Tis gone : and now have at the Rhine,
With all its petty Rivulets of Wine :
The Empire's Forces with the Spanish we'll combine,
We'll make their Drink too in confederacy joyn.
'Ware France the next : this round Bordeaux shall
swallow,
Champagn, Langon, and Burgundy shall follow.
Quick let's forestal Lorain ;
We'll starve his Army, all their Quarters drain,
And without Treaty put an end to the Campaign.
Go, set the Universe a tilt, turn the Globe up,
Squeeze out the last, the slow unwilling Drop :
A pox of empty Nature ! since the World's drawn dry,
'Tis time we quit mortality,
'Tis time we now give out, and die,
Lest we are plagu'd with Dulness and Sobriety.
Beset with Link-boys, we'll in triumph go,
A Troop of stagg'ring Ghosts down to the Shades below :
Drunk we'll march off, and reel into the Tomb,
Natures convenient dark Retiring-Room ;
And there, from Noise remov'd, and all tumultuous strife,
Sleep out the dull Fatigue, and long Debauch of Life.
[Tries to go off, but tumbles down, and jails asleep,
[JOHN OLDHAM .* Works.~\
9«
MERRY-GO-DOWN
A BEASTLY PRANK
THE WORLD
BEASTLY prank of my Lord Rochester and my
Lord Lovelace and ten other men, which they
committed on that Sabbath day when they were
at Estington, which was their running along
Woodstock Park naked.
[robert harley in a letter to his father,,]
THE CURIOUS FRIEND
DESIRE to know the truth from yourselfe, who
alone doe speake true concerning yourselfe, all
the rest of the world not being only apt to believe
but very ready lyes concerning you, and if your
friends were like them, there has been such a story made
concerning your last adventure as would persuade us grave
men that you had stripped yourself of all your prudence as
well as your breeches.
[henry savile in a letter to Rochester.]
THE TRUTH
OR the hideous Deportment, which you have heard
of, concerning running naked, so much is true,
that we went unto the River somewhat late in the
Tear, and had a frisk for forty yards in the Meadow,
to dry ourselves. I will appeal to the King and the D. if
they had not done as much ; nay, my Lord-Chancellor,
and the Archbishops both, when they were School-boys;
and, at those years, I have heard the one declaim'd like Cicero,
the other preach'd like St. Austin : Prudenter Persons, I
conclude, they were, ev'n in hanging-sleeves, than any of the
flashy Fry (of which I must own myself the most unsolid)
can hope to appear, ev'n in their ripest Manhood. And now,
(Mr. Savile) since you are pleas'd to quote yourself for a
grave Man of the number of the Scandalized, be pleas'd to
call to mind the Year 1676, when two large fat Nudities
MERRY-GO-DOWN 99
led the Coranto round Rosamond's fair Fountain, while the
poor violated Nymph wept to behold the strange decay of
Manly Parts, since the Days of her dear Harry the Second :
Pr—ck ('tis confess'd) you shew'd but little of, but for A------
and B—ks, (a filthier Ostentation I God wot) you expos'd
more of, that nastiness in your two Folio Volumes, than we
all together in our six Quarto's. Pluck therejore the Beam
out of thine oun Eye. &c.
[john wilmot earl of Rochester in a letter
to Henry Savile.]
TO THE HONOURABLE MR. HENRY SAVILE
MR. SAVILE,
O A Charity becoming one of your pious Principles,
in preserving your humble Servant Rochester, from
the imminent Peril of Sobriety ; which, for want
of good Wine more than Company, (for I can
drink like a Hermit betwixt God and my own Conscience)
is very like to befal me : Remember what Pains I have for-
merly taken to wean you from your pernicious Resolutions of
Discretion and Wisdom I And, if you have a grateful Heart,
(which is a Miracle amongst you Statesmen) shew it, by
directing the Bearer to the best Wine in Town ; and pray
let not this highest Point of sacred Friendship be perform'd
slightly, but go about it with all due deliberation and care,
as holy Priests to sacrifice, or as discreet Thieves to the wary
performance of Burglary and Shop-lifting. Let your well-
discerning Pallat (the best judge about you) travel from
Cellar to Cellar, and then from Piece to Piece, till it has
lighted on Wine fit for its noble Choice and my Approbation.
To engage you the more in this matter, know, I have laid
a Plot may very probably betray you to the Drinking of it.
My Lord ------ will inform you at large.
Dear Savile 1 as ever thou dost hope to out-do MACHIA-
VEL, or equal ME, send some good Wine ! So you thy
wearied Soul at last find Rest, no longer hov'ring 'twixt
th' unequal Choice of Politicks and Lewdness! Maist
thou be admir'd and lov'd for thy domestick Wit; belov'd
and cherish'd for thy foreign Interest and Intelligence.
ROCHESTER.
IOO
MERRY-GO-DOWN
TO THE SAME
HETHER Love, Wine or Wisdom, (which rule
you by turns) have the present ascendant, I cannot
pretend to determine at this distance ; but good
Nature, which waits about you with more diligence
than Godfrey himself, is my security that you are [not]
unmindful of your absent Friends : To be from you, and
forgotten by you at once, is a Misfortune I never was criminal
enough to merit, since to the Black and Fair Countess, I
villainously betray'd the daily Address of your divided
Heart : You forgave that upon the first Bottle, and upon
the second, on my Conscience, wou'd have renounc'd them
and the whole sex ; Oh ! That second Bottle (Harry !) is the
Sincerest, Wisest, and most Impartial Dounright Friend
we have ; tells us truth, of our selves, and forces us to speak
Truths of others ; banishes Flattery from our Tongues,
and distrust from our Hearts, sets us above the mean Policy
of Court-Prudence ; which makes us lie to one another
all Day, for fear of being betray'd by each other at Night.
And (before God) I believe, the errantest Villain breathing,
is honest as long as that Bottle lives, and few of that Tribe
dare venture upon him, at least, among the Courtiers and
Statesmen. I have seriously consider'd one thing, That
[of] the three Businesses of this Age, Women, Politics and
Drinking, the last is the only exercise at which you and I
have not prov'd our selves errant Fumblers : If you have the
Vanity to think otherwise ; when we meet, let us appeal to
Friends of both Sexes, and as they shall determine, live and
die their Drunkards, or entire Lovers. For as we mince the
Matter, it is hard to say which is the most tiresome Creature,
loving Drunkard, or the drunken Lover.
If you ventur'd your fat Buttock a Gallop to Portsmouth,
I doubt not but thro' extream Galling, you now lie Bedrid
of the Piles, or Fistula in Ano, and have the leisure to write
your Countrey-Acquaintance, which if you omit I shall
take the Liberty to conclude you very Proud. Such a Letter
shou'd be directed to me at Adderbury, near Banbury,
where I intend to be within these three Days.
Bath, the 22nd of June, from
Your obedient humble Servant
ROCHESTER.
A
BISHOP & A DOCTOR
BISHOP RICHARD CORBET
IS chaplain, Dr. Lushington, was a very learned
and ingeniose man, and they loved one another.
The bishop sometimes would take the key of the
wine-cellar, and he and his chaplaine would goe
and lock themselves in and be merry. Then first he layes
doune his episcopall hat,—" There lyes the Dr." Then he
putts of his goune,—" There lyes the Bishop." Then 'twas,—
" Here's to thee, Corbet" and " Here's to thee, Lushington "
DOCTOR WILLIAM BUTLER
E kept an old mayd whose name was Nell. Dr.
Butler would many times goe to the taverne,
but drinke by himselfe. About 9 or 10 at night
old Nell comes for him with a candle and lant-
horne, and sayes, " Come you home, you drunken beast."
By and by Nell would stumble ; then her master calls her
" drunken beast " ; and so they did drunken beast one another
all the way till they came home.
[john aubrey : Brief Lives.]
A DRUNKEN CLUB
T was my hap Spectator once to be,
As I unseen, in secret Angle, sate,
Of that unmanly Crowd,
Who, with Wits low, and Voices loud,
Were met to Celebrate,
In Evening late,
The Bacchanalian Solemnity.
If what I then
Or heard, or saw, I here relate agen,
Accuse me not of Incivility,
In blabbing privacy ;
Since all men know, that in those Mysteries,
(Quite different from other Deities)
No man obliged is to secrecie.
Yea, If I should Conceal,
'Twould be in vain :
That pervious Tribe would their own Acts reveal,
Since Wine (transparent thing !) no secret can retain.
ii
The Actors in this Scene were not of one
Age, Humour, Figure, or Condition.
See One with hollow Cheeks, meagre, and lean,
By Sipping-Hectick, e'en consumed quite,
As he a Skeleton had been,
Enough to put Deaths self into a fright :
Only in this he seem'd to differ from the Dead,
He lifted oft his Hand up to his Head,
Another swoln up with Hydropick fat,
Out-strutting Eyes, and Paunch that so o're grows,
He might vie Bellies with the very Butt,
From whence the precious Liquor flows.
One comes with Crimson face,
More red that Erysipelas ;
102
MERRY-GO-DOWN IO3
Another pale, through Vital heat struck dead,
By greater heat of Wine, extinguished.
Yet is the Case of both, much what the same,
Nature, in One, is on a flame,
And, in the Other, all in Ashes laid.
One young as Hebe, smooth as Ganimedey
Another old Silenus seems to be,
With trembling-Hand, and palsie-Head,
And lame on Feet, with Gowty Malady ;
One Grave, and Saturnine,
Another jolly, brisk, and fine
He seemed not much unlike the lusty God of Wine.
in
One Noble was, yclep'd a Lord, I wis,
Another did a meaner Title take,
A Tinker hight : but all's one, that, or this,
Lya?an-Laws no difference do make.
Cups reconcile Degrees, and Nature too ;
He Noblest is, who can in Drink out-do.
No boast of Blood will here allowed be,
But what from tender Grape is prest.
No need of Heraulds, or their Blazonry ;
He bears best Coat, who bears his Liquor best.
(Such Passive Valour is in most Request)
No talk of Race, or Pedigree ;
For Honour here is a meer sudden thing :
The Garland hops from Brow to Brow,
As more, or less, the moist Achievements grow,
Who yesterday was Puny, now is Crown'd a King.
IV
But see ! the Battel comes.
Sound Trumpets, now, and Drums !
Two Armies rank'd, and facing, I espy'd ;
Whom nothing, but one long Plain, did divide,
The Table call'd. Well chosen ground, for both,
So plain, and smooth,
It gave no vantage unto either Side.
Signal once giv'n, the Bullets fly
From side to side, so furiously,
104 MERRY-GO-DOWN
That, in short time, none scap'd without a Wound,
Yea bloody Wound : only, 'twixt this,
And common Wounds, some difference is,
That those do let blood out, but these infund.
One thing indeed I mus'd to see,
Each Souldier, to his own mouth, lift his paw,
Before he aim'd at face of Enemy.
What ? sure, quoth I, these do their Bullets chaw,
Before they Fight. Or is it Z)##/$-man's Law,
Who, 'ere his Valour in Sea-Fight appear,
First takes a Dose of his own Gunpowder ?
And now the Battel's hot. Each Champion grows
(Like chafed Lion) more enrag'd by blows.
For Wounds do Valour but augment.
Wounds broach their Fury, and give Rage a Vent.
Nothing will now their keen Revenge content,
Until they see their Foes
Lie prostrate at their Feet, senseless, and dead :
And hence their Blows
Are level'd all against the Soul's chief Seat, the Head.
v
And by this time, me-thought I saw
Dame Reason trembling stand upon
The tops of the Conarion,
Dreading a Deluge, from the Floods below.
As Mortals in Ducalion's Flood, on cliff
Of Caucasus, or Tenarzff,
On Aiery Alps or Appenine>
Prolong'd that Fate, which they could not decline.
But what she fear'd is come.
See ! the Waves rise and Billows foam ;
And washing first her Foot, and Shin,
Then Wast, and Shoulders, Neck and Chin,
At last quite stopt here mouth, surround her piercing Eye,
Yea swallow Head and Brain,
Till nought of her doth visible remain,
No not the very Hair,
Which stands upright,
Through dismal fright,
But all by swelling Surge, surmounted are.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
I05
VI
And now a new Scene comes. The Censor's gone,
All things in medly, and confusion run.
Words now, like Thieves in Interregnums, break
Their Prisons. All men hear, and all men speak :
Yet none another understands, nor yet
Himself a whit.
And, could some nimble-handed Scribe have writ
All that was said ; Babel had been retriev'd,
And all her Tongues Reviv'd.
Yea more confus'd these Tongues, than Babel's, were :
They talkt of Towers on Earth, but these in Air.
VII
One is all Manhood ; talks of nothing else,
But Swords, and Guns, and Forts, and Cittadels ;
Sieges and Fights by Sea and Land,
And with a Gravity Censorian,
'Twixt generous scorn, and pity ; doth condemn
What the World calls Exploit, or Stratagem.
Alas ! your Dutc/i-Fights, or Blakes Tunis Knacks,
What were they all, but Squibs and Cracks ?
Throw Eighty Eight in,
'Twas but a meer Bear-baiting.
Cales Fight was but a Flutter,
And great Lepanto, fam'd of yore,
To a true Sea-Fight, was no more,
(Although Historique Coxcombs make a Splutter)
Than shooting Ducks in Pond, or stabbing of an Otter.
x
Another, he is all State-Policy ;
Esteeming then Himself most wise
In Mysteries
Of Government, when he
Has lost the Hegemonique Faculty.
As if his wine-soakt Brains
Like Rivers were
Which ever deepest are,
io6
MERRY-GO-DOWN
In times of greatest Floods, and Rains.
Or, as on watry Brook,
In Moon-shine Night, we look,
And see the Stars, how in their orbs they move :
So, while with Wine
His liquid brains do shine,
He sees the motions of the Powers above.
Euro/>, quoth he,
Is meerly lost, I see,
For lack of good Intelligence.
And understanding of Intrigues,
The Crafts of Treaties, and of Leagues,
This Spoils all States, and ruins Governments.
But, were I once in Secretaries Place,
I'd quickly bring things to a better pass.
Alas ! Colbert's an Asse,
I'd Fox him with his own French Wine ;
Then gage his Brains and so the bottome find,
Extent, and Compass of the French Design.
The Jesuits themselves I'd undermine ;
Out-do th' Ignation Creples in their Play,
I'd halt e're I was Lame, as well, and better far, than they.
XII
Another's all Art, and Philosophy.
Encyclopaedia, with it's mighty sound,
What is't, quoth he, but when the Brain turns round ?
Of which versatile Ingeny
No man, I'm sure, is Master, more than I.
Tongues are my Element. I declare,
I'd talk with any man on Earth,
And yet a dearth
Of words will never fear.
The fertile Cups best Dictionnaries are.
And as for Rhetorick, that two-handed Art,
Which Play's both Plaintiff's, and Defendants part ;
To me 'tis Natural : for, ev'n now, what e're,
Me-thinks, I look on, double doth appear.
Logick's a Toy. Alas !
I'l prove by Syllogisms, a man's an Asse,
Yet never stir out of this Room,
(Most Reverend Friends) to find, a Medium,
MERRY-GO-DOWN \QJ
Arithmetick, and Algebraick arts,
What are they to a man of parts ?
A member, he
Unworthy sure must be,
Of such a Learned Club as this,
Who understands not, what a Reckoning is.
Astronomy's a Science which I know
So thoroughly, that my Head ev'n now,
I feel, is in the Clouds ; and with each Star
I'm so familiar
Without a yacoirs-Staff, I know not how to go.
XIII
Philosophy both new, and old, I know.
The seven wise Men, of whom the Grecians tell us,
Were but a Club of honest Fellows,
That sate, and drank, and talkt, as we do now,
Until the Reckoning was come,
Then every man threw in his Symbolum.
Yea Sects of old had their Origination
But from the Liquor's various Operation.
Some, when inspired by the Barrel,
Grew Sceptical, or apt to quarrel :
Others, enclin'd to the Dogmatique way,
Are wondrous Positive in all they say.
'Twas the same Sherry■,
That made Democritus so merry,
And weeping Heraclite so sorry ;
For he (as most suppose)
Was Maudlin, when he snivel'd so at Nose.
Some would be so dead drunk, that, pinch them n'ere
So hard, they never felt : these Stoicks were.
Others were sensible a little
And this was call'd the Peripatetique Whittle,
Others, of ^Epicurus mad-cap strain,
No pleasure knew like Drunk, and drunk again.
Yes ev'n grave Plato's Academick Tribe
No scruple made to bibb,
Until Idea's crawled in their Brain.
As for Mechanick Virtuoso's skill,
That founds all Knowledge in Experiments,
io8
MERRY-GO-DOWN
(Although indeed I know what 'tis, full well,
To make mans Reason truckle to his sense)
Yet I have found a more Compendious way,
For whilst, in quest of Nature, they
By tedious searches clear the Object ; I
Do all, by strengthening the Faculty.
With brisk Falernum, clear the dim-eyed Soul ;
This was, I'm sure, the old Philosophy,
They ever sought, for Truth, i' th' bottom of the Bowl.
XVII
But by this time Tongues 'gan to rest ;
The Talking Game was at the best.
A sleepy Scene beginneth to appear.
Bright Reason's ray,
By damp of Wine, within this Hemisphere,
Was quench'd before : and now dim sense, to stay,
Must not expect, long after Her.
So when, Nights fairest Lanthorn, Cynthia bright
Is set ; each little mist, or thin-spread Cloud
Sufficient is to shroud
The pink-ey'd Stars, and make a pitchy Night.
Old Morpheus comes, with Leaden Key,
His drowsie Office to perform :
Though some there are, that do affirm,
'Twas Bacchus did it ; and that He
Had Legal Right to lock up each mans Brain :
Since every Room
His own Goods did contain,
And was his proper Wine-Cellar become.
XVIII
Some down into their Seats do shrink,
As snuffs in Sockets sink ;
Some throw themselves upon the Bed,
Some at Feet, and some at Head,
Some Cross, some Slope-wise, as they can ;
Like Hogs in straw, or Herrings in a pan.
Some on the Floor do make their humble Bed,
(Proper effect of Wine !)
So over-laden Vine,
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Prop failing, bowes its bunchy Head,
To kiss the Ground, from when 'twas nourished.
One, stouter than the rest, maintain'd the Field
And seem'd to yield
A Roman Emperour, standing, vow'd to die ;
And so, quoth he, will I ;
Till nodding, as he stood, the Churlish Wall
Repuls'd his Head, and made him reeling fall ;
So, with a jot.
Embrac'd the common lot,
The last, but yet the greatest, Trophy of them all.
XIX
So slept they sound ; but whilst they slept,
Nature, which all this while, had kept
Her last reserve of strength,
In Stomachs mouth, where, Heimont faith,
The Soul its chiefest Mansion hath,
Began at length
To kick, and frisk, and stoutly strove
To throw the Liquid Rider off.
For now her Case, like Mariners, was grown,
In leaky Ship, She must or pump, or drown.
Or whether that the Wine, which, till this time,
Was wont to dwell in Cellar's cooler Clime,
Now put in Stomachs boiling-Pot,
Found its new Habitation too hot ?
What e're it was, the Floods gusht out
From ev'ry spout,
With such a force ; they made a fulsome fray.
One, who athwart his Neighbour lay,
Did right into his Pocket disembogue ;
For which the other would have called him Rogue,
But that his forestall'd mouth (brawls to prevent)
Replenisht was with the same Element.
I' th' next man's face Another spues,
Who doth, with nimble Repartee, retort
His own, and his Assailants juice,
And so returns him double for't :
One with a Horizontal mouth,
Discharges up into the Air,
no
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Which falls again in Perpendicular :
Much like those Clouds, in Sea, that South,
Which, in a lump, descend, and quite
O're-whelm the Ship, on which they chance to light :
The Floor with such a Deluge was o'erflown,
As would infallibly have ran
Quite through, and to its native Cellar gone,
As Rivers Circulate to th' Ocean :
Had it not been incrassate with a scum,
Which did, for Company, from Stomach come.
Nor was this all. The surly Element,
With Orall Channels not content,
Reverberates; and downward finds a Vent.
Which my Nice Muse to tell forbears,
And begs, for what is past, the pardon of your Ears.
xx
At length the Storm blows o're ; the Sky grows clear
Clouds are dispel'd, and foggs, and fumes,
And Madam Dianoia now resumes
Her Throne ; when nimble Drawer mounts the stair,
And guessing by this time, these Heroes were
In Reckoning-case ; produceth, sans delay,
A Bill more swel'd, and more inflam'd, than they.
Gigantick Items ! yet evicted
Nothing could be, nor contradicted
By any of the Company:
Because 'twas all beyond Man's Memory.
Since then Objection was fruitless,
Solution must be the business.
All pockets (but ev'n now well lin'd) were swept,
Not one Cross, for a Neast-egg, kept.
Tokens, and single pence, must go,
Jacobusses, and Medals too ;
And all too little to discharge the score,
But forc'd to sign a Bill for as much more.
And thus the Poets Fiction came to pass,
That Bacchus Conquered the golden India's.
[rev. charles darby. Bacchanalia, 1680.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN III
THE FOUR DRUNKEN MAIDENS
OUR drunken maidens came from the Isle of
Wight,
Drunk from Monday morning till Saturday night ;
When Saturday night came, they would not go out,
And the four drunken maidens, they pushed the jug about.
In came bouncing Sally, and her cheeks like any bloom,
"Sit about, dear sister, and give me room,
I will be worthy of my room before I do go out ! "
And the four drunken maidens, they pushed the jug about.
There was woodcock and pheasants, partridges and hare,
And all sorts of dainties ; no scarcity was there ;
There was forty quarts of Malaga ; they fairly drank it out,
And the four drunken maidens, they pushed the jug about.
Down came the landlady to see what was to pay :
" This is a forty pound bill to be drawn here this day ;
There is ten pounds apiece "—and they would not go out,
And the four drunken maidens, they pushed the jug about.
Sally was a-walking along the highway,
And she met with her mother who unto her did say :
" Where is the headdress you had the other day,
And where is your mantle so gallant and so gay ? "
" So gallant and so gay, we had no more to do,
We left them in the ale-house ; we had a randan row."
[Old Ballad.]
A
TOPING SONG
AM a Jolly Toper, I am a raged Soph,
Known by the Pimples in my face, with taking
Bumpers off,
And a toping we will go, we'll go, we'll go.
And a toping we will go.
Come let's sit down together, and take our fill of Beer,
Away with all disputes, for we'll have no Wrangling here.
And a toping, &c.
With clouds of Tobacco we'll make our Noddles clear,
We'll be as great as Princes when our heads are full of Beer.
And a toping, &c.
With Juggs, Muggs, and Pitchers, and Bellarmines of stale,
Dash'd lightly with a little, a very little Ale.
And a toping, &c.
A Fig for the Spaniard, and for the King of France,
And Heaven preserve our Juggs, and Muggs, and Q------n
from all mischance.
And a toping, &c.
Against the Presbyterians, pray give me leave to rail,
Who ne'er had thirsted for King's Blood, had they been
drunk with stale.
And a toping, &c.
Here's a Health to the Queen, let's Bumpers take in hand,
And may Prince G— Roger grow stiff again and stand.
And a toping, &c.
Oh how we toss about the never failing Cann,
We drink and piss, and piss and drink, and drink to piss
again.
And a toping, &c.
112
MERRY-GO-DOWN I I 3
O that my Belly it were a Tun of stale,
My Cock were turn'd into a Tap to run when I did call.
And a toping, &c.
Of all sorts of Topers, a Soph is far the best,
For till he can neither go nor stand by Jove he's ne'er at rest.
And a toping, &c.
We fear no Wind or Weather, when good liquor dwells
within,
And since a Soph does live so well, then who would be a King ?
And a toping, &c.
Then dead drunk we'll march, Boys, and reel into our
Tombs,
That jollier Sophs (if such there be) may come and take
our rooms.
And a toping they may go, may go, may go.
And a toping they may go.
[Pills to Purge Melancholy.\
THE PRAISE OF YORKESHIRE ALE
HIS Nectar was brought in, each had his Cup
But at the first they did but sipple up
This rare Ambrosia, but finding that
'Twas grateful to the Taste, and made them chat
And laugh and talk, O then when all was out,
They call'd for more, and drank full Cans about ;
But in short space, such strage Effects it wrought
Amongst the Courtiers, as Bachus never thought
Or dream'd upon : his wise men it made Fools.
And made his Councellors to look like Owls.
The simple sort of Fellows it made prate,
And talk of Court Affairs, and things of State :
And those that were dull Fellows when they came
Were now turn'd numble Orators of Fame.
And such of them were thought to be no Wits,
Were Metamorphis'd into excellent Poets :
Those that were lame, and came there with a staff,
Threw't quite away, which made the Prince to laugh,
The Cripples which did Crutches thither bring,
Without them now did hop about and sing :
Some o're the Stools and Forms did skip and leap,
Some knac't their fingers, no plain word could speak
Som shak'd their legs and arms with great delight,
Some curst and swore, and others they did fight ;
Some antick tricks did play like a Baboon,
Som knit their brows did shake their heads & frown
Some Maudlin drunken were, and wept full sore,
Others fell fast asleep, begun to snore :
Thousands of Lies and Stories some did tell,
Their tongues went like the Clapper of a Bell,
Others were tongue-ti'd, could not speak one word
And some did cast their reckoning up at Board.
Some sung aloud, and did deaf their fellowes
Making a Noise, worse than Vulcan's Bellows :
Some were for baudy Talk, and some did shout ;
114
MERRY-GO-DOWN I I 5
Some mist the Cup, and pour'd the Liquor out ;
At every word, some did their Neighbour jump,
And some did often give the Board a thump.
Some were all Kindness did their Fellows kiss,
Som all bedaub'd their clothes, & mouths did miss :
For Arguments some were and learn'd discourses,
Som talk'd of grey-hounds, som of running horses,
Som talk'd of hounds, and some of Cocks o' th' game
Som naught but hawks, and setting dogs did name :
Some talk'd of Battels, Sieges and great Warrs,
And what great Wounds & Cutts they had, & Scarrs
Some very Zealous were, full of Devotion,
But being Sober then had no such Notion,
Some there were all for drinking healths about
Others did rub the Table with their Snout :
Some piss'd i' th' fire, others threw out their snuffs,
And some were mad to be at handy Cuffs.
Some swore that they would have a Serenade,
Others did call their Hostess Whore and Jade :
And round about did throw the Cups and glasses.
The drink did fly into their Neighbours Faces :
Some were for Bargains, some for Wagers laying.
Others for Cards and Tables cry'd for playing :
Some broke the Pipes, & round about them threw,
Some smoak'd Tobacco till their nose was blew.
Some in the fire fell and sing'd their Cloaths,
And some fell from their Seat and broke their nose
Some could not stir a Foot, did sit and glore,
Some sought the house all over for a whore,
Some call'd for Musick, others were for a dance,
And some lay staring, as if in a Trance.
Some calFd for Victuals others for a Crust,
Some op'd their Buttons and were like to Burst.
Some challeng'd all the people that were there,
And some with strange invented Oaths did swear
Some told how many Women they had us'd,
Others at such discourse were sore Amus'd :
Some shirk'd their drink, did put away the Cup,
And some took all that came left not one Sup :
Some whilest they Sober were would nothing pay,
But being drunk, would all the Shot defray ;
Others whilest sober, were as free as any,
n6
MERRY-GO-DOWN
But when once drunk, refuse to pay one penny.
Some were for News, and how the State of things
Did stand amongst great Potentates and Kings :
Some all their Friends & Neighbours did backbite,
And some in Jearing others, took delight ;
Some of their Birth and Riches made great boast.
And none but they were fit to Rule the Roast :
Some fill'd the Room with noise yet could not speak
One word of English, Latine, French or Greek :
Or any other Language which one might
Put into sense, and understand aright :
Some Laught, until their Eyes did run on water,
And neither they, nor others knew the matter :
Some so mischievous were they without Fear,
Would give their chieftest Friend a Box on th' Ear :
Some were so holy, that they would not hear,
Words either that Prophane or Smutty were :
Some in a Melancholly posture laid,
Others did cry what is the Reckoning paid :
Some burnt their Hatts, others the Windowes broke
Some cry'd more Liquor we are like to Choake
Some piss'd their Breetches, Sirreverence your Nose,
Some not only piss'd but all be------ their Hose :
Lame Gouty Men, did daunce about so sprightly,
A Boy of fifteen scarce could skip so lightly :
Old crampy Capts. that scarce a Sword could draw,
Swore now they'd keep the King of France in Awe.
And new Commissions get to Raise more Men,
For now they swore they were grown young again :
Off went their Perriwigs, Coats and Rapers,
Out went the Candles, Noses for Tapers
Serv'd to give light, whilst they did daunce a round
Drinking full Healths with Caps upon the ground :
And still as they did daunce their round-delayes,
They all did cry this drink deserves the Bayes,
Above all Liquors we have ever tasted :
It's a pity that a drop of it were wasted.
[g. m. 1685.]
WHAT AM'ROUS YOUTH
HAT Am'rous Youth, to Love inclin'd
Can press dear Phyllis to be kind,
In Words that will at once inspire
The blushing Nymph with like Desire,
'Till noble Wine has wash'd away
Those Fears that do their Joys delay,
And banish'd from their trembling Youth,
The native Bashfulness of both ;
Then, mutually inclin'd to bless
Each other with a soft Embrace,
Their struggling Souls with Vigour meet,
And kindly taste the short and sweet.
Thus Love can only with his Darts,
Perplex and terrify our Hearts,
But gen'rous Bacchus pity takes,
And heals the Wound, that Cupid makes.
What Priest can join two Lovers Hands,
But Wine must seal the Marriage Bonds,
From Church to Tavern they repair,
To crown their solemn Nuptials there ;
As if Celestial Wine was thought
Essential to the sacred Knot,
And that each Bridegroom, and his Bride,
Believ'd they were not firmly ty'd,
'Till Bacchus, with his bleeding Tun,
Had finish'd what the Priest begun ;
No Love, no Contract, no Hand fasting,
No Bonds of Friendship can be lasting,
No Bargain made, or Quarrel ended,
No Int'rest mov'd, or Cause defended,
No Mirth advanc'd, no Musick sweet,
No humane Happiness compleat,
On joyful Day, unless it's crown'd
With Claret, and the Glass gone round.
117
1
n8
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Since all the frothy Joys of Life,
Musick, a Mistress, or a Wife,
Except we do the same imbellish
With noble Wine, quite lose their Relish,
Who can be happy, tho' in Health
With Beauty, Grandure, Wit, or Wealth ?
Unless kind Bacchus crowns the Blessing,
And makes it worthy our possessing.
[ned ward. The Delights of the Bott/e.]
WINE v.
WOMAN
|HE tells me with claret she cannot agree,
And she thinks of a hogshead whene'er she sees me ;
For I smell like a beast, and therefore must I
Resolve to forsake her or claret deny :
Must I leave my dear bottle that was always my friend,
And I hope will continue so to my life's end ?
Must I leave it for her ? 'tis a very hard task,—
Let her go to the Devil, bring the other whole flask !
Had she tax'd me with gaming and bade me forbear,
'Tis a thousand to one I had lent her an ear ;
Had she found out my Chloris up three pair of stairs,
I had baulk'd her and gone to St. James's to pray'rs ;
Had she bid me read homilies three times a day,
She perhaps had been humour'd with little to say ;
But at night to deny me my flask of dear red,—
Let her go to the Devil, there's no more to be said !
[Pills to Purge Melancholy.]
THE TIPPLING PHILOSOPHERS
ISE Thales, the father of all
The Greek philosophical crew,
Ere he gaz'd at the heavens, would call
For a chirruping bottle or two,
That, when he had brighten'd his eyes,
He the planets might better behold,
And make the fools think he was wise,
By the whimsical tales that he told.
Diogenes, surly and proud,
Who snarl'd at the Macedon youth,
Delighted in wine that was good,
Because in good wine there is truth ;
Till 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.
Heraclitus would never deny
A bumper to comfort his heart,
And when he was maudlin would cry,
Because he had emptied his quart :
Though some are so foolish to think
He wept at man's folly and vice,
'Twas only his custom to drink
Till the liquor flow'd out of his eyes.
Democritus always was glad
To tipple and cherish his soul ;
And would laugh like a man that was mad,
When over a full 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.
119
120
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Wise Solon, who carefully gave
Good laws unto Athens of old,
And thought the rich Croeses a slave,
Though a king to his coffers of gold ;
He delighted in plentiful bowls ;
But, drinking, much talk would decline,
Because 'twas the custom of fools
To prattle much over their wine.
Old Socrates ne'er was content,
Till a bottle had heightened his joys,
Who in's cups to the oracle went,
Or he ne'er had been counted so wise :
Late hours he certainly lov'd,
Made wine the delight of his life,
Or Xantippe would never have prov'd
Such a damnable scold of a wife.
Grave Seneca, fam'd for his parts,
Who tutor'd the bully of Rome,
Grew wise o'er his cups and his quarts,
Which he drank like a miser at home :
And to show he lov'd wine that was good
To the last, we may truly aver it,
That he tinctur'd the bath with his blood,
So fancied he died in his claret.
Pythag'ras did silence enjoin
On his pupils, who wisdom would seek,
Because that he tippled good wine,
Till himself was unable to speak :
And when he was whimsical grown,
With sipping his plentiful bowls,
By the strength of the juice in his crown,
He conceiv'd transmigration of soule.
Copernicus, like to the rest,
Believ'd there was wisdom in wine,
And fancied a cup of the best
Made reason the brighter to shine ;
MERRY-GO-DOWN
121
With wine he replenished his veins,
And made his philosophy reel ;
Then fancied the world like his brains,
Run round like a chariot wheel.
Theophrastus, that eloquent sage,
By Athens so greatly ador'd,
With a bottle would boldly engage,
When mellow was brisk as a bird ;
Would chat, tell a story, and jest
Most pleasantly over a glass,
And thought a dumb guest at a feast
But a dull philosophical ass.
Anaxarchus, more patient than Job,
By pestles was pounded to death,
Yet scorn'd that a groan or a sob
Should waste the remains of his breath :
But sure he was free with the glass,
And drank to a pitch of disdain,
Or the strength of his wisdom, alas!
I fear would have flinch'd at the pain.
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 large as a watering-trough ;
He therefore jump'd into the sea,
Because he'd have liquor enough.
When Pyrrho had taken a glass,
He saw that no object appear'd
Exactly the same as it was
Before he had liquor'd his beard ;
For things running round in his drink,
Which sober he motionless found,
Occasion'd the sceptic to think
There was nothing of truth to be found.
122
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Old Plato was reckon'd divine,
He wisely to virtue was prone ;
But had it not been for good wine,
His merits we never had known.
By wine we are generous made,
It furnishes fancy with wings ;
Without it we ne'er should have had
Philosophers, poets, or kings.
[Wine and Wisdom. 171 o.]
THE
OXFORD TUTOR'S ADVICE TO HIS PUPILS
HOU chief Companion of my Cup,
Come drink the sparkling Brimmer up,
And early quaff the gen'rous Wine,
Of all the Gods make Bacchus thine :
To him thy Vows and Homage pay,
At Noon, at Night, and Break of Day:
First o'er the jovial Glass each Morn,
With graceful Stain thy Robes adorn,
Thy rugged Cheeks let Pimples grace,
And shew the Toper in thy Face ;
When e'er you pledge, half Glasses shun ;
And ne'er leave off till all is done ;
Propose, when first my Phiz you see,
With awful Nod a Health to me ;
And then the same in order do
To all your fellow Pupils too :
Fall quick to work, ne'er stand or stare,
Unless by chance you want a Chair ;
And then hold to 't, 'till all are gone,
And sit, until you sit alone :
For always him I favour most,
Who briskly has his Bumpers tost ;
My Maxim is, and still shall be,
Advance in Drinking, then Degree :
Let Quarts and Glasses to prepare
Be always your important Care :
Tobacco, Stoppers, Pipe? and all
That we the Arms of Bacchus call :
When 'tis your Turn, pray toss it up,
And let no Reliques stain the Cup :
Let Mortals ne'er your Glass profane,
A Race obhorr'd by God and Man ;
But honest Fellows Quaff the Bowl,
Design'd to chear the gen'rous Soul.
Drink oft, and oft your Palate try,
And scruple not when you are dry ;
123
124 MERRY-GO-DOWN
A Curse on ev'ry coward Ass!
That has no relish for his Glass ;
Who thirsts and drinks, and thirsts again,
I take to be the Gentleman.
Still will a leering Eye attend
The Motion of your Right-hand Friend,
With double Force the Game pursue,
And bid all sober Thoughts adieu :
Ne'er deign to flag, e'en here despise
Dull Sloth (the Nursery of Vice.)
Drink up with greedy Jaws you must,
For Mirth decays without a Gust ;
Drunk'ness maintains a boundless sway,
And thro* all Hardships finds a Way.
It adds a lustre to the Name,
And throws us headlong into Fame.
As Fields produce no fragrant Flow'rs,
Unless refresh'd by genial Show'rs ;
So without Moisture we decay ;
And Reason withers quite away.
Topers are by no Laws confin'd,
For sober Wretches first design'd.
With silence take the ample Pull,
But roar it out when you are full.
Each Brimmer to the Bottom drain,
And suck, until you suck in vain.
Let no Man jog your lifted Arm,
Nor do the Glass or Liquor harm.
What I prescribe send briskly down,
And stand with Vigour to the Gown ;
Drink as you please, drink slow or fast :
But drink 'till you get drunk at last.
Plunge deep in the Falernian Spring,
A Shallow is a dangerous thing ;
Let not thy Neighbours stand a dry,
But labour for a Votary,
Who drinks and serves his Fellows best,
In toping shall outstrip the rest.
A F------1 for all the Cynic Race,
To well-bred Bacchus a disgrace,
No rigid Dotard can there be
So blest in his Frugality,
MERRY-GO-DOWN
But would above a flowing Cann,
Be reckon'd much the happier Man.
If you'd the drinking Art profess,
And learn to tipple to excess,
Turn ancient Soakers Annals o'er,
Whom still the boozing Clubs adore ;
Make Epicurus your delight,
For he's the Drunkard's Stagy rite.
Here the gay Cock calls in the Beaus,
To rant and revel 'till he crows :
The Anchor there invites to tope,
And with the Drink infuses Hope.
The Ship in Nectar dips her Sail,
The Dolphin floats in Floods of Ale.
Shun ev'ry sober Inclination,
Good Manners, Shame and Moderation.
Put not your Palate out of taste,
But chuse a sweet and wholesome Feast.
Think that your Mouth's the common Gate,
By which you take your Drink and Meat.
Carouse it up in Bacchus' Name,
And ne'er the liquid God blaspheme ;
Keep safe your Glass and Bottle too,
To drink when e'er you come or go.
Shun whatsoe'er to Vertue tends,
And I and Bacchus are your Friends.
Farewell and take your Glass.
[Eubulus Oxonlensls. 172
126
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE LUBBER POWER
UT first the fuel'd chimney blazes wide ;
The tankards foam ; and the strong table groans
Beneath the smoaking sirloin, stretch'd immense
From side to side ; in which, with desperate knife,
They deep incision make, and talk the while
Of ENGLAND'S glory, ne'er to be defac'd
While hence they borrow vigour : or amain
Into the pasty plung'd, at intervals,
If stomach keen can intervals allow,
Relating all the glories of the chase.
Then sated Hunger bids his brother Thirst
Produce the mighty bowl ; the mighty bowl,
Swell'd high with fiery juice, steams liberal round
A potent gale, delicious, as the breath
Of Maia to the love-sick shepherdess,
On violets diffus'd, whilst soft she hears
Her panting shepherd stealing to her arms.
Nor wanting in the brown October, drawn,
Mature and perfect, from his dark retreat
Of thirty years ; and now his honest front
Flames in the light refulgent, not afraid
Even with the vineyard's best produce to vie.
To cheat the thirsty moments, whist a-while
Walks his dull round, beneath a cloud of smoak,
Wreath'd, fragrant, from the pipe ; or the quick dice,
In thunder leaping from the box, awake
The sounding gammon : while romp-loving miss
Is haul'd about, in gallantry robust.
AT last these puling idlenesses laid
Aside, frequent and full, the dry divan
Close in firm circle ; and set, ardent, in
For serious drinking. Nor evasion sly,
Nor sober shift, is to the puking wretch
Indulg'd apart ; but earnest, brimming bowls
Lave every soul, the table floating round,
And pavement, faithless to the fuddled foot.
Thus as they swim in mutual swill, the talk,
Vociferous at once from twenty tongues,
Reels fast from theme to theme ; from horses, hounds,
To
church or mistress, politics or ghost,
In endless mazes, intricate, perplex'd.
Mean-time, with sudden interruption, loud,
Th' impatient catch bursts from the joyous heart ;
That moment touch'd is every kindred soul ;
And, opening in a full-mouth'd Cry of joy,
The laugh, the slap, the jocund curse go round ;
While, from their slumbers shook, the kennel'd hounds
Mix in the music of the day again.
As when the tempest, that has vex'd the deep
The dark night long, with fainter murmurs falls :
So gradual sinks their mirth. Their feeble tongues,
Unable to take up the cumbrous word,
Lie quite dissolv'd. Before their maudlin eyes,
Seen dim, and blue, the double tapers dance,
Like the sun wading thro* the misty sky.
Then, sliding soft, they drop. Confus'd above,
127
128
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Glasses and bottles, pipes and gazetteers,
As if the table even itself was drunk,
Lie a wet broken scene ; and wide, below,
Is heap'd the social slaughter : where astride
The lubber Power in filthy triumph sits,
Slumbrous, inclining still from side to side,
And steeps them drench'd in potent sleep till morn.
Perhaps some doctor, of tremendous paunch,
Awful and deep, a black abyss of drink,
Out-lives them all ; and from his bury'd flock
Retiring, full of rumination sad,
Laments the weakness of these latter times.
[james Thomson. Autumn : The Seasons,\
MERRY-GO-DOWN
129
IN MEMORY OF
THOMAS FLETCHER
A GRENADIER OF THE NORTH REGIMENT OF HANTS MILITIA.
WHO DIED OF A VIOLENT FEVER, CONTRACTED BY DRINKING
SMALL BEER WHEN HOT, THE 12TH OF MAY 1769. AGED
26 YEARS
In grateful remembrance of whose universal good will
towards his comrades■, this stone is placed here
at their expense as a small testimony of
their regard & concern.
Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,
Who caught his death by drinking cold small beer.
Soldiers, be wise from his untimely fall,
And, when ye're hot, drink strong or none at all.
[From a tombstone near the west door of
Winchester Cathedral.]
A
MORAL MAN
Sunday', Feb. 8, 1754.
S 1 by experience find how much more conducive
it is to my health, as well as pleasantness and
serenity to my mind, to live in a low, moderate
rate of diet, and as I know I shall never be able
to comply therewith in so strickt a manner as I should chuse,
by the unstable and over-easyness of my temper, I think
it therefore fit to draw up Rules of proper Regimen, which
I do in the manner and form following, which I hope I
shall always have the stricktest regard to follow, as I think
they are not inconsistent with either religion or morality.
If I am at home, or in company abroad, I will never
drink more than four glasses of strong beer : one to toast
the King's health, the second to the Royal Family, the third
to all friends, and the fourth to the pleasure of the company.
If there is either wine or punch, never upon any terms or
perswasion to drink more than eight glasses, each glass to
hold no more than half a quarter of a pint.
Sunday, March 28M, 1756.—I went down to Jones,
where we drank one bowl of punch and two muggs of
bumboo ; and I came home again in liquor. Oh ! with
what horrors does it fill my heart, to think I should be guilty
of doing so, and on a Sunday too ! Let me once more
endeavour never, no never to be guilty of the same again.
"Jan. 26th, 1757.—We went down to Whyly, and staid
and supped there ; we came home between twelve and one
o'clock—I may say, quite sober, considering the house we
was at, though undoubtedly the worse for drinking, having,
I believe, contracted a slight impediment in my speech,
occasioned by the fumes of the liquor operating too furiously
on my brain.
Jan. 28.—I went down to Mrs. Porter's, and acquainted
her I could not get her gown before Monday, who received
130
MERRY-GO-DOWN I 3 I
me with all the affability, courtesy, and good humour
immaginable. Oh ! what a pleasure would it be to serve
them.
Feb. 2.—We supped at Mr. Fuller's and spent the
evening with a great deal of mirth, till between one and two.
Tho. Fuller brought my wife home upon his back. I
cannot say I came home sober, though I was far from being
bad company. I think we spent the evening with a great
deal of pleasure.
Thursday■, Feb. 25.—This morning about six o'clock just
as my wife was got to bed, we was awaked by Mrs. Porter,
who pretended she wanted some cream of tartar ; but as
soon as my wife got out of bed, she vowed she should come
down. She found Mr. Porter, Mr. Fuller and his wife,
with a lighted candle, and part of a bottle of wine and a
glass. The next thing was to have me down stairs, which
being apprized of, I fastened my door. Up stairs they
came, and threatened to break it open ; so I ordered the
boys to open it, when they poured into my room ; and, as
modesty forbid me to get out of bed, so I refrained ; but
their immodesty permitted them to draw me out of bed, as
the common phrase is, topsy-turvey ; but, however, at the
intercession of Mr. Porter, they permitted me to put on my
------, and, instead of my upper cloaths, they gave me
time to put on my wife's petticoats ; and in this manner they
made me dance, without shoes and stockings, untill they
had emptied the bottle of wine, and also a bottle of my beer.
. . . About three o'clock in the afternoon, they found their
way to their respective homes, beginning to be a little serious,
and, in my opinion, ashamed of their stupid enterprise
and drunken preambulation. Now, let any one call in
reason to his assistance, and seriously reflect on what I
have before recited, and they will join with me in thinking
that the precepts delivered from the pulpit on Sunday,
tho' delivered with the greatest ardour, must lose a great
deal of their efficacy by such examples.
Sunday-, March, 3.—We had as good a sermon
as I ever heard Mr. Porter preach, it being against
swearing.
I32 MERRY-GO-DOWN
Friday, March ij.—Now I hope all revelling for this
season is over ; and may I never more be discomposed with
so much drink, or by the noise of an obstreperious multitude,
but that I may calm my troubled mind, and sooth my
disturbed conscience.
Nov. 25, 1763.—Mr. ------, the curate of Laughton,
came to the shop in the forenoon, and he having bought
some things of me (and I could wish he had paid for them),
dined with me, and also staid in the afternoon till he got in
liquor, and being so complaisant as to keep him company,
I was quite drunk. How do I detest myself for being so
foolish !
[thomas turner. Diary.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
*33
INTERRUPTIONS
1770. July 15.
READ Prayers and preached at Cary Church
and whilst I was preaching one Tho8 Speed of
Galhampton came into the Church quite drunk
and crazy and made a noise in the Church,
called the Singers a Pack of Whoresbirds and gave me a nod
or two in the pulpit. The Constable Roger Coles Sen*
took him into custody and will have him before a Magistrate
to-morrow.
1774. July 5.
(at a performance at Oxford of the oratorio " Hercules ")
Mr. Woodhouse a gent : Com : of University College was
very drunk at the Theatre and cascaded in the middle of
the Theatre. Mr. Highway one of the nominal Proctors
for this week desired him to withdraw very civilly but
he was desired by one Mr. Peddle a gent : com : of St.
Mary Hall not to mind him, my seeing Mr. Highway in
that distress I went to them myself and insisted upon Wood-
house going away immediately from the Theatre, and then
Peddle behaved very impertinently to me, at which I in-
sisted upon his coming to me to-morrow morning. Mr.
Woodhouse after some little time retired, but Peddle re-
mained and behaved very impertinently, I therefore in-
tend putting him in the black Book.
[rev. james woodforde : The Diary of a
Country Parson, Vol. L]
*34
MERRY-GO-DOWN
NEXT MORNING
HAT means this fury in my veins ?
This fire that hisses through my brain ?
Ah me ! my head ! my head !
My pulses beat ; parch'd up my tongue ;
Dry are my palms, my nerves unstrung ;
And every sense is fled.
Now nauseous qualms my bosom heave,
And oh ! such sad sensations give,
Too exquisite to name !
In dizzy mists my eye-balls swim ;
A languor creeps o'er every limb,
And all unmans my frame.
What crime, or what offence of mine,
Could so provoke the powers divine,
This punishment to send ?
Poison to man I never gave ;
Ne'er wish'd my father in his grave ;
Nor ever stabb'd my friend.
But patience ! I deserve it all.
What name shall I my folly call ?
My folly ! oh ! 'twas madness.
With blooming health my bosom glow'd ;
Calm and serene my spirits flow'd,
And fill'd my heart with gladness.
Freedom, with sweet Contentment join'd,
And Fortune, too, with smiles was kind,
To crown my happy days ;
No fears my humble state annoy'd ;
Life's every blessing I enjoy'd ;
And Peace smooth'd all my ways.
When, lo ! a cruel spoiler came ;
Disguis'd with Friendship's sacred name,
A treacherous design :
MERRY-GO-DOWN I35
He talk'd of Mirth, of Joy, of Jest ;
His arts prevail'd ; he gave a feast ;
And, oh ! he gave me Wine.
Frequent and full the glass I quaff ;
Louder and more no man could laugh ;
I thought not of To-morrow ;
But dire misfortunes did succeed ;
To-morrow brought an aching head,
And fill'd my heart with sorrow.
Oh ! fatal, and accursed hour,
And Claret's more pernicious power :
How could a friend do this ?
To cheat me with a seeming joy,
And in a moment to destroy
Whole years of treasur'd bliss.
Restore, restore the genial day ;
Restore my spirits free and gay,
And give me back my senses ;
Happy, if e'er again I find
Dear Health of Body, Peace of Mind,
I'll smile, and pity princes.
But farewell feast, and farewell riot ;
For sober ease, and decent quiet,
The bottle I resign ;
Firm to pursue this better plan,
To drink small-beer, and make the man,
Fair Temperance, ever thine.
[The Shamrock. 1773.]
DR.
JOHNSON ON DRUNKENNESS
iETAT 66
E asserted that the present was never a happy-
state to any human being ; but that, as every part
of life, of which we are conscious, was at some
point of time a period yet to come, in which
felicity was expected, there was some happiness produced
by hope. Being pressed upon this subject, and asked
if he really was of opinion that though, in general, happi-
ness was very rare in human life, a man was not sometimes
happy in the moment that was present, he answered, " Never,
but when he is drunk."
MTAHl 6j
HERE is no private house in which people can
enjoy themselves so well, as at a capital tavern.
Let there be ever so great plenty of good things,
ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance,
ever so much desire that every body should be easy ;
in the nature of things it cannot be : there must always
be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of
the house is anxious to entertain his guests ; the guests
are anxious to be agreeable to him : and no man, but a
very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is
in another man's house, as if it were his own. Whereas,
at a tavern, there is a general freedom from anxiety. You
are sure you are welcome : and the more noise you make,
the more trouble you give, the more good things you call
for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you
with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the
prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please.
No, Sir ; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by
man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good
tavern or inn.
136
MERRY-GO-DOWN
137
iETAT 70
N Wednesday April 7, I dined with him at Sir
Joshua Reynolds'. I have not marked what
company was there. Johnson harangued upon
the qualities of different liquors ; and spoke
with great contempt of claret, as so weak, that " a man would
be drowned by it before it made him drunk." He was
persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not
from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate
sensation. He shook his head, and said, " Poor stuff !
No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys ; port for men ; but
he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy.
In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful to
the palate ; and then brandy will do soonest for a man
what drinking can do for him. There are, indeed, few
who are able to drink brandy. That is a power rather to be
wished for than attained. And yet, (proceeded he) as in all
pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition
comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the
worst ; it is wine only to the eye ; it is wine neither while
you are drinking it, nor after you have drunk it; it neither
pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirits." I reminded him
how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we
were first acquainted ; and how I used to have a head-ache
after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this
recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly,
resolved to have a witty stroke at me : " Nay, Sir, it was
not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that
I put into it." bos well : " What, Sir ! will sense make
the head ache ?" Johnson. " Yes, Sir, (with a smile) when
it is not used to it."
i38
MERRY-GO-DOWN
MTAT 70
ALKING of the effects of drinking, he said,
" Drinking may be practised with great prudence ;
a man who exposes himself when he is intoxi-
cated, has not the art of getting drunk ; a sober
man who happens occasionally to get drunk, readily enough
goes into a new company, which a man who has been drink-
ing should never do. Such a man will undertake any thing;
he is without skill in inebriation. I used to slink home, when
I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examina-
tions will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual
drunkard will not be conscious of it. I knew a physician who
for twenty years was not sober ; yet in a pamphlet, which he
wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his
vindication from a charge of drunkenness. A bookseller
(naming him) who got a large fortune by trade, was so habitu-
ally and equably drunk, that his most intimate friends
never perceived that he was more sober at one time than
another.
MERRY-GO-DOWN I39
BOSWELL DRUNK
T an assizes at Lancaster, we found Dr. Johnson's
friend, Jemmy Boswell, lying upon the pavement,
—inebriated. We subscribed at supper a guinea
for him and half a crown for his clerk, and sent
him, when he waked next morning, a brief with instructions
to move, for what we denominated the writ of Quare adhaesit
pavimento, with observations, duly calculated to induce
him to think that it required great learning to explain the
necessity of granting it to the judge, before whom he was
to move. Boswell sent all round the town to attornies for
books, that might enable him to distinguish himself—but
in vain. He moved however for the writ, making the best
use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge
was perfectly astonished, and the audience amazed.—The
judge said, " I never heard of such a writ—what can it be
that adheres pavimento ?—Are any of you gentlemen at the
bar able to explain this ? " The Bar laughed. At last
one of them said, " My Lord, Mr. Boswell last night adhaesit
pavimento. There was no moving him for some time. At
last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about
himself and the pavement."
[From the Anecdote Book of lord eldon,
quoted in horace twiss, The Public and
Private Life of Lord Chancellor Eldon,
1844; anno 1782.]
140
MERRY-GO-DOWN
I LOVE IT
DO fairly acknowledge that I love Drinking ;
that I have a constitutional inclination to indulge
in fermented liquors, and that if it were not for
the restraints of reason and religion, I am afraid
I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man. . . .
Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a
considerable portion of the time of many people ; and
to conduct it in the most rational and agreeable manner is
one of the great arts of living.
It is in vain for those who drink liberally to say that it is
only for the sake of good company. Because it is very
certain that if the wine were removed the company would
soon break up, and it is plain that where wine is largely
drunk there is less true social intercourse than in almost any
other situation. Every one is intent upon the main object.
His faculties are absorbed in the growing ebriety, the pro-
gress of which becomes more rapid every round, and all
are for the moment persuaded of the force of that riotous
maxim which I believe has been seriously uttered, that
" Conversation spoils drinking."
Were we so framed that it were possible by perpetual
supplies of wine to keep ourselves for ever gay and happy,
there could be no doubt that drinking would be the summum
6onum, the chief good, to find out which philosophers have
been so variously busied. We should then indeed produce
in ourselves by the juice of the grape the effects which the
seducing serpent pretended our first parents would feel by
eating of the forbidden tree in the midst of the garden.
We should " be as gods knowing good and evil ; " and
such a wild imagination of felicity must have filled the mind
of Homer, when he thought of representing the gods of
the Greeks as drinking in heaven, as he does in so high a
strain of poetry, that one forgets the absurdity of the mytho-
logy. But we know from humiliating experience that men
cannot be kept long in a state of elevated drunkenness.
[boswell. The Hypochondriack.}
re*?-"
'dfoJV
*4»
142
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE VICAR AND MOSES
T the sign of the Horse old Spintext, of course,
Each night took his pipe and his pot.
O'er a Jorum of nappy quite pleasant and happy
Was plac'd this canonical Sot. Tol de rol.
The evening was dark, when in came the Clerk
With reverence due, and submission.
First strok'd his cravat, then twirl'd round his hat,
And bowing preferr'd his petition.
" I'm come, Sir," says he, " to beg, look, d'ye see,
Of your reverend worship and glory
To inter a poor baby with as much speed as may be,
And I'll walk with the lanthorn before ye."
" The body we'll bury, but, pray, where's the hurry ? "
" Why, lord, sir, the corpse it does stay."
" You fool, hold your peace : since miracles cease
A corpse, Moses, can't run away.
" Bring Moses some beer and bring me some d'ye hear ?
I hate to be called from my liquor.
Come, Moses ' the King ' ! 'Tis a scandalous thing
Such a subject should be but a vicar."
Then Moses he spoke : "Sir 'tis past twelve o'clock ;
Besides, there's a terrible shower."
" Why, Moses, you elf, since the clock has struck twelve,
I'm sure it can never strike more.
" Besides, my dear friend, this lesson attend
Which to say and to swear I'll be bold,
That the corpse snow or rain can't endanger, that's plain,
But perhaps you or I may take cold."
MERRY-GO-DOWN I43
Then Moses went on : " Sir, the clock has struck one.
Pray, Master, look up at the hand ! "
" Why, it ne'er can strike less ! ' Tis a folly to press
A man for to go that can't stand."
At length hat and cloak old Orthodox took,
But first cramm'd his jaw with a quid.
Each tipt off a gill, for fear they should chill,
And then stagger'd away side by side.
When come to the grave, the clerk humm'd a stave
Whilst the surplice was wrapp'd round the priest,
Where so droll was the figure of Moses and Vicar
That the parish still talk of the jest.
" Good people let's pray—put the corpse t'other way,
Or perchance I shall over it stumble.
'Tis best to take care, though the Sages declare
A mortuum caput can't tremble.
" Woman that's born of man—that's wrong, the leaf's torn—
Oh ! Man that is born of a woman
Can't continue an hour, but is cut down like a flower—
You see, Moses, Death spareth no man.
" Here, Moses, do look what a confounded book—
Sure the letters are turn'd upside down !
Such a scandalous print, sure the devil is in't,
That this Basket should print for the crown.
" Prithee, Moses, you read, for I cannot proceed,
And bury the corpse in my stead."
" AMEN, AMEN — "
" Why, Moses, you're wrong ! Pray hold still your
tongue ;
You've taken the tail for the head !
4ff
| r^-2~ " . | *P | . S£»- "viH | ||||
| «?•»--• -^ | ||||||
| .--:-\\} | ||||||
| Xkj?l&^jf*jZjS&2*^ | PPISbI | |||||
| CpW*}-*^ | ||||||
" Oh, where's thy sting, Death ! Put the corpse in the Earth
For, believe me, 'tis terrible weather."
So the corpse was interr'd without praying a word,
And away they both stagger'd together.
Singing tol de rol, &c.
[Eighteenth-century ballad.}
H4
MERRY-GO-DOWN
H5
MORLAND'S BUB FOR ONE DAY AT
BRIGHTON (having nothing to do.)
Hollands Gin
Rum and Milk
Coffee
Hollands
Porter
Shrub
Ale
Hollands and Water
Port Wine with Ginger
Bottled Porter
Port Wine
Porter
Bottled do.
Punch
Porter
Ale
Opium and Water
Port Wine
Gin and Water
Shrub
Rum on going to bed.
[george dawe.
Morland\.
before Breakfast
- Breakfast
\
before
dinner
- at Dinner and after.
- at Supper
The Life of George
MERRY-GO-DOWN
SONG OF THE BRIDEGROOM
ON'T, now, be after being coy ;
Sit still upon my lap, dear joy !
And let us, at our breakfast, toy,
For thou art Wife to me, Judy !
And I am bound, by wedlocks chain,
Thy humble servant to remain,
Sir Tooleywhagg O'Shaughnashane,
The Husband unto thee, Judy !
Each Vassal, at our Wedding-Feast,
Blind drunk, last night, as any beast,
Roar'd till the daylight streak'd the East,
Which spoil'd the sleep of thee, Judy I
Feasts in the Honey-Moon are right ;
But, that once o'er, my heart's delight !
Nought shall disturb thee, all the night,
Or ever waken me, Judy !
The skins of Wolves,—by me they bled,—
Are covers to our Marriage-Bed ;
Should one, in hunting, bite me dead,
A Widow thou wilt be, Judy I
Howl at my Wake ! 'twill be but kind ;
And, if I leave, as I've design'd,
Some little Tooleywhaggs behind,
They'll sarve to comfort thee, Judy !
[george colman. From The Lady of
the Wreck> in Poetical Vagaries.]
MPJ.
MM
*47
PORTRAIT OF A NOBLEMAN
Charles Howard, Earl of Surrey {afterwards Duke of Norfolk.)
ATURE, which cast him in her coarsest mould,
had not bestowed on him any of the external
insignia of high descent. His person, large,
muscular, and clumsy, was destitute of grace
or dignity, though he possessed much activity. He might
indeed have been mistaken for a grazier or a butcher, by his
dress and appearance ; but intelligence was marked in his
features, which were likewise expressive of frankness and
sincerity. ... In his youth he led a most licentious life,
having frequently passed the whole night in excesses of
every kind, and even lain down, when intoxicated, occasion-
ally to sleep in the streets, or on a block of wood. At the
" Beef-steak Club," where I have dined with him, he seemed
to be in his proper element. But few individuals of that
society could sustain a contest with such an antagonist,
when the cloth was removed. In cleanliness he was negli-
gent to so great a degree, that he rarely made use of water
for purposes of bodily refreshment and comfort. He even
carried the neglect of his person so far, that his servants
were accustomed to avail themselves of his fits of intoxication,
for the purpose of washing him. On those occasions, being
wholly insensible to all that passed about him, they stripped
him as they would have done a corpse, and performed on
his body the necessary ablutions. Nor did he change his
linen more frequently than he washed himself. Complain-
ing one day to Dudley North that he was a martyr to the
rheumatism, and had ineffectually tried every remedy for
its relief, " Pray, my lord," said he, " did you ever try a
clean shirt ? "
Drunkenness was in him an hereditary vice, transmitted
down, probably, by his ancestors from the Plantagenet
times, and inherent in his formation. His father, the Duke
of Norfolk, indulged equally in it; but he did not manifest
148
MERRY-GO-DOWN I49
the same capacities as the son, in resisting the effects of wine.
It is a fact that Lord Surrey, after laying his father and all
the guests under the table at the Thatched House tavern
in St. James's-street, has left the room, repaired to another
festive party in the vicinity and there recommenced the un-
finished convivial rites ; realizing Thomson's description
of the parson in his " Autumn," who, after the fox-chase,
survives his company in the celebration of these orgies.
[sir n. w. wraxall. Posthumous Memoirs
of his own time.]
L
GROG
PLAGUE
on these musty old lubbers,
Who tell us to fast and to think,
And with patience fall in with life's rubbers,
With nothing but water to drink :
A can of good stuff, had they twigg'd it,
Would have set them with pleasure agog,
In spite of the rules
Of the schools,
The old fools
Would all of them swigg'd it,
And swore there was nothing like grog.
My father, when last I from Guinea
Returned with abundance of wealth,
Cried, "Jack, never be such a ninny
As to drink ! " Says I, " Father, your health ! "
So I shew'd him the stuff, and he twigg'd it,
And it set the old cadger agog,
And he swigg'd, and mother
And sister, and brother,
And I swigg'd, and all of us swigg'd it,
And swore there was nothing like grog.
IJO
MERRY-GO-DOWN I5I
'Tother day as the chaplain was preaching,
Behind him I curiously slunk,
And while he our duty was teaching,
As how we should never get drunk,
I shew'd him the stuff and he twigg'd it,
And it soon set his reverence agog,
And he swigg'd and Nick swigg'd
And Ben swigg'd and Dick swigg'd
And I swigg'd, and all of us swigg'd it,
And swore there was nothing like grog.
Then trust me there's nothing like drinking,
So pleasant on this side the grave ;
It keeps the unhappy from thinking,
And makes e'en more valiant the brave,
As for me, since the moment I twigg'd it,
The good stuff has so set me agog,
Sick or well, late or early
Wind foully or fairly,
Helm a-lee or a-wether
Four hours together,
I've constantly swigg'd it,
And damme, there's nothing like grog.
[Early XIX cent, broadsheet^
A
COBLER AND HIS WIFE
An account of a horrible dispute which took place between a
Cobler, and his Wife the day of King Crispian's procession,
WONDER where does my old cobling, bung-
ling, sapless, brainless noddle ramble to at this
time of the night, amongst his drunken sots and
companions I'll warrant you ; but I'll go seek for
him, and if I meet with a spark upon the way that will tip
me a sixpence to graft a pair of horns upon his head, and
make him a fit companion for the rest of the Ram-horned
bucks of the town. When I found him, he was sitting
in a tap-room of that well known Public-house, the sign of
the Cat and Bagpipes, crying out, Landlord be frisky, and
bring us more whisky, for we'll never be hanged for debt.
When in comes his dear loving wife, with a hey-day Mr.
Mend-all, Mr. Spend-all, Mr. Good-for-nothing-at-all, bad
in bed and worse up, have I found you here roaring out
for more guzel, whilst I and your three poor children at
home have neither meat, drink nor candle light, but in a
starving condition ; I tell you what Margery, sit down
and be good company, these are all my old friends and
acquaintances, and will help me to more work ; it was
Rob, Tom and Harry, that brought me here to spend our
three farthings a-piece ; I, with a plague to you and them
both ; three farthings might be your challenge, but will
*52
MERRY-GO-DOWN 153
as many shillings pay your shot. I'll tell you what, my
dear wife, if you do not sit down and be good company,
walk home, take your supper, and go to bed, and I'll follow
you when I am ready. The poor woman never grew
angry till she heard the word go home ; I believe she would
sooner have got a glass of whisky at the time, when she
began to him with you funk, you fop, you kitchen sop, you
juis of a dish-cloath, you syrop of a cinder, you hog, you
cobling dog and worse, there has not been as much meat in
our house for this week past as would feed a mous, were it
not for the honest Stitchsteck to get a bit to keep soul and
body together for farting I would tell you how I get it to,
and that would be nothing to your credit.
O you scandless jade how can you say so ; where is the
half peck of coals and the sixpenny loaf that I left in the
cupboard the other day, your house is liker a cook-shop
than a poor man's house ; if I hear any more of your com-
plaints I'll give you breakfast with strap leather to-mo-row
morning, that will serve you for six months or longer;
you wish to make me believe that I don't know the difference
between sheeps-head and a carrot ; nor do you know
the difference yourself, you rascle, were it not for our
honest neighbour Mr. Stitch the tailor, your poor children
would long since been in the poorhouse, you in bridwell,
and your poor wife in bedlam. O madam, I understand
how the game goes, you and Mr. Stitch takes a stitch in
my absence ; but I swear by my last and awl, if ever he
enters my house or stall, I'll castrate the rascle, and tell the
merry tale to the rest of my horned companions how I
spoil'd your sport.
She did not like to hear the tailor beat down in such a
manner, she flew at him like a pole-cat, fastened her claws
in the hair of his head, crying out you rascle if all your
soundering, brazering, tinkering, coopering, soot-bag society
were at your back I would let you know the difference
between sheeps-head and a carrot.—The clock struck twelve,
the landlord bundled them both out of doors, and they walked
both hastily up the street for fear of police, and got into
their own house, where they ended the battle with the strap
and pitchers.
[Miscellaneous Broadsides 1819-3 1.]
154 MERRY-GO-DOWN
REELING DRUNK
WOULD to heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—
Because at least the past were pass'd away—
And for the future—(but I write this reeling
Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say—the future is a serious matter—
And so—for God's sake—hock and soda-water !
BYRON.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE LEAKY VESSEL
IRCO, an old but am'rous blade,
Had some time kept a pretty maid,
Whom to seduce he oft had tried,
But had as often been denied :
Fair promises at first were us'd,
But these with scorn the girl refus'd ;
Nor could his coin prevail upon her,
To sell her love or wound her honor.
Hirco had all his life been one
They call a boon companion ;
And in his house had always liquor
To entertain the squire or vicar.
Man's greatest sin, he often said,
Was sneaking soberly to bed ;
And therefore he, for conscience* sake,
A hearty dose would often take.
Then fancy brought into his arms
His maid, dress'd up in all her charms.
Her ruddy cheeks, her well-turn'd nose,
Her little mouth, her eyes like sloes.
A thousand beauties yet unseen,
That might have tempted saints to sin,
Made Hirco wish he might renew
Th' attack he once had made on Sue.
For Sue had more than once withstood
His fierce attacks, and call'd him lewd
And doting fool—nay, often swore,
She would not stay a moment more.
And by her threats, old Hirco strove
To banish his ill-fated love.
It happen'd on a certain night,
That Hirco did some friends invite.
The sparkling glass went briskly round,
And well each toper stood his ground.
At length 'twas late ; the watchful cock
Had long since crow'd it twelve o'clock ;
And all well knew, tho' none had grace
MERRY-GO-DOWN
To own it, bed the prop'rest place.
Here one extended on the floor
In liquor swam, yet call'd for more.
Some bawl'd, and most to sleep began,
So much indeed, that there was scarce a man,
Save Hirco and a bottle friend,
Well-pois'd enough to sit on end.
With grief the master of the feast
Beheld the state of ev'ry guest.
He wish'd he could with all his heart
New vigour to them all impart.
My friends, said he, come let's cheer up,
And briskly take the other cup :
A plague, what makes you all so dull ?
A han't got half my belly full :
Rouse up, for shame, my jolly boys,
Be merry, drink, and make a noise.
I've in my cellar now a tub,
Believe me, friends, of charming bub ;
To keep it longer would be folly—
I'll pierce it now, and we'll be jolly,
He said, and rising on his legs,
Takes up a piercer, cuts some pegs,
A tankard seizes—thus equipp'd
Down into the cellar slipt.
Old Hirco's maid, 'twixt hope and fear,
Her master's last discourse did hear ;
For tho' she kept her person chaste,
And love unlawful would not taste,
Yet the poor girl was often dry,
And lov'd good liquor by the bye ;
And when old Hirco was without,
She'd to the tub, pull vent-peg out,
And with a straw, the cunning gipsy
Would sometimes suck till she was tipsy ;
And as she never chose the worst,
This tub had often quench'd her thirst.
But now she found the time was come
T' acquit her, or pronounce her doom :
Her master now must miss his drink,
MERRY-GO-DOWN
Or else, to-morrow, he would think
His friends had what was missing drank,
And ne'er mistrust his Sukey's prank ;
Hence must the beer be poor and flat,
But she, poor soul, ne'er thought of that.
Meanwhile the busy honest drunkard
Had with it fill'd a swinging tankard ;
And from the cellar making haste,
He gave it to his friends to taste.
Each made a mouth and shook his head—
The beer was vile! 'twas flat and dead !
But Hirco loudly spurn'd a tale
Which so disgrac'd his choicest ale.
But how bewilder'd did he look,
To find that truth his friends had spoke !
No doubt, said one, the beer's well brew'd ;
The fault's the vessel's where it stood ;
Or else the bung-hole is in fault,
By not being stopp'd up as it ought.
Cried Hirco, I'm a fool or blind,
If I don't very shortly find
The fatal cause of this disaster.—
Sukey went down to light her master ;
But was indeed in such a fright,
She scarce had pow'r to hold the light.
Now Hirco by his knuckle found
The barrel gave an empty sound :
Surpris'd, he cries, I am undone !
Why, Susan, half my beer is gone !
Old Fillpot from above replied,
Search under, and on ev'ry side :
I'll stake a crown, if you'll but seek
About the tub, you'll find a leak !
While thus the crafty tippler said,
Hirco by chance look'd on his maid.
Disorder'd and confus'd she stood,
Her cheek suffus'd with shame-fac'd blood.
As from her master quick she turn'd,
MERRY-GO-DOWN
He cried, Why, Sukey, I'll be burn'd
If you han't someway been the ruin
Of this my last October brewing.
She trembling on her knees did fall,
His pardon begg'd, and told him all.
Said he, This tale will make my friends
For want of liquor some amends ;
I'll up, and tell them all, I swear !
For Pity's sake, said she, forbear.
Alas ! can nothing then atone
For such a fault ?—There is but one
That I can think of, he replied :
I've often ask'd, and you denied,
A little favor—if you'll grant it,
(And now I really think I want it,)
I'll hold my tongue :—if you refuse,
I'll up and out the story goes.
She paus'd, she blush'd, she cried, but knew
That nothing but his wish would do.
Meanwhile of kissing he'd his fill,
Nor could he keep his fingers still ;
One hand upon her bosom lay,
Whilst t'other took a difFrent way ;
Then on a faggot pile he laid
The tender, yielding, charming maid.
The wench was buxom, plump, and sappy,
And fit to make her lover happy.
Whilst engag'd in am'rous play,
Old Fillpot wonder'd at their stay,
And ask'd them what they were about !
Cried Hirco, Zounds ! the leak's found out
Thro' which my nectar daily flows.
Be sure, said Fillpot, stop it close.
I'll try, said he, but, 'pon my soul,
It is a monstrous swinging hole !
[Amatory Poetry, or The Banquet of Venus <Sf
Bacchus.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN 159
EXPIATION
E had a pleasure boat on the lake, which he steered
with amazing dexterity ; but as he always in-
dulged himself in the utmost possible latitude
of sail, he was occasionally upset by a sudden
gust, and was indebted to his skill in the art of swimming
for the opportunity of tempering with a copious libation of
wine the unnatural frigidity introduced into his stomach
by the extraordinary intrusion of water, an element which
he had religiously determined should never pass his lips,
but of which, on these occasions, he was sometimes compelled
to swallow no inconsiderable quantity. This circumstance
alone, of the various disasters that befell him, occasioned
him any permanent affliction, and he accordingly noted
the day in his pocket-book as a dies nefastus, with this
simple abstract, and brief chronicle of the calamity : Mem :
Swallowed two or three pints of water ; without any notice
whatever of the concomitant circumstances. These days, of
which there were several, were set apart in Headlong Hall
for the purpose of anniversary expiation ; and, as often as
the day returned on which the Squire had swallowed water,
he not only made a point of swallowing a treble allowance
of wine himself, but imposed a heavy mulct on every one of
his servants who should be detected in a state of sobriety
after sunset : but their conduct on these occasions was so
uniformly exemplary, that no instance of the infliction of
the penalty appears on record.
[t. l. peacock. Headlong Hall.]
i6o
MERRY-GO-DOWN
INTELLECTUAL DISCUSSION
mr. panscope (suddenly emerging from a deep reverie) :
HAVE heard, with the most profound attention,
everything which the gentleman on the other
side of the table has thought proper to advance
on the subject of human deterioration ; and I
must take the liberty to remark, that it augurs a very con-
siderable degree of presumption in any individual, to set
himself up against the authority of so many great men, as
may be marshalled in metaphysical phalanx under the oppo-
site banners of the controversy ; such as Aristotle, Plato,
the scholiast on Aristophanes, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome,
St. Athanasius, Orpheus, Pindar, Simonides, Gronovius,
Hemsterhusius, Longinus, Sir Isaac Newton, Thomas Paine,
Doctor Paley, the King of Prussia, the King of Poland,
Cicero, Monsieur Gautier, Hippocrates, Machiavelli, Milton,
Colley Cibber, Bojardo, Gregory, Nazianzenus, Locke,
D'Alembert, Boccaccio, Daniel Defoe, Erasmus, Doctor
Smollett, Zimmermann, Solomon, Confucius, Zoroaster, and
Thomas-a-Kempis.
mr. escot : I presume, sir, you are one of those who value
an authority more than a reason.
mr. panscope : The authority', sir, of all these great men,
whose works, as well as the whole of the Encyclopedia
Britannica, the entire series of the Monthly Review, the com-
plete set of the Variorum Classics, and the Memoirs of the
Academy of Inscriptions, I have read through from beginning
to end, deposes, with irrefragable refutation, against your
ratiocinative speculations, wherein you seem desirous, by
the futile process of analytical dialectics, to subvert the
pyramidal structure of synthetically deduced opinions, which
have withstood the secular revolutions of physiological
disquisition, and which I maintain to be transcendentally
self-evident, categorically certain, and syllogistically demon-
strable.
squire headlong : Bravo ! Pass the bottle. The very
best speech that ever was made.
mr. escot : It has only the slight disadvantage of being
unintelligible.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
161
mr. panscope : I am not obliged, sir, as Dr. Johnson
observed on a similar occasion, to furnish you with an
understanding.
mr. escot : I fear, sir, you would have some difficulty in
furnishing me with such an article from your own stock.
mr. panscope : 'Sdeath, sir, do you question my under-
standing ?
mr. escot : I only question, sir, where I expect a reply ;
which, from things that have no existence, I am not visionary
enough to anticipate.
mr. panscope : I beg leave to observe, sir, that my
language was perfectly perspicuous, and etymologically
correct ; and I conceive, I have demonstrated what I
shall now take the liberty to say in plain terms, that all
your opinions are extremely absurd.
mr. escot : I should be sorry, sir, to advance any opinion
that you would not think absurd.
mr. panscope : Death and fury, sir-------
mr. escot : Say no more, sir. That apology is quite
sufficient.
mr. panscope : Apology, sir ?
mr. escot : Even so, sir. You have lost your temper,
which I consider equivalent to a confession that you have
the worst of the argument.
mr. panscope : Lightning and devils ! sir-------
squire headlong : No civil war !—Temperance, in the
name of Bacchus !—A glee ! a glee ! Music has charms
to bend the knotted oak. Sir Patrick, you'll join ?
sir Patrick o'prism : Troth, with all my heart : for, by
my soul, I'm bothered completely.
squire headlong : Agreed, then : you, and I, and Chro-
matic. Bumpers !—bumpers ! Come, strike up.
Squire Headlong, Mr. Chromatic, and Sir Patrick
O'Prism, each holding a bumper, immediately vociferated
the following
glee.
A heeltap ! a heeltap ! I never could bear it !
So fill me a bumper, a bumper of claret !
Let the bottle pass freely, don't shirk it nor spare it,
For a heeltap ! a heeltap ! I never could bear it !
No
skylight ! no twilight ! while Bacchus rules o'er us
No thinking ! no shrinking ! all drinking in chorus :
Let us moisten our clay, since 'tis thirsty and porous :
No thinking ! no shrinking ! all drinking in chorus !
GRAND CHORUS
By Squire Headlong, Mr. Chromatic, Sir Patrick Oy Prism,
Mr. Panscope, Mr. Jenkinson, Mr. Gall, Mr. Treacle,
Mr. Nightshade, Mr. Mac Laurel, Mr. Cranium, Mr.
Milestone, and the Reverend Doctor Gaster.
A heeltap ! a heeltap ! I never could bear it !
So fill me a bumper, a bumper of Claret !
Let the bottle pass freely, don't shirk it nor spare it,
For a heeltap ! a heeltap ! I never could bear it.
0MAA02 KAI AOYIIOS OPQPEI
[t. l. peacock. Headlong Hall.]
i6z
THE
DRUNKENNESS OF SEITHENYN
The three immortal drunkards of the isle of Britain :
Ceraint of Essyllwg ; Gwrtheyrn Gwrthenau ; and Seithenyn
ap Seithyn Saidi.—Triads of the Isle of Britain.
HE sun had sunk beneath the waves when they
reached the castle of Seithenyn. The sound of
the harp and the song saluted them as they
approached it. As they entered the great hall,
which was already blazing with torchlight, they found his
highness, and his highness's household, convincing them-
selves and each other, with wine and wassail, of the excellence
of their system of virtual superintendence ; and the following
jovial chorus broke on the ears of the visitors :
THE CIRCLING OF THE MEAD HORNS
Fill the blue horn, the blue buffalo horn :
Natural is mead in the buffalo horn :
As the cuckoo in spring, as the lark in the morn,
So natural is mead in the buffalo horn.
As the cup of the flower to the bee when he sips,
Is the full cup of mead to the true Briton's lips :
From the flower-cups of summer, on field and on tree,
Our mead cups are filled by the vintager bee.
Seithenyn ap Seithyn, the generous, the bold,
Drinks the wine of the stranger from vessels of gold ;
But we from the horn, the blue silver-rimmed horn,
Drink the ale and the mead in our fields that were born.
The ale-froth is white, and the mead sparkles bright ;
They both smile apart, and with smiles they unite :
The mead from the flower, and the ale from the corn,
Smile, sparkle, and sing in the buffalo horn.
163
164 MERRY-GO-DOWN
The horn, the blue horn, cannot stand on its tip ;
Its path is right on from the hand to the lip :
Though the bowl and the wine-cup our tables adorn,
More natural the draught from the buffalo horn.
But Seithenyn ap Seithyn, the generous, the bold,
Drinks the bright-flowing wine from the far-gleaming gold :
The wine, in the bowl by his lip that is worn,
Shall be glorious as mead in the buffalo horn.
The horns circle fast, but their fountains will last,
As the stream passes ever, and never is past :
Exhausted so quickly, replenished so soon,
They wax and they wane like the horns of the moon.
Fill high the blue horn, the blue buffalo horn ;
Fill high the long silver-rimmed buffalo horn :
While the roof of the hall by our chorus is torn,
Fill, fill to the brim, the deep silver-rimmed horn.
Elphin and Teithrin stood some time on the floor of
the hall before they attracted the attention of Seithenyn,
who, during the chorus was tossing and flourishing his golden
goblet. The chorus had scarcely ended when he noticed
them, and immediately roared aloud " You are welcome all
four."
Elphin answered " We thank you : but we are two."
" Two or four," said Seithenyn ; "all is one. You are
welcome all. When a stranger enters, the custom in other
places is to begin by washing his feet. My custom is to
begin by washing his throat. Seithenyn ap Seithyn Saidi
bids you welcome.'
Elphin, taking the wine-cup, answered, " Elphin ap
Gwythno Garanhir thanks you."
Seithenyn started up. He endeavoured to straighten
himself into perpendicularity, and to stand steadily on
his legs. He accomplished half his object by stiffening all
his joints but those of his ankles, and from these the rest
of his body vibrated upwards with the inflexibility of a bar.
After thus oscillating for a time, like an inverted pendulum,
finding that the attention requisite to preserve his rigidity
absorbed all he could collect of his dissipated energies, and
MERRY-GO-DOWN 165
that he required a portion of them for the management of
his voice, which he felt a dizzy desire to wield with peculiar
steadiness in the presence of the son of the king, he suddenly
relaxed the muscles that perform the operation of sitting,
and dropped into his chair like a plummet. He then, with
a gracious gesticulation, invited Prince Elphin to take his
seat on his right hand, and proceeded to compose himself
into a dignified attitude, throwing his body back into the
left corner of his chair, resting his left elbow on its arm and
his left cheekbone on the middle of the back of his left
hand, placing his left foot on a footstool, and stretching out
his right leg as straight and as far as his position allowed.
He had thus his right hand at liberty, for the ornament of
his eloquence and the conduct of his liquor.
Elphin seated himself at the right hand of Seithenyn.
Teithrin remained at the end of the hall : on which Seithe-
nyn exclaimed, " Come on, man, come on. What, if you
be not the son of a king, you are the guest of Seithenyn ap
Seithyn Saidi. The most honourable place to the most
honourable guest, and the next most honourable place to
the next most honourable guest ; the least honourable guest
above the most honourable inmate ; and, where there are
but two guests, be the most honourable who he may, the least
honourable of the two is next in honour to the most honour-
able of the two, because they are no more but two ; and,
when there are only two, there can be nothing between.
Therefore sit, and drink. GWIN O EUR : wine from
gold !"
Elphin motioned Teithrin to approach, and sit next
to him.
Prince Seithenyn, whose liquor was " his eating and his
drinking solely," seemed to measure the gastronomy of his
guests by his own ; but his groom of the pantry thought the
strangers might be disposed to eat, and placed before them
a choice of provision, on which Teithrin ap Tathral did
vigorous execution.
" I pray your excuses," said Seithenyn ; " my stomach
is weak, and I am subject to dizziness in the head, and my
memory is not so good as it was, and my faculties of attention
are somewhat impaired, and I would dilate more upon the
topic, whereby you should hold me excused, but I am
troubled with a feverishness and parching of the mouth,
M
l66 MERRY-GO-DOWN
that very much injures my speech, and impedes my saying
all I would say, and will say before I have done, in token
of my loyalty and fealty to your highness and your high-
ness's house. I must just moisten my lips and I will then
proceed with my observations. Cupbearer, fill."
" Prince Seithenyn," said Elphin, " I have visited you
on a subject of deep moment. Reports have been brought
to me that the embankment, which has been so long entrusted
to your care, is in a state of dangerous decay."
" Decay," said Seithenyn, " is one thing, and danger is
another. Everything that is old must decay. That the
embankment is old, I am free to confess ; that it is somewhat
rotten in parts, I will not altogether deny ; that it is any the
worse for that, I do most sturdily gainsay. It does its
business well : it works well : it keeps out the water from
the land, and it lets in the wine upon the High Commission
of Embankment. Cupbearer, fill. Our ancestors were
wiser than we : they built it in their wisdom ; and if we
should be so rash as to try to mend it, we should only mar it."
" The stonework," said Teithrin, " is sapped and mined ;
the piles are rotten, broken, and dislocated : the flood-gates
and sluices are leaky and creaky."
" That is the beauty of it " said Seithenyn. " Some
parts of it are rotten, and some parts of it are sound."
" It is well," said Elphin, " that some parts are sound :
it were better that all were so."
" So I have heard some people say before," said Seithe-
nyn ; " perverse people, blind to venerable antiquity :
that very unamiable sort of people who are in the habit of
indulging their reason. But I say, the parts that are rotten
give elasticity to those that are sound : they give them
elasticity, elasticity, elasticity. If it were all sound, it would
break by its own obstinate stiffness : the soundness is checked
by the rottenness, and the stiffness is balanced by the elasticity.
There is nothing so dangerous as innovation. See the waves
in the equinoctial storms, dashing and clashing, roaring and
pouring, spattering and battering, rattling and battling
against it. I would not be so presumptuous as to say, I
could build anything that would stand against them half-an-
hour ; and here this immortal old work, which God forbid
the finger of modern mason should bring into jeopardy, this
immortal work has stood for centuries, and will stand for
MERRY-GO-DOWN 167
centuries more, if we let it alone. Cupbearer, fill. It was
half rotten when I was born, and that is a conclusive reason
why it should be three parts rotten when I die."
The whole body of the High Commission roared
approbation.
" And after all," said Seithenyn, " the worst that could
happen would be the overflow of a spring-tide, for that was
the worst that happened before the embankment was thought
of ; and, if the high water should come in, as it did before,
the low water would go out again, as it did before. We
should be no deeper in it than our ancestors were, and we
could mend as easily as they could make."
" The level of the sea," said Teithrin, " is materially
altered."
" The level of the sea ! " exclaimed Seithenyn. " Who
ever heard of such a thing as altering the level of the sea ?
Alter the level of that bowl of wine before you, in which, as
I sit here, I see a very ugly reflection of your very good-look-
ing face. Alter the level of that ; drink up the reflection :
let me see the face without the reflection, and leave the sea
to level itself."
" Not to level the embankment," said Teithrin.
" Good, very good," said Seithenyn. " I love a smart
saying, though it hits at me. But, whether yours is a smart
saying or no, I do not very clearly see ; and, whether it hits
at me or no, I do not very sensibly feel. But all is one.
Cupbearer, fill."
" I think," pursued Seithenyn, looking as intently as he
could at Teithrin ap Tathral, " I have seen something very
like you before. There was a fellow here the other day very
like you : he stayed here some time : he would not talk :
he did nothing but drink : he used to drink till he could
not stand, and then he went walking about the embankment.
I suppose he thought it wanted mending ; but he did not
say anything. If he had, I should have told him to embank
his own throat, to keep the liquor out of that. That would
have posed him : he could not have answered that : he
would not have had a word to say for himself after that."
" He must have been a miraculous person," said Teith-
rin, " to walk when he could not stand."
" All is one for that " said Seithenyn. " Cupbearer,
fill,"
i68
MERRY-GO-DOWN
" Prince Seithenyn," said Elphin, " if I were not aware
that wine speaks in the silence of reason, I should be aston-
ished at your strange vindication of your neglect of duty,
which I take shame to myself for not having sooner known
and remedied. The wise bard has well observed, * Nothing
is done without the eye of the king.' "
" I am very sorry," said Seithenyn, " that you see things
in the wrong light : but we will not quarrel for three reasons :
first, because you are the son of the king, and may do and
say what you please, without any one having a right to be
displeased : second, because I never quarrel with a guest,
even if he grows riotous in his cups : third, because there is
nothing to quarrel about; and perhaps that is the best reason
of the three ; or rather the first is the best, because you are
the son of the king ; and the third is the second, that is,
the second best, because there is nothing to quarrel about ;
and the second is nothing to the purpose, because, though
guests will grow riotous in their cups, in spite of my good
orderly example, God forbid I should say, that is the case
with you. And I completely agree in the truth of your
remark, that reason speaks in the silence of wine."
Seithenyn accompanied his speech with a vehement
swinging of his right hand ; in so doing, at this point, he
dropped his cup : a sudden impulse of rash volition to
pick it dexterously up before he resumed his discourse,
ruined all his devices for maintaining dignity ; in stooping
forward from his chair, he lost his balance, and fell prostrate
on the floor.
The whole body of the High Commission arose in
simultaneous confusion, each zealous to be the foremost in
uplifting his fallen chief. In the vehemence of their uprise,
they hurled the benches backward and the tables forward :
the crash of cups and bowls accompanied their overthrow ;
and rivulets of liquor ran gurgling through the hall. The
household wished to redeem the credit of their leader in
the eyes of the Prince ; but the only service they could
render him was to participate in his discomfiture ; for
Seithenyn, as he was first in dignity, was also, as was fitting,
hardest in skull : and that which had impaired his equilib-
rium had utterly destroyed theirs. Some fell, in the first
impulse, with the tables and benches ; others were trip-
ped up by the rolling bowls ; and the remainder fell at
MERRY-GO-DOWN 169
different points of progression, by jostling against each
other, or stumbling over those who had fallen before them.
Not drunk is he, who from the floor
Can rise alone, and still drink more ;
But drunk is he, who prostrate lies,
Without the power to drink or rise.
[t. l. peacock. The Misfortunes of Elphin.]
176
MERRY-GO-DOWN 171
A CURE FOR HICCUPS
OU have heard, no doubt, of many memorable
deeds performed by fire. You have read that
somebody set fire to Troy, Alexander to Perse-
polis, Nero to Rome, a baker to London, a
rascally Caliph to the treasures of Alexandria, and the brave
Mutius Scaevola to his own hand and arm, to frighten the
proud Porsenna into a peace ; but did you ever hear of a
man setting fire to his own shirt, to frighten away the
hiccup ? Such, however, is the climax I have alluded to ;
and this was the manner in which it was performed. " Damn
this hiccup ! " said Mytton, as he stood undressed on the
floor, apparently in the act of getting into his bed ; " but
I'll frighten it away ; " so seizing a lighted candle, he ap-
plied it to the tail of his shirt, and it being a cotton one, he
was instantly enveloped in flame.
Now, how was his life saved, is the next question that
might be asked. Why, by the active exertion of his London
customer, and of another stout and intrepid young man
that happened to be in the room, who jointly threw him
down on the ground, and tore his shirt from his body
piecemeal. Then here again comes John Mytton : " The
hiccup is gone, by------!" said he, and reeled naked into
his bed.
[nimrod. The Life of John Mytton.']
172
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE WORLD'S A TUN
'VE drunk 'mong slain deer in a lone mountain
shieling,
I've drunk till delirious,
While rain beat imperious,
And rang roof and rafter with bagpipes and reeling.
I've drunk in Red Rannock, amid its grey boulders:
Where, fain to be kist,
Through his thin scarf of mist,
Ben-more to the sun heaves his wet shining shoulders !
I've tumbled in hay with the fresh ruddy lasses,
I've drunk with the reapers,
I've roared with the keepers,
And scared night away with the ring of our glasses !
In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me,
Warm heart, blood, and brain, Fine Sprite deify me !
Come, string bright songs upon a thread of wine,
And let the coming midnight pass through us,
Like a dusk prince crusted with gold and gems.
Oh, Love ! oh, Wine ! thou sun and moon o' our lives,
What oysters were we without love and wine !
Our host, I doubt not, vaults a mighty tun,
Wide-wombed and old, cobwebbed and dusted o'er.
Broach ! and within its gloomy sides you'll find
A beating heart of wine. The world's a tun,
A gloomy tun, but he who taps the world
Will find much sweetness in't. Walter, my boy,
Against this sun of wine's most purple light
Burst into song.
[Alexander smith : A Life Drama.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
LORD ALCOHOL
HO tames the lion now ?
Who smoothes Jove's wrinkles now ?
Who is the reckless wight
That in the horrid middle
Of the deserted night
Doth play upon man's brain,
As on a wanton fiddle,
The mad and magic strain,
The reeling, tripping sound,
To which the world goes round ?
Sing heigh ! ho ! diddle !
And then say—
Love, quotha, Love ? Nay, nay !
It is a spirit fine
Of ale or ancient wine,
Lord Alcohol, the drunken fay,
Lord Alcohol alway !
Who maketh the pipe-clay man
Think all that nature can ?
Who dares the gods to flout,
Lay fate beneath the table,
And maketh him stammer out
A thousand monstrous things,
For history a fable,
Dish-clouts for kings ?
And sends the world along
Singing a ribald song
Of heigho ! Babel ?
Who, I pray—
Love, quotha, Love ? Nay, nay !
It is a spirit fine
Of ale or ancient wine,
Lord Alcohol, the drunken fay,
Lord Alcohol, alway !
[thomas lovell beddoes
BON-BON
ERE you ever at Rome ? " asked the restarateur,
as he finished his second bottle of Mousseux,
and drew from the closet a larger supply of
Chambertin.
" But once, Monsieur Bon-Bon, but once. There
was a time," said the Devil, as if reciting some passage from
a book—" there was a time when occurred an anarchy of
five years, during which the republic, bereft of all its officers,
had no magistracy besides the tribunes of the people, and
these were not legally vested with any degree of executive
power—at that time, Monsieur Bon-Bon—at that time
only I was in Rome, and I have no earthly acquaintance,
consequently, with any of its philosophy."1
" What do you think of—what do you think of—hiccup !
—Epicurus ! "
" What do I think oiwhom? " said the Devil, in astonish-
ment ; " you surely do not mean to find any fault with Epi-
curus ! What do I think of Epicurus ! Do you mean me,
sir ?—I am Epicurus ! I am the same philosopher who wrote
each of the three hundred treatises commemorated by
Diogenes Laertes."
" That's a lie ! " said the metaphysician, for the wine
had gotten a little into his head.
" Very well !—very well, sir ! very well indeed,
sir ! " said his Majesty, apparently much flattered.
" That's a lie ! " repeated the restarateur, dogmatically ;
"that's a—hiccup !—a lie ! "
" Well, well, have it your own way ! " said the Devil,
pacifically, and Bon-Bon, having beaten his Majesty at an
argument, thought it his duty to conclude a second bottle of
Chambertin.
" As I was saying," resumed the visitor, " as I was
observing a little while ago, there are some very outre
notions in that book of yours, Monsieur Bon-Bon. What,
1 lis ecrevaient sur la philosophic {Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca)
mais c'etait la philosophic
grecque.—Condorcet.
174
MERRY-GO-DOWN 175
for instance, do you mean by all that humbug about the
soul ? Pray, Sir, what is the soul ? "
" The—hiccup !—soul," replied the metaphysician, re-
ferring to his MS., " is undoubtedly------"
" No, sir ! "
" Indubitably------"
" No, sir ! "
" Indisputably------"
" No, sir ! "
" Evidently------"
" No, sir ! "
" Incontrovertibly------"
" No, sir ! "
" Hiccup ! "
" No, sir ! "
" And beyond the question, a------"
" No, sir, the soul is no such thing ! " (Here the
philosopher, looking daggers, took occasion to make an
end, upon the spot, of his third bottle of Chambertin.)
" Then—hiccup !—pray, sir—what—what is it ? "
<c That is neither here nor there, Monsieur Bon-Bon,"
replied his Majesty musingly. " I have tasted—that is to
say, I have known some very bad souls, and some too—
pretty good ones." Here he smacked his lips, and having
unconsciously let fall his hand upon the volume in his
pocket, was seized with a violent fit of sneezing.
He continued :
" There was the soul of Cratinus—passable ; Aristo-
phanes—racy ; Plato—exquisite—not your Plato, but Plato
the comic poet ; your Plato would have turned the stomach
of Cerberus—faugh ! Then let me see ! There were
Naevius, and Andronicus, and Plautus, and Terentius. Then
there was Lucilius, and Catullus, and Naso, and Quintus
Flaccus—dear Quinty ! as I called him when he sang a
seculare for my amusement while I toasted him, in pure
good humour, on a fork. But they want flavour, these
Romans. One fat Greek is worth a dozen of them, and
besides will keep, which cannot be said of a Quirite. Let
us taste your Sauterne."
Bon-Bon had by this time made up his mind to the
nil admirari, and endeavoured to hand down the bottles
in question. He was, however, conscious of a strange sound
I76 MERRY-GO-DOWN
in the room like the wagging of a tail. Of this, although
extremely indecent in his Majesty, the philosopher took no
notice :—simply kicking the dog, and requesting him to be
quiet. The visitor continued :
" I found that Horace tasted very much like Aristotle ;—
you know I am fond of variety. Terentius I could not have
told from Menander. Naso, to my astonishment, was
Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of
Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus—
and Titus Livius was positively Polybius and none other."
" Hiccup ! " here replied Bon-Bon, and his Majesty
proceeded :
" But if I have a penchant. Monsieur Bon-Bon,—if I
have a penchant, it is for a philosopher. Yet, let me tell you,
sir, it is not every dev------1 mean it is not every gentleman
who knows how to choose a philosopher. Long ones are
not good ; and the best, if not carefully shelled, are apt to
be a little rancid on account of the gall."
" Shelled ! "
" I mean taken out of the carcass."
" What do you think of a—hiccup—physician ? "
" Don't mention them !—ugh ! ugh ! " (Here his
Majesty retched violently.) " I never tasted but one—that
rascal Hippocrates !—smelt of asafoetida—ugh ! ugh 1 ugh !
—caught a wretched cold washing him in the Styx—and
after all he gave me the cholera-morbus."
" The—hiccup !—wretch ! " ejaculated Bon-Bon, " the
—hiccup !—abortion of a pill-box ! "—and the philosopher
dropped a tear.
" After all," continued the visitor, " after all, if a dev—
if a gentleman wishes to live, he must have more talents than
one or two ; and with us a fat face is an evidence of diplo-
macy."
" How so ? "
" Why, you are sometimes exceedingly pushed for
provisions. You must know, in a climate so sultry as mine,
it is frequently impossible to keep a spirit alive for more
than two or three hours ; and after death, unless pickled
immediately (and a pickled spirit is not good), they—will
—smell—you understand, eh ? Putrefaction is always to
be apprehended when the souls are consigned to us in the
usual way."
MERRY-GO-DOWN IJJ
" Hiccup !—hiccup------! Good God ! How do you
manage ? "
Here the iron lamp commenced swinging with redoubled
violence, and the Devil half started from his seat;—however,
with a slight sigh, he recovered his composure, merely
saying to our hero in a low tone : " I tell you what, Pierre
Bon-Bon, we must have no more swearing.''
The host swallowed another bumper by way of denoting
thorough comprehension and acquiescence, and the visitor
continued :
" Why, there are several ways of managing. The most
of us starve : some put up with the pickle : for my part I
purchase my spirits vivient corpore, in which case I find
they keep very well."
" But the body !—hiccup !—the body ! ! "
" The body, the body—well, what of the body ?—ah !
ah ! I perceive. Why, Sir, the body is not at all affected
by the transaction. I have made innumerable purchases
of the kind in my day, and the parties never experienced
any inconvenience. There were Cain and Nimrod, and
Nero, and Caligula, and Dionysius, and Pisistratus, and—
and a thousand others, who never knew what it was to have a
soul during the latter part of their lives ; yet, sir, these
men adorned society. Why, isn't there A------, now, whom
you know as well as I ? Is he not in possession of all his
faculties, mental and corporeal ? Who writes a keener
epigram ? Who reasons more wittily ? Who—but, stay !
I have his agreement in my pocket-book."
Thus saying, he produced a red leather wallet, and took
from it a number of papers. Upon some of these Bon-Bon
caught a glimpse of the letters Machi—Maza—Robesp—with
the words Caligula, George, Elizabeth. His Majesty selected
a narrow slip of parchment and from it read aloud the fol-
lowing words :
" In consideration of certain mental endowments which
it is unnecessary to specify, and in further consideration of
one thousand louis d'or, I being aged one year and one month,
do hereby make over to the bearer of this agreement all my
right, title, and appurtenance in the shadow called my soul.
(Signed) A------"
(Here his Majesty repeated a name which I do not feel
myself justified in indicating more unequivocally.)
"
A clever fellow that," resumed he ; " but, like you,
Monsieur Bon-Bon, he was mistaken about the soul.
The soul a shadow, truly ! The soul a shadow ! Ha !
ha ! ha !—he ! he ! he !—hu ! hu ! hu ! Only think of a
fricasseed shadow ! "
" Only think—hiccup !—of a fricasseed shadow ! "
exclaimed our hero, whose faculties were becoming much
illuminated by the profundity of his Majesty's discourse.
" Only think—hiccup !—fricasseed shadow ! ! Now,
damme !—hiccup ! humph ! If I would have been such a
—hiccup !—nincompoop ! My soul, Mr.—humph ! "
" Tour soul, Monsieur Bon-Bon ? "
" Yes, sir,—hiccup !—my soul is------"
" What, sir ? "
" No shadow, damme ! "
" Did you mean to say------"
" Yes, sir, my soul is—hiccup !—humph—yes, sir."
178
MERRY-GO-DOWN I79
" Did you not intend to assert------"
" My soul is—hiccup !—peculiarly qualified for—hic-
cup !—a------"
"What, sir?"
" Stew."
" Ha ! "
" Soufflee."
" Eh ! "
" Fricassee."
" Indeed ! "
" Ragout and fricandeau—and see here, my good fellow !
I'll let you have it !—hiccup !—a bargain." Here the
philosopher slapped his Majesty upon the back.
" Couldn't think of such a thing," said the latter calmly,
at the same time rising from his seat. The metaphysician
stared.
" Am supplied at present," said his Majesty.
" Hie—cup !—e—h ? " said the philosopher.
" Have no funds on hand."
" What ? "
" Besides, very unhandsome in me------"
" Sir ! "
" To take advantage of------"
" Hie—cup ! "
" Your present disgusting and ungentlemanly situation."
Here the visitor bowed and withdrew—in what manner
could not precisely be ascertained—but in a well-concerted
effort to discharge a bottle at " the villain," the slender
chain was severed that depended from the ceiling, and the
metaphysician prostrated by the downfall of the lamp.
[edgar Allan poe. Tales of Mystery and
Imagination.1^
i8o
MERRY-GO-DOWN
A SONG AGAINST THE BEER TAXES OF 1854-5
EER ! boys ! beer! no more absurd restriction,
Courage, Bass, Meux, and Barclay must give
way :
Half-pints and quarts have vanished like a fiction,
Why, then, submit to the brewers' despot sway ?
Brown stout of England ! much as we may love thee,
(Which, by the way, I rather think we do)
Pale draught of India ! shall they charge us for thee
Twice what you're worth, for the profit of a few ?
Beer ! boys, beer ! abundant, deep, and vasty !
Beer ! boys, beer ! the stunning, strong and grand !
Beer ! boys, beer ! the cheap, and not the nasty !
Beer ! boys, beer ! at a price a man can stand !
Beer ! boys, beer ! the present scale of prices
Leads to a style of tipple not the best ;
Vile Spanish root, and quassia, which not nice is,
Bad for the bile, and oppressive for the chest.
But, let's unite with hearty agitation,
Push for our rights, and battle might and main ;
And ours shall be a large and brimming tankard
Of real wholesome stuff, brew'd out of roasted grain.
Beer ! boys, beer ! no more of gentian's nausea ;
Beer ! boys, beer ! with liquorice away ;
Beer ! boys, beer ! no logwood chips or quassia ;
Beer ! boys, beer !—which is all I have to say !
[anon.]
VICAR AND GOAT
EES Pritchard was born at Llandovery, about the
year 1575, of respectable parents. He received
the rudiments of a classical education at the school
of the place, and at the age of eighteen was sent
to Oxford, being intended for the clerical profession. At
Oxford he did not distinguish himself in an advantageous
manner, being more remarkable for dissipation and riot
than application in the pursuit of learning. Returning to
Wales, he was admitted into the ministry, and after the lapse
of a few years was appointed vicar of Llandovery. His
conduct for a considerable time was not only unbecoming a
clergyman, but a human being in any sphere. Drunkenness
was very prevalent in the age in which he lived, but Rees
Pritchard was so inordinately addicted to that vice that the
very worst of his parishioners were scandalized, and said :
" Bad as we may be we are not half so bad as the parson.''
He was in the habit of spending the greater part of his
time in the public-house, from which he was generally
trundled home in a wheel-barrow in a state of utter insen-
sibility. God, however, who is aware of what every man is
capable of, had reserved Rees Pritchard for great and noble
things, and brought about his conversion in a very remarkable
manner.
The people of the tavern which Rees Pritchard fre-
quented had a large he-goat, which went in and out and
mingled with the guests. One day Rees in the midst of his
orgies called the goat to him and offered it some ale ; the
creature, far from refusing it, drank greedily, and soon
becoming intoxicated, fell down upon the floor, where it
lay quivering, to the great delight of Rees Pritchard, who
made its drunkenness a subject of jest to his boon companions,
who, however, said nothing, being struck with horror at
such conduct in a person who was placed among them to be a
pattern and example. Before night, however, Pritchard
became himself intoxicated, and was trundled to the vicarage
in the usual manner. During the whole of the next day
181
N
l82 MERRY-GO-DOWN
he was very ill and kept at home, but on the following one
he again repaired to the public-house, sat down and called
for his pipe and tankard. The goat was now perfectly
recovered, and was standing nigh. No sooner was the
tankard brought than Rees taking hold of it held it to the
goat's mouth. The creature, however, turned away its
head in disgust, and hurried out of the room. This circum-
stance produced an instantaneous effect upon Rees Pritchard.
" My God ! " said he to himself, " is this poor dumb creature
wiser than I ? Yes, surely ; it has been drunk, but having
once experienced the wretched consequences of drunken-
ness, it refuses to be drunk again. How different is its con-
duct to mine ! I, after having experienced a hundred times
the filthiness and misery of drunkenness, have still persisted
in debasing myself below the condition of a beast. Oh, if
I persist in this conduct what have I to expect but wretched-
ness and contempt in this world and eternal perdition in the
next ? But, thank God, it is not yet too late to amend ;
I am still alive—I will become a new man—the goat has
taught me a lesson." Smashing his pipe he left his tankard
untasted on the table, went home, and became an altered
man.
[borrow. Wild Wales.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
183
A
PRECIOUS COUPLE
jFTER an hour's walking I overtook two people, a
man and a woman, laden with baskets which hung
around them on every side. The man was a
young fellow of about eight-and-twenty, with a
round face, fair flaxen hair, and rings in his ears ; the female
was a blooming buxom lass of about eighteen. After giving
them the sele of the day I asked them if they were English.
" Aye, aye, master," said the man, " we are English."
" Where do you come from ? " said I.
" From Wrexham," said the man.
" I thought Wrexham was in Wales," said I.
" If it be," said the man, " the people are not Welsh ;
a man is not a horse because he happens to be born in a
stable."
" Is that young woman your wife ? " said I.
" Yes," said he, " after a fashion "—and then he leered
at the lass, and she leered at him.
" Do you attend any place of worship ? " said I.
" A great many, master ! "
" What place do you chiefly attend ? " said I.
" The Chequers, master ! "
" Do they preach the best sermons there ? " said I.
" No, master ! but they sell the best ale there."
" Do you worship ale ? " said I.
" Yes, master, I worships ale."
" Anything else ? " said I.
" Yes, master ! I and my mort worships something
besides good ale ; don't we, Sue ? " and then he leered at
the mort, who leered at him, and both made odd motions
backwards and forwards, causing the baskets which hung
round them to creak and rustle, and uttering loud shouts of
laughter, which roused the echoes of the neighbouring hills.
[borrow. Wild Wales.]
184
MERRY-GO-DOWN
£%
A
W^SvO^ftfeiK
MERRY-GO-DOWN
185
THE SUNDAY BEER BILL IS REPEALED
ROUSE lads, arouse ! bid adieu to the pump,
The Beer Bill's repealed, cut away and get drunk.
Young ladies may whistle, old women may sing
And drown all their sorrow in ale, rum and gin
All the long day on Sunday, till eleven o'clock,
And if they've no money leave gown, shawl, and smock.
We can drink and be merry without any fear,
We can have ale and sherry, wine, brandy & beer
And all the landladies shall be drest up slap,
With a bunch of blue ribbons and new dandy cap.
I heard an old woman sing red, white, and blue
And she danced till she kicked out the toes of her shoes,
She met a policeman and wanted to fight,
And sung jolly good luck unto Saturday night,
And then upon Sunday she roamed like a duck,
Her flat iron she pawned, with a sheep's head and pluck ;
Like a cat dress'd in breeches, lawk how she did grin,
She drank 10 pints of stout, & six glasses of gin.
The Beer Bill, the Beer Bill, the Bill is repealed
To the voice of the people it was forc'd to yield,
So now in a bumper drown sorrow and pain,
We will fight and we'll conquer again and again.
[From a Broadsheet.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE POPE
HE Pope he leads a happy life,
He knows no cares of marriage strife,
He drinks the best of Rhenish wine—
I would the Pope's gay lot were mine.
But yet all happy's not his life,
He loves no maid, nor wedded wife ;
Nor child hath he to cheer his hope—
I would not wish to be the Pope.
The Sultan better pleases me,
He lives a life of jollity,
Has wives as many as he will—
I would the Sultan's throne then fill.
But, yet he's not a happy man,
He must obey the Alcoran,
And dares not taste a drop of wine—
I would not that his fate were mine.
So here I take my lowly stand,
I'll drink my own, my native land—
I'll kiss my maiden's lip divine,
And drink the best of Rhenish wine,
And when my maiden kisses me,
I'll fancy I the Sultan be,
And when my cherry glass I tope,
I'll fancy that I am the Pope.
[Translatedfrom a German Students' Song by
CHARLES LEVER.]
WE'RE A' BLIND DRUNK
SAW the man in the moon,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw the man in the moon,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw the man in the moon,
Driving tackets in his shoon ;
And we're a' blind-drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo,
I saw a sparrow draw a harrow,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a sparrow draw a harrow,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw a sparrow draw a harrow,
Up the Bow and down the Narrow,
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a pyet haud the pleuch,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a pyet haud the pleuch,
Wha's fou now, my jo ?
I saw a pyet haud the pleuch
And he whissel'd weel eneuch ;
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a wran kill a man,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a wran kill a man,
Wha's fou now, my jo ?
I saw a wran kill a man,
Wi' a braidsword in his han';
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo,
I saw a sheep shearing corn,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a sheep shearing corn,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
187
MERRY-GO-DOWN
I saw a sheep shearing corn,
Wi' the heuck about his horn ;
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a puggie wearing boots,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a puggie wearing boots,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw a puggie wearing boots,
And he had but shachled cutes ;
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a ram wade a dam,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a ram wade a dam,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw a ram wade a dam,
Wi' a mill-stone in his han';
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a louse chace a mouse,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a louse chace a mouse,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw a louse chace a mouse,
Out the door, and round the house ;
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a sow sewing silk,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a sow sewing silk,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw a sow sewing silk,
And the cat was kirning milk ;
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw a dog shoe a horse,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw a dog shoe a horse,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
MERRY-GO-DOWN l8o,
I saw a dog shoe a horse,
Wi* the hammer in his arse ;
And we're a* blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
I saw an eel chase the deil,
Wha's fou, wha's fou ?
I saw an eel chase the deil,
Wha's fou, now, my jo ?
I saw an eel chase the deil,
Round about the spinning wheel,
And we're a' blind drunk, bousing jolly fou, my jo.
[From the Ballad Book of Mussel-mou'd Charlie.
Edinburgh, 1827.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
WE WONT GO HOME TILL MORNING
RAVE boys, let's all be jolly !
A fig for melancholy—
Since grieving's all a folly,
'Tis folly to grieve, that's clear !
While good humour each face is adorning,
While sorrow in glee we are scorning,
We won't go home till morning,
Till daylight does appear !
We won't go home till morning,
We won't go home till morning, &c.
Till daylight does appear !
Till daylight, &c.
We won't go home till morning,
Till daylight, does appear !
Great Jove was a hearty good fellow,
As poets of old could tell, O—
With nectar he used to get mellow—
(And no doubt it was jolly good stuff !)
Such examples we cannot but follow,
Then hogsheads of wine let us swallow,
Till we beat the old gentleman hollow,
But never cry " Hold, enough ! "
So we can't go home till morning—
We won't go home, &c.
[From a Victorian Broadsheet.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN
I9I
THE ROSY
T length there sauntered up, on the opposite side
of the way—with a bad pretence of passing by
accident—a figure conspicuous for its dirty smart-
ness, which after a great many frowns and jerks
of the head, in resistance of the invitation, ultimately
crossed the road and was brought into the shop.
" There. It's Dick Swiveller," said the young fellow,
pushing him in. " Sit down, Swiveller."
" But is the old min agreeable ? " said Mr. Swiveller
in an undertone.
" Sit down," repeated his companion.
Mr. Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a
propitiatory smile, observed that last week was a fine week
for the ducks, and this week was a fine week for the dust ;
he also observed that whilst standing by the post at the street
corner, he had observed a pig with a straw in his mouth
issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which appearance he
augured that another fine week for the ducks was approaching,
and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore
took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might
be perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he
had had " the sun very strong in his eyes ; " by which
expression he was understood to convey to his hearers, in
the most delicate manner possible, the information that he
had been extremely drunk.
" But what," said Mr. Swiveller, with a sigh—" what is
the odds, so long as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of
conwiviality, and the wing of friendship never moults a
feather ! What is the odds, so long as the spirit is expanded
by means of rosy wine, and the present moment is the least
happiest of an existence ! "
" You needn't act the chairman here," said his friend,
half aside.
" Fred ! " cried Mr. Swiveller, tapping his nose, " a
word to the wise is sufficient for them—we may be good and
happy without riches, Fred. Say not another syllable.
I know my cue ; smart is the word. Only one little whisper,
Fred, is the old min friendly ? "
[charles dickens : The Old Curiosity Shop.]
MRS. GAMP
HE was a fat old woman, this Mrs. Gamp, with
a husky voice and a moist eye, which she had a
remarkable power of turning up, and only show-
ing the white of it. Having very little neck,
it cost her some trouble to look over herself, if one may
say so, at those to whom she talked. She wore a very
rusty black gown, rather the worse for snuff, and a shawl
and bonnet to correspond. In these dilapidated articles
of dress she had, on principle, arrayed herself, time out
of mind, on such occasions as the present ; for this at
once expressed a decent amount of veneration for the de-
ceased, and invited the next of kin to present her
with a fresher suit of weeds ; an appeal so frequently suc-
cessful, that the very fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp, bonnet
and all, might be seen hanging up, any hour of the day,
in at least a dozen of the second-hand shops about Holborn.
The face of Mrs. Gamp—the nose in particular—was some-
what red and swollen, and it was difficult to enjoy her
society without becoming conscious of a smell of spirits.
Like most persons who have attained to great eminence
in their profession, she took to hers very kindly ; insomuch,
that setting aside her natural predilections as a woman,
she went to a lying-in or a laying-out with equal zest
and relish.
" Ah ! " repeated Mrs. Gamp ; for it was always a
safe sentiment in cases of mourning. " Ah, dear! When
Gamp was summoned to his long home, and I see him a
lying in Guy's Hospital with a penny-piece on each eye, and
his wooden leg under his left arm, I thought I should have
fainted away. But I bore up."
If certain whispers current in the Kingsgate Street
circles had any truth in them, she had indeed borne up
surprisingly ; and had exerted such uncommon fortitude,
as to dispose of Mr. Gamp's remains for the benefit of science.
But it should be added, in fairness, that this had happened
twenty years before ; and that Mr. and Mrs. Gamp had
192
MERRY-GO-DOWN I93
long been separated, on the ground of incompatibility of
temper in their drink.
" You have become indifferent since then, I suppose ? "
said Mr. Pecksniff. " Use is second nature, Mrs. Gamp."
" You may well say second nater, sir," returned that
lady. " One's first ways is to find sich things a trial for
the feelings, and so is one's lasting custom. If it wasn't
for the nerve a little sip of liquor give me (I never was
able to do more than taste it), I never could go through
with what I sometimes has to do. * Mrs. Harris,' I says,
at the very last case as ever I acted in, which it was but
a young person, * Mrs. Harris,' I says, 'leave the bottle
on the chimley-piece, and don't ask me to take none,
but let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged, and then
I will do what I'm engaged to do, according to the best of
my ability.' ' Mrs. Gamp,' she says, in answer, * if ever
there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen pence a
day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks—
night watching,' " said Mrs. Gamp, with emphasis, " ' being
a extra charge—you are that inwallable person.' ' Mrs.
Harris,' I says to her, ' don't name the charge, for if I
could afford to' lay all my feller creeturs out for nothink, I
would gladly do it, sich is the love I bears 'em. But what I
always says to them as has the management of matters,
Mrs. Harris:' " here she kept her eye on Mr. Pecksniff:
" ' be they gents or be they ladies, is, don't asks me whether
I won't take none, or whether I will, but leave the bottle on
the chimley-piece, and let me put my lips to it when I am
so dispoged.' "
[dickens. Martin Cfiuzzfewit.]
PECKSNIFF AT TODGERS'S
R. PECKSNIFF had followed his younger friends
up stairs, and taken a chair at the side of Mrs. Tod-
gers. He had also spilt a cup of coffee over his legs
without appearing to be aware of the circumstance;
nor did he seem to know that there was a muffin on his
knee.
" And how have they used you down stairs, sir ? "
asked the hostess.
" Their conduct has been such, my dear madam,"
said Mr. Pecksniff, " as I can never think of without emotion,
or remember without a tear. Oh, Mrs. Todgers ! "
" My goodness ! " exclaimed that lady. " How low
you are in your spirits, sir ! "
" I am a man, my dear madam," said Mr. Pecksniff,
shedding tears, and speaking with an imperfect articulation,
" but I am also a father. I am also a widower. My feelings,
Mrs. Todgers, will not consent to be entirely smothered, like
the young children in the Tower. They are grown up, and
the more I press the bolster on them, the more they look
round the corner of it."
He suddenly became conscious of the bit of muffin, and
stared at it intently : shaking his head the while, in a forlorn
and imbecile manner, as if he regarded it as his evil genius,
and mildly reproached it.
" She was beautiful, Mrs. Todgers," he said, turning his
glazed eye again upon her, without the least preliminary
notice. " She had a small property."
" So I have heard," cried Mrs. Todgers with great
sympathy.
" Those are her daughters," said Mr. Pecksniff, pointing
out the young ladies, with increased emotion.
Mrs. Todgers had no doubt of it.
" Mercy and Charity," said Mr. Pecksniff, " Charity
and Mercy. Not unholy names, I hope ? "
" Mr. Pecksniff ! " cried Mrs. Todgers. " What a
ghastly smile ! Are you ill, sir ? "
194
MERRY-GO-DOWN I95
He pressed his hand upon her arm, and answered in a
solemn manner, and a faint voice, " Chronic."
" Cholic ? " cried the frightened Mrs. Todgers.
" Chron-ic," he repeated with some difficulty. " Chron-
ic. A chronic disorder. I have been its victim from
childhood. It is carrying me to my grave."
" Heaven forbid ! " cried Mrs. Todgers.
" Yes it is," said Mr. Pecksniff, reckless with despair.
" I am rather glad of it, upon the whole. You are like her,
Mrs. Todgers."
" Don't squeeze me so tight, pray, Mr. Pecksniff. If
any of the gentlemen should notice us."
" For her sake," said Mr. Pecksniff. " Permit me.
In honour of her memory. For the sake of a voice from the
tomb. You are very like her, Mrs. Todgers. What a
world this is ! "
" Ah ! Indeed you may say that! " cried Mrs. Todgers.
" I'm afraid it is a vain and thoughtless world," said Mr.
Pecksniff, overflowing with despondency. " These young
people about us. Oh ! what sense have they of their respon-
sibilities ? None. Give me your other hand, Mrs. Todgers."
That lady hesitated, and said " she didn't like."
" Has a voice from the grave no influence ? " said
Mr. Pecksniff, with dismal tenderness. " This is irreligious !
My dear creature."
" Hush ! " urged Mrs. Todgers. " Really you
mustn't."
" It's not me," said Mr. Pecksniff. " Don't suppose it's
me : it's the voice : it's her voice."
Mrs. Pecksniff deceased must have had an unusually
thick and husky voice for a lady, and rather a stuttering
voice, and to say the truth somewhat of a drunken voice,
if it had ever borne much resemblance to that in which Mr.
Pecksniff spoke just then. But perhaps this was delusion
on his part.
" It has been a day of enjoyment, Mrs. Todgers, but
still it has been a day of torture. It has reminded me of
my loneliness. What am I in the world ? "
" An excellent gentleman, Mr. Pecksniff," said Mrs.
Todgers.
" There is consolation in that too," cried Mr. Pecksniff.
" Am I ? "
I96 MERRY-GO-DOWN
" There is no better man living," said Mrs. Todgers,
" I am sure."
Mr. Pecksniff smiled through his tears, and slightly
shook his head. " You are very good," he said, " thank
you. It is a great happiness to me, Mrs. Todgers, to make
young people happy. The happiness of my pupils is my
chief object. I dote upon 'em. They dote upon me too.
Sometimes."
" Always," said Mrs. Todgers.
" When they say they haven't improved, ma'am,"
whispered Mr. Pecksniff, looking at her with profound
mystery, and motioning to her to advance her ear a little
closer to his mouth. " When they say they haven't im-
proved, ma'am, and the premium was too high, they lie !
I shouldn't wish it to be mentioned ; you will understand
me ; but I say to you as to an old friend, they lie."
" Base wretches they must be ! " said Mrs. Todgers.
" Madam," said Mr. Pecksniff, " you are right. I
respect you for that observation. A word in your ear.
To Parents and Guardians. This is in confidence, Mrs.
Todgers ! "
" The strictest, of course ! " cried that lady.
" To Parents and Guardians," repeated Mr. Peck-
sniff. " An eligible opportunity now offers, which unites
the advantages of the best practical architectural education
with the comforts of a home, and the constant association
with some, who, however humble their sphere and limited
their capacity—observe !—are not unmindful of their moral
responsibilities."
Mrs. Todgers looked a little puzzled to know what this
might mean, as well she might ; for it was, as the reader
may perchance remember, Mr. Pecksniff's usual form of
advertisement when he wanted a pupil ; and seemed to
have no particular reference, at present, to anything. But
Mr. Pecksniff held up his finger as a caution to her not to
interrupt him.
" Do you know any parent or guardian, Mrs. Todgers,"
said Mr. Pecksniff, "who desires to avail himself of such an
opportunity for a young gentleman ? An orphan would be
preferred. Do you know of any orphan with three or four
hundred pound ? "
Mrs. Todgers reflected and shook her head.
MERRY-GO-DOWN I97
" When you hear of an orphan with three or four
hundred pound," said Mr. Pecksniff, " let that dear orphan's
friends apply, by letter post-paid, to S.P. Post office,
Salisbury. I don't know who he is exactly. Don't be
alarmed, Mrs. Todgers," said Mr. Pecksniff, falling heavily
against her : " Chronic—chronic ! Let's have a little drop
of something to drink."
" Bless my life, Miss Pecksniffs ! " cried Mrs. Todgers,
aloud, " your dear pa's took very poorly !"
Mr. Pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising
effort, as everyone turned hastily towards him ; and standing
on his feet, regarded the assembly with a look of ineffable
wisdom. Gradually it gave place to a smile ; a feeble,
helpless, melancholy smile ; bland, almost to sickliness.
" Do not repine, my friends," said Mr. Pecksniff, tenderly.
" Do not weep for me. It is chronic." And with these
words, after making a futile effort to pull off his shoes, he fell
into the fire-place.
The youngest gentleman in company had him out in a
second. Yes, before a hair upon his head was singed, he
had him on the hearth-rug.—Her father !
She was almost beside herself. So was her sister.
Jinkins consoled them both. They all consoled them.
Everybody had something to say, except the youngest
gentleman in company, who with a noble self-devotion
did the heavy work, and held up Mr. Pecksniff's head with-
out being taken notice of by anybody. At last they gathered
round, and agreed to carry him up stairs to bed. The
youngest gentleman in company was rebuked by Jinkins
for tearing Mr. Pecksniff's coat ! Ha, ha ! But no
matter.
They carried him up stairs, and crushed the youngest
gentleman at every step. His bedroom was at the top
of the house, and it was a long way ; but they got him there
in the course of time. He asked them frequently on the
road for a little drop of something to drink. It seemed an
idiosyncracy. The youngest man in company proposed a
draught of water. Mr. Pecksniff called him opprobrious
names for the suggestion.
Jinkins and Gander took the rest upon themselves, and
made him as comfortable as they could on the outside
of his bed ; and when he seemed disposed to sleep, they left
I98 MERRY-GO-DOWN
him. But before they had all gained the bottom of the
staircase, a vision of Mr. Pecksniff, strangely attired, was
seen to flutter on the top landing. He desired to collect
their sentiments, it seemed, upon the nature of human life.
" My friends," cried Mr. Pecksniff, looking over the
banisters, " let us improve our minds by mutual inquiry
and discussion. Let us be moral. Let us contemplate
existence. Where is Jinkins ? "
" Here," cried that gentleman. " Go to bed again ! "
" To bed ! " said Mr. Pecksniff. " Bed ! 'Tis the
voice of the sluggard, I hear him complain, you have woke
me too soon, I must slumber again. If any young orphan
will repeat the remainder of that simple piece from Doctor
Watt's collection an eligible opportunity now offers."
Nobody volunteered.
" This is very soothing," said Mr. Pecksniff, after a
pause. " Extremely so. Cool and refreshing ; particu-
larly to the legs ! The legs of the human subject, my
friends, are a beautiful production. Compare them with
wooden legs, and observe the difference between the ana-
tomy of nature and the anatomy of art. Do you know,"
said Mr. Pecksniff, leaning over the banisters, with an odd
recollection of his familiar manner among new pupils at
home, " that I should very much like to see Mrs. Todgers's
notion of a wooden leg, if perfectly agreeable to herself ! "
As it appeared impossible to entertain any reasonable
hopes of him after this speech, Mr. Jinkins and Mr. Gander
went up stairs again, and once more got him into bed.
But they had not descended to the second floor before he
was out again; nor, when they had repeated the process,
had they descended the first flight, before he was out again.
In a word, as often as he was shut up in his own room, he
darted out afresh, charged with some new moral sentiment,
which he continually repeated over the banisters, with
extraordinary relish, and an irrepressible desire for the
improvement of his fellow creatures that nothing could
subdue.
Under these circumstances, when they had got him into
bed for the thirtieth time or so, Mr. Jinkins held him, while
his companion went down stairs in search of Bailey junior,
with whom he presently returned. That youth, having
been apprised of the service required of him, was in great
MERRY-GO-DOWN I99
spirits, and brought up a stool, a candle, and his supper ;
to the end that he might keep watch outside the bedroom
door with tolerable comfort.
When he had completed his arrangements, they locked
Mr. Pecksniff in, and left the key on the outside ; charging
the young page to listen attentively for symptoms of an
apoplectic nature, with which the patient might be troubled,
and, in case of any such presenting themselves, to summon
them without delay. To which Mr. Bailey modestly re-
plied that " he hoped he knew wot o'clock it was in gineral,
and didn't date his letters to his friends, from Todgers,
for nothing."
[Dickens. Martin Chuzzlewit,\
THE MALTWORM'S MADRIGAL
E^s^^g DRINK of the Ale of Southwark, I drink of the
K^IraS ^e °^ ^hepe >
(TySPi At noon I dream on the settle ; at night I cannot
For my love, my love it groweth ; I waste me all the day ;
And when I see sweet Alison, I know not what to say.
The sparrow when he spieth his Dear upon the tree,
He beateth-to his little wing ; he chirketh lustily ;
But when I see sweet Alison, the words begin to fail ;
I wot that I shall die of Love—an I die not of Ale.
Her lips are like the muscadel; her brows are black as ink ;
Her eyes are bright as beryl stones that in the tankard wink ;
But when she sees me coming, she shrilleth out—" Te-Hee !
Fye on thy ruddy nose, Cousin, what lackest thou of me ? "
MERRY-GO-DOWN 201
" Fye on thy ruddy nose, Cousin ! Why be thine eyes so
small ?
Why go thy legs tap-lappety like men that fear to fall ?
Why is thy leathern doublet besmeared with stain and spot ?
Go to. Thou art no man (she saith)—thou art a Pottle-pot ! "
" No man," i' faith. " No man ! " she saith. And " Pottle-
pot " thereto !
" Thou sleepest like our dog all day ; thou drink'st as fishes
do."
I would that I were Tibb the dog; he wags at her his tail;
Or would that I were fish, in truth, and all the sea were Ale !
So I drink of the Ale of Southwark, I drink of the Ale of
Chepe;
All day I dream in the sunlight ; I dream and eke I weep,
But little lore of loving can any flagon teach,
For when my tongue is loosed most, then most I lose my
speech.
[austin dobson. Varia.]
SICK DICK ; OR, THE DRUNKARD'S
TRAGEDY
ICK was sick last night, good lack !
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
walley-wabbles ;
He walked to the Lion, but they carried him back,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
He walked to the Lion as lordly as a lecher,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
But they bore him back on a home-made stretcher,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
He swilled and swallowed like some old sow,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
Till he belched and bellowed like our milch-cow,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
The ale at the Lion is bright and old,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
202
MERRY-GO-DOWN 203
And that's what made Dick overbold,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
Dick grew loving as it grew late,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
And he gave a hug to Slommicky Kate,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
But when he tried to kiss Jane Trollop,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
He went to the floor with a whack and a wallop,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
For he bussed Jane Trollop bang in the eye,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
While her Cullie Claude was standing by,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
And Cullie Claude is a surly swain,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
For when Dick got up he downed him again,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
So we set Dick up upon a chair,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
And wiped the saw-dust from his hair,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
And he's better today, and says, Good lack,
With a colley-walley-walley-walley-walley-walley-
wabbles ;
Take me on a stretcher and I'll walk back,
And Dick was sick all over the cobbles.
[victor b. neuburg.]
AMONG THE PIRATES
NE night, drinking in his cabin with Hands, the
pilot, and another man, Black-beard, without
any provocation, privately draws out a small pair of
pistols and cocks them under the table. Which
being perceived by the man, he withdrew and went upon
deck, leaving Hands, the pilot, and the Captain together.
When the pistols were ready, he blew out the candle and
crossing his hands, discharged them at the company. Hands,
the master, was shot through the knee and lamed for life;
the other pistol did no execution. Being asked the meaning
of this, he only answered by damning them, That if he did
not now and then kill one of them, they would for get who he was.
[johnson : Lives of the Pyrates.]
104
MERRY-GO-DOWN
205
ON THE NAIL, HUNTER'S HOOP, & SHOEING-
HORNS
RINKING super-nagulum, that is, on the nail,
is a device, which Nash says is new come out
of France ; but it had probably a northern
origin, for far northward it still exists. This
new device consisted in this, that after a man, says Nash,
hath turned up the bottom of the cup to drop it on his
nail, and make a pearl with what is left, which if it shed,
and cannot make it stand on, by reason there is too much,
he must drink again for his penance.
The custom is also alluded to by Bishop Hall in his
satirical romance of " Mundus alter et idem" "A Discovery
of a New World," a work which probably Swift read, and
did not forget. The Duke of Tenter-belly in his oration,
when he drinks off his large goblet of twelve quarts, on his
election, exclaims, should he be false to their laws, " Let
never this goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through
me ; and then he set it to his mouth, stole it off every
drop, save a little remainder, which he was by custom to
set upon his thumb's nail, and lick it off as he did."
The phrase is in Fletcher :
I am thine ad unguem—
that is, he would drink with his friend to the last. In a
manuscript letter of the times, I find an account of Columbo,
the Spanish ambassador being at Oxford, and drinking
healths to the Infanta. The writer adds, " I shall not tell
you how our doctors pledged healths to the Infanta and the
archduchess ; and if any left too big a snuff, Columbo
would cry, supernaculum ! supernaculum I
This Bacchic freak seems still preserved ; for a recent
traveller, Sir George Mackenzie, has noticed the custom in
his Travels through Iceland. " His host having filled a
silver cup to the brim, and put on the cover, then held it
towards the person who sat next to him, and desired him to
take off the cover, and look into the cup; a ceremony in-
tended to secure fair play in filling it. He drank our health,
desiring to be excused from emptying the cup, on account
of the indifferent state of his health ; but we were informed
at the same time that if any of us should neglect any part of
the ceremony, or Jail to invert the cup, placing the edge on
2o6
MERRY-GO-DOWN
A rouse was a
one of the thumbs as a proof that we had swallowed every
drop, the defaulter would be obliged by the laws of drinking
to fill the cup again, and drink it off a second time. In
spite of their utmost exertions, the penalty of a second
draught was incurred by two of the company ; we were
dreading the consequences of having swallowed so much
wine, and in terror lest the cup should be sent round
again."
1 Carouse ' has been already explained : the hunter's
hoop alludes to the custom of hoops being marked on a
large glass, in drinking-pot, by which every man was to measure
his
was^given^tL draught. Shakespeare makes the Jacobin Jack Cade,
among
drinkingofwhich his furious reformations, promise his friends
that " there
company3formed shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold
for a penny ;
a carouse. jfe three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops,
and I will make it
felony to drink small beer." I have elsewhere observed
that our modern Bacchanalians, whose feats are recorded
The first per- DV the bottle, and who insist on equality in their
rival
son that drank combats, may discover some ingenuity in that
invention
tankard to the among our ancestors of their peg-tankards, of
which a few
first peg or pin5 may yet occasionally be found in Derbyshire :
the invention
tnc second was
to empty to the of an age less refined than the present, when we
have heard
next pm, &c. Q£ giODUiar glasses and bottles, which by their shape
cannot
stand, but roll about the table ; thus compelling the unfortu-
nate Bacchanalian to drain the last drop, or expose his re-
creant sobriety.
We must have recourse again to our old friend Tom
Nash, who acquaints us with some of " the general rules
and inventions for drinking, as good as printed precepts
or statutes by act of parliament, that go from drunkard to
drunkard ; as, still to keep your first man ; not to leave any
flocks in bottom of the cup ; to knock the glass on your thumb
when you have done ; to have some shoeing-horn to pull
on your wine, as a rasher on the coals or a red-herring."
Shoeing-horns, sometimes called gloves, are also described
by Bishop Hall in his " Mundus alter et idem." " Then,
Sir, comes me up a service of shoeing-horns of all sorts ;
salt cakes, red-herrings, anchovies, and gammon of bacon,
and abundance of such pullers-on." That famous surfeit of
Rhenish and pickled herrings, which banquet proved so fatal
to Robert Green, a congenial wit and associate of our Nash,
was occasioned by these shoeing-horns.
MERRY-GO-DOWN 207
Massinger has given a curious list of " a service of
shoeing-horns."
------1 usher
Such an unexpected dainty bit for breakfast
As never yet I cook'd ; 'tis not Botargo,
Fried frogs, potatoes marrow'd, cavear,
Carps' tongues, the pith of our English chine of beef,
Nor our Italian delicate, oil'd mushrooms,
And yet a drawer-on too ; and if you show not
An appetite, and a strong one, I'll not say
To eat it, but devour it, without grace too,
(For it will not stay a preface) I am shamed,
And all my past provocatives will be jeer'd at.
To knock the glass on the thumb, was to show they had
performed their duty. Barnaby Rich describes this custom :
after having drunk, the president " turned the bottom of
the cup upward, and in ostentation of his dexterity, gave it a
fillip, to make it cry ting."
They had among these ' domineering inventions'
some which we may imagine never took place, till they
were told by * the hollow cask '
How the waning night grew old.
Such were Jlap-dragons, which were small combustible
bodies fired at one end and floated in a glass of liquor, which
an experienced toper swallowed unharmed, while yet blazing.
Such is Dr. Johnson's accurate description, who seems to
have witnessed what he so well describes. When FalstafF
says of Poins's acts of dexterity to ingratiate himself with
the prince, that " he drinks off candle-ends for flap-dragons,"
it seems that this was likewise one of these ' frolics,' for Nash
notices that the liquor was "to be stirred about with a
candle's-end, to make it taste better, and not to hold your
peace while the pot is stirring," no doubt to mark the in-
trepedity of the miserable * skinker.' The most illustrious
feat of all is one, however, described by Bishop Hall. If
the drinker " could put his finger into the flame of a candle
without playing hit-I-miss-I ! he is held a sober man,
however otherwise drunk he might be." This was con-
sidered a trial of victory among these ' canary-birds,' or
bibbers of canary wine.
[isaac Disraeli : Curiosities of Literature,]
WORMWOOD
E AN WHILE, I was cold and tired and starved ;
I would go home,—home if I could walk there,—
and if my limbs were not too weak and stiff to
support me—Oh, for a draught of Absinthe I—
that would soon put fire into my veins and warm the numb-
ness of my heart ! I paused a moment, still gazing at the
dull water and the dull mists ; then all at once a curious
sick fear began to creep through me ; an awful premonition
that something terrible was about to happen, though what
it was I could not imagine. My heart began to beat heavily ;
—I kept my eyes riveted on the scene immediately opposite,
for while the sensation I speak of mastered me, I dared not
look behind. Presently I distinctly heard a low panting
near me like the breathing of some heavy creature—and
my nervous dread grew stronger. For a moment I felt
that I would rather fling myself into the Seine than turn
my head. It was an absurd sensation,—a cowardly sen-
sation ; one that I knew I ought to control and subdue,
and after a brief but painful contest with myself I gathered
together a slight stock, not of actual courage but physical
bravado,—and slowly, irresolutely looked back over my
own shoulder, then unspeakably startled and amazed at
what I saw, I turned my whole body round involuntarily
and confronted the formidable beast that lay crouched
there on the Pont Neuf, watching me with its sly green
eyes and apparently waiting on my movements. A leopard
of the forest at large in the heart of Paris !—could anything
208
MERRY-GO-DOWN 209
be more strange and terrifying ? I stared at it,—and it
stared at me ! I could almost count the brown velvet
spots on its tawny hide,—and I saw its lithe body quiver with
the pulsations of its quick breath,—and for some minutes I
was perfectly paralysed with fear and horror ;—afraid to
stir an inch ! Presently, as I stood inert and terror-stricken,
I heard steps approaching, and a labourer appeared carrying
some tin cans which clinked together merrily,—he whistled
as he came along, and seemed to be in cheerful humour.
I watched him anxiously. What would he do,----what
would he say when he caught sight of that leopard lying on
the bridge, obstructing his progress ? Onward he marched
indifferently,—and my heart almost ceased to beat for a
second as I saw him coming nearer and nearer to the horrible
creature. . . . What !—was he blind ?—Could he not see
the danger before him ? I strove to cry out, but my tongue
was like stiff leather in my mouth,—I could not utter a
syllable ;—and lo !—while my fascinated gaze still rested
on him he had passed me !—passed apparently over or
through the animal I saw and dreaded !
The truth flashed upon me in an instant,—I was the dupe
of my own frenzy—and the leopard was nothing but a
brain-phantom ! I laughed aloud, buttoned my coat close
over me and drew myself erect,—as I did this, the leopard
rose with slow and stealthy grace, and when I moved pre-
pared to follow me. Again I looked at it—again it looked
at me,—again I counted the spots on its sleek skin,—the
thing was absolutely real and distinct to my vision,—was
it possible that a diseased brain could produce such seemingly
tangible shapes ? I began to walk rapidly,—and another
peculiarity of my hallucination discovered itself,—namely,
that before me as I looked I saw nothing but the usual
surroundings of the streets and the passing people,—but
behind me, I knew, I felt the horrible monster at my heels,—
the monster created by my own poisoned thought,—a
creature from whom there was no possible escape. The
enemies of the body we can physically attack, and often
physically repel,—but the enemies of the mind,—the fright-
ful phantoms of a disordered imagination—these no medicine
can cure, no subtle touch disperse !
And yet I could not quite accept the fact of the nervous
havoc wrought upon me. I saw a boy carrying a parcel of
2IO MERRY-GO-DOWN
" Figaros " to a neighbouring Bosque and stopping him, I
purchased one of his papers.
" Tell me," I then said, lightly and with a feigned
indifference. " Do you see a—a great dog following me ?
I chanced upon a stray one on the Pont Neuf just now,
but I don't want it at my lodgings. Can you see it ? "
The boy looked up and down and smiled.
" Je ne vois rien, monsieur ! "
" Merci ! " and nodding to him I strolled away, resolved
not to look back again till I reached my own abode.
[marie corelli : Wormwood^
MERRY-GO-DOWN
211
ALCOHOL AND THE ABSOLUTE
HE next step into mystical states carries us into a
realm that public opinion and ethical philosophy-
have long since branded as pathological, though
private practice and certain lyric strains of poetry
seem still to bear witness to its ideality. I refer to the
consciousness produced by intoxicants and anaesthetics,
especially by alcohol. The sway of alcohol over man-
kind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the
mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to
earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober
hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says No ;
drunkenness expands, unites and says Yes. It is in fact
the great exciter of the Tes function in man. It brings
its votary from the chill periphery of things to the radiant
core. It makes him for the moment one with truth. Not
through mere perversity do men run after it. To the poor
and unlettered it stands in the place of symphony concerts
and of literature ; and it is part of the deeper mystery and
tragedy of life that whiffs and gleams of something that we
immediately recognise as excellent should be vouchsafed to
so many of us only in the fleeting earlier phases of what in
its totality is so degraded a poisoning. The drunken con-
sciousness is one bit of the mystic consciousness, and our
total opinion of it must find its place in our opinion of that
larger whole.
Nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide, when
sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate mystical consciousness
in an extraordinary degree. Depth beyond depth of truth
seems revealed to the inhaler. This truth fades out, however,
or escapes, at the moment of coming to ; and if any words
remain over in which it seemed to clothe itself, they prove
to be the veriest nonsense. Nevertheless, the sense of a
profound meaning having been there persists ; and I know
more than one person who is persuaded that in the nitrous
oxide trance we have a genuine metaphysical revelation.
Some years ago I myself made some observations of this
aspect of nitrous oxide intoxication, and reported them in
print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that
time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained
212 MERRY-GO-DOWN
unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness,
rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of
consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the
filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness
entirely different. We may go through life without sus-
pecting their existence ; but apply the requisite stimulus
and at a touch they are there in all their completeness,
definite types of mentality which probably somewhere
have their field of application and adaptation. No account
of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these
other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.
[william james. The Varieties of Religious
Experience.]
A DRUNKEN SONG IN THE SAURIAN MODE
WO Mogs which, in the abstract, pull
A Puffin and a Pentacle,
Nor synthesize too soon,
Can hocket Crisp and Cosmic Things,
What time th' untutor'd Unko sings
Her enharmonic Rune.
But ALLIGATORS, which, to One
Accustomed to the Bathly Bun,
Seem to Recant and Sneer,
Connive, and so coagulate
The polyphonic postulate
At £>S° a year-
One stamping Secretary-bird
Might solve the Sempiternal Surd :
BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND,
No Judge may juggle Stibial Stars
For fubsy Punks in Public Bars
Where Cranes are Contraband.
[rab noolas. Grisly contingencies, inter-
spersed (however) with pleasing
propositions.]
MOTHERS, RUIN
There are certain old women of Maida Vale
Whom no prayers Bands of Hope ever pray'd avail
To convert from the sin
Of imbibing neat gin,
(Though they seem to be strangely afraid of ale).
[rab noolas.]
215
p
EVERYBODY WAS DRUNK.
VERYBODY was drunk that night in honour
of the Saint's bounty, though Miss Wilberforce
reached the climax of her activities at the early
hour of 4 p.m.—during the torchlight procession.
An uproar had been generated at the Club ; chairs
were broken, bottles smashed, and sporting prints kicked
about—all on account of a comical but rather scurrilous
speech contrasting Europe with Australasia by a new-
comer, a member of the New Zealand House of Repre-
sentatives, who limped home not long afterwards with a
damaged shinbone and black eye. The more violent parties
had been ejected during that incident, or carried to their
lodgings. Only about half the usual number was left—
all moderates, so far as drinking was concerned, but all
more or less screwed that day as befitted the occasion.
There was the card-table group, where Mr. Muhlen, with
heightened colour in his cheeks, was losing money in so
brilliant a fashion that everyone swore he must be on the
verge of coming into a legacy or making some coup with a
rich woman. In another room the so-called bawdy section,
presided over by the dubious Mr. Hopkins, were discussing
topics not adapted to polite ears. The artistic group,
sadly thinned by the ejection of four of its more imaginative
and virile members who had distinguished themselves in the
fray, now solely consisted of two youngsters, a black-and-
white man and a literary critic ; they sat in a corner by
themselves, talking about colour-values in maudlin strains.
The ordinary club-group had, as usual, installed them-
selves in the most comfortable chairs on the balcony. They
were boozing steadily, like gentlemen, and having no end
of fun with the poor little Norwegian professor and his
miscalculations. One of them—a venerable toper of Anac-
reontic youthfulness known as Charlie, who turned up on
Nepenthe at odd intervals and whom the oldest inhabitant
of the place had never seen otherwise than in a state of
benevolent fuddle—was saying to him :
214
MERRY-GO-DOWN 21$
" Instead of filling yourself up with whisky in that
disgusting fashion, my friend, you ought to travel. Then
you wouldn't make such an exhibition of yourself as you did
this afternoon over those ashes. Talk about volcanoes !
Ever seen the Lake of Pitch in Trinidad ? Queer place,
Trinidad. You never know where you are. Though I
can't say I saw much of it myself. I was asleep most of the
time, gentlemen, and often tight. Mostly both. All angles
and things, as you sail along. To get an idea of that place,
you must take a banana, for instance, and cut it in half,
and cut that in half again, and that half in half again—the
banana, mind you, must always remain the same size—or
suppose you keep on peeling a potato, and peeling, and
peeling—well, Mr. Professor, what are you laughing at
now ? "
"'I was thinking what an interesting map one could
draw of Trinidad if it's like that."
" Interesting ? That's not the word. It's Hell. I
wouldn't care to take on that job, not even to oblige my poor
old mother who died fifty years ago. Ever been to Trini-
dad, Mr. Richards ? Or you, Mr. White ? Or any-
body ? What, has nobody been to Trinidad ? You
ought to travel more, gentlemen. How about you, Mr.
Samuel ? "
" Never further West than the Marble Arch. But a
friend of mine kept a ranch somewhere down there. One
day he shot a skunk. Yes, Mr. White, a skunk."
" A skunk ? I'm blowed. What on earth ever for
did he do that ? What did he want with a skunk ? I
thought they were protected by law to keep down rattle-
snakes. That's so, isn't it, Charlie ? "
" Snakes. You should see them in Trinidad. Snakes.
Great Scot ! It's a queer place, is Trinidad. All angles
and things------"
" I don't think one can talk about a place being all
angles and things, unless------"
" Tell me, Charlie, what did the fellow on the ranch
want to do with that rattle-snake ? "
" Couldn't say, my son. Maybe he thought of sending
it to his mother. Or perhaps he didn't want the skunk
to get hold of its tail: see ? "
" I see."
P2
2l6
MERRY-GO-DOWN
" They're very sensitive about their tails. As ticklish
as any young girl, I'm told."
" As bad as all that, are they ? "
" I don't think one can talk about angles when describ-
ing an island or even a continent, except in a figurative
and flowery fashion. As teacher of geometry, it is my
business to dwell among angles ; and the thirty-five boys
in my class will bear witness to the fact that my relations
with angles, great and small, are above reproach. I admit
that there are angles everywhere, and that a man who really
likes their company will stumble against them in the most
unexpected places. But they are sometimes hard to see,
unless one deliberately looks for them. I think Charlie
must have been looking for them in Trinidad."
" I said angles and things■, and I always stick to what I
say. And things. You will be good enough, Mr. Professor,
to draw your map accordingly."
" Gentlemen ! I rise to a point of order. Our Indian
friend here is greatly annoyed. He has been accused of
wearing stays. At his urgent request I have convinced
myself, by personal inspection, that he wears nothing
of the kind. He is naturally slim-waisted, as befits a worthy
representative of the noble Hairyan race. It has also
been suggested that he loses caste by his present mode
of conduct. He begs me to say that, being a Jamshi-
worshipper, he doesn't care a brass farthing about caste.
Thirdly, he has been blamed in certain quarters for his
immoderate indulgence in Parker's poison. Let me tell
you, gentlemen, in my capacity as Vice-president, that
for the last four thousand years his family has enjoyed
a special dispensation from the Great Mogul, authorising
the eldest son to drink whatever he damn well pleases.
Our friend here happens to be the third son. But that is
obviously not his fault. If it were, he would have come
forward with an apology long ago. Gentlemen ! I can't
speak fairer than that. Whoever says I'm not a gentle-
man—why, he isn't one either."
" Hear, hear ! I never knew you were an ornitholo-
gist, Richards."
" Nor did I—not till this moment. But when it's
a question of defending the honour of a Club-member
I always rise to the occasion. Some things—they simply
MERRY-GO-DOWN ZlJ
make my blood boil. Look at this Referee : two weeks
out of date ! How the blazes is a man------"
" I say, Charlie, what did the fellow on the ranch
want to do with that skunk ? Something about tickling,
wasn't it ? "
" Hush, my boy. We can't talk about it here. You're
not old enough yet. I don't think I ought to tell you.
It's too funny for words ..."
" You're a black-and-white man and I'm a writer,
and really, you know, we're a cut above all those sots on
the balcony. Now just be reasonable for a moment. Look
here. Have you ever thought about the impossibility
of realizing colour description in landscape ? It's struck
me a good deal lately, here, with this blue sea, and those
orange tints on the mountain, and all the rest of it. Take
any page by a well-known writer—take a description of a
sunset by Symonds, for example. Well, he names all the
gorgeous colours, the yellow and red and violet, or what-
ever it may be, as he saw them. But he can't make you
see them—damned if he can. He can only throw words
at your head. I'm very much afraid, my dear fellow,
that humanity will never get its colour-values straightened
out by means of verbal symbols."
"I always know when a man is drunk, even when I'm
drunk myself."
" When ? "
" When he talks about colour-values."
" I believe you're right. I'm feeling a bit muzzy
about the legs, as if I couldn't move. A bit fuzzy------"
" Muzzy, I think you said."
" Fuzzy."
" Muzzy. But we needn't quarrel about it, need we ?
I shall be sick in a minute, old man."
" It's rather hard on a fellow to be always misunder-
stood. However, as I was saying when you interrupted me,
I am feeling slightly wobblish in the peripatetic or ambu-
latorial department. But my head's all right. Now do be
serious, for a change. You don't seem to catch my drift.
This blue sea, and those orange tints on the mountains, I
mean to say—how are they going to be held fast by the optic
apparatus ! The lens, you understand. I want to be able
2l8
MERRY-GO-DOWN
to shove them into a sketch-book, like you fellows. Well,
how ? That's what I want to know. How to turn my
retina into a canvas."
" Rot, my good sir."
" It may be rot to you, but it strikes me as rather
unfortunate, all the same, when you come to think of it.
This blue sea, I mean, and those orange tints and all that,
you know. Take a sunrise by John Addington. Of course,
as a matter of fact, we ought both to have been born in
another age—an age of sinecures. Why are sinecures
extinct ? I feel as if I could be Governor of Madagascar
at this moment."
" I feel as if you were getting slightly intoxicated."
" That's me. But it's only my legs. My head is
astonishingly clear. And I do wish you would try, just
for once in a way, to follow my meaning. Be reasonable,
for a change ! I mean to say that a man has talents for all
sorts of things. I, for example, have pronounced views
upon agriculture. But what's the use of farming without
capital ? What I mean to say is this : we see the blue sea
and the orange tints on the mountains, and all that, I mean,
and we don't seem to realize, I mean, that we may die at
any moment and never see them again. How few people
grasp that simple fact ! It's enough to make one sick. Or
do you think it's a laughing matter ? "
" Bally rotten, I call it. You're quite right. People
don't realize things the way they ought, except in a few
selected moments. They live like animals. I shall be sick
in a minute, old man."
" Like animals. Good Lord! You've hit the nail
on the head this time. How true that is. Like animals.
Like animals. Like animals."
" I know what we want. We want fresh air. No more
Parker's poison for me. Let's take a stroll."
" I would if I could. But I can't get off this chair,
damn it. I shall fall down if I move an inch. I can hardly
turn my head round, as it is. Awfully sorry. You don't
mind, do you ? "
" Gad ! That's awkward. Couldn't we take your
chair along with us, somehow ? I'm going to be sick, I
tell you, this very minute."
" Not here, not here I Third on the left. But surely,
MERRY-GO-DOWN 219
my dear fellow, you can put it off a little longer ? Can't
you be reasonable, for once in your life ? Just for once in
your life ? Do listen to what those inebriated lunatics are
saying on the balcony ..."
" What did you do to that skunk, Charlie ? "
" Not if I know it, young man. I promised my
mother I'd never tell. Another day, perhaps, when I've
got a little whisky inside me. It's too funny for words."
" You oughtn't to go tickling girls, Charlie. It's
not polite, at your age ..."
They all cleared out, as it seemed, after midnight ;
some on all fours, many of them fairly perpendicular. But
when the serving lad entered the premises in the sober
light of morning, to clear up the debris, he was surprised to
perceive a human form reclining under a table. It was the
young Norwegian professor. He lay there wide awake,
with dishevelled hair and an inspired gleam in his eye,
tracing on the floor, with the point of a corkscrew, what
looked like a tangle of parallelograms and conic sections.
He said it was a map of Trinidad.
[norman douglas. South Wind.\
220
MERRY-GO-DOWN
THE DRUNKEN WIZARD
HIS is a tale of sons of ale,
Myself among the number,
Who said " The world is slumber-curled ;
We'll wake the world from slumber."
We crossed the downs like bawdy clowns,
Outsang the wind's wild revel,
Committing sins at scores of inns
And drinking like the devil ;
Till on a night of storm's delight
We met the Drunken Wizard
Extracting coins from gipsies' groins
And leaping through the blizzard.
He capered high against the sky
And roared for all men willing
To drain a pail of mystic ale
And spend the Roman shilling.
Then travelling fast athwart the blast
He howled in every tavern,
" I guzzle hops in lusty drops,
My belly is a cavern ! "
We pressed a crew for barley brew
From Hurstmonceux to Dicker
And launched the Fleet at Bodle Street
In oceans of good liquor.
But drinking died when someone cried,
"I'm half-a-pail from tipsy,
So search the coast, you magic host,
And find another gipsy ! "
The Wizard rose, " The dawn wind blows ;
I call Saint Luke at seven."
And, saying that, put on his hat
And staggered back to Heaven.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
221
Then nearly all at the world's call
Went meekly to the slaughter :
Some lost their lives by taking wives,
And one went mad from water.
We few remain above the slain,
And from the wind's direction
We hear on high his battle-cry
" Good ale and Resurrection ! "
[bruce blunt.]
A PATRIOT
Willesden Magistrate : " What made you get drunk ?"
Defendant: "Well, sir, my friends wanted to
take me to Canvey Island, and the
thought of leaving my own country
upset me."
[1926.]
222
MERRY-GO-DOWN
SEEN AT SEA
DELAIDE wire : " The mate and fourth mate of
the Dutch steamer Blitar, now at Port Adelaide,
report that on Sunday morning they saw a huge
albatros with two heads, one of which was black,
and the other white. It circled the ship several times. In
a glass case the seamen have a fish with two tails, each more
than six inches long."
It doesn't quite get up to the record of a tramp steamer
that ran short of water on a voyage from Scotland to Western
Australia in the Roaring Nineties.
When the aqua ran completely out the officers and
crew were reduced to drinking part of the main portion
of the cargo, Highland Whisky diluted with Dublin stout.
That continued for about a week when a P. and O.
liner came along and sent aboard a supply of fresh water.
On first sighting the booze-tramp the P. and O. liner's
officers were amazed to see signals flying indicating that
on board was smallpox, yellow fever, and measles.
Another set told that they were aground on a reef
(this was in deep mid-ocean), that they wanted a shore
lighter to come off and take away the dead marines, that
the galley had run out of kindling wood, the captain had gone
on a honeymoon on a life-raft, and the chief steward had
eloped with the stewardess (there was no such person as
the latter on board).
When the couple of P. and O. officers clambered aboard
the alcoholic tramp they were amazed to see the captain and
the first, second, and third mates playing skittles with bottles
of champagne, while the crew shared parti-coloured cray-
fish all over the deck.
The merriest wag of the lot was the bo'sun.
He climbed to the top of the funnel, the fires having
gone out.
He told the P. and O. officers he was a ham, and he was
smoking himself !
[Western Mail, Perth : W. Australia ; early 1928.]
MERRY-GO-DOWN 223
A SPIRITED TESTIMONIAL
SALESMAN had received a case of whisky
from a customer, and, having sampled it, was
impelled to type a letter of thanks. The result
read as follows :—
Dear Sir,—How extremely kind of you to send
me that case of whisky for Christmas. I have never
tasted such marvellous whisky in my life. I have
never tasted such marvellous whisky and I keep tasting
it.
The whisky you have sen me for Christmas is
marvellous. I keep tashing it, and how kind of you
to send this wonderlous whichkey for Xmas which
I keep tashing.
Its really moshkind of you to keep sending me
thish whisky in cases which I keep tashing for Xmas
and tashing hie doc dickery dock.
What kind whishky ole man how ex thash ex-
tremely marvelous to tash on Xmas you greatt fine
ud thathank you ole for extraetra extrem whwhaishy
ininain cashcase 6£ &&&XXXX kisses Kissmus & Xmu
(4iyii! &ole opa 111
CHeeRi oo OQ£/£8g.
[From The Brewer; 1929.]
224
MERRY-GO-DOWN
ALL OFF FOR A BUSTER
LL off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the
street. Bonafides. Where you slep las nigh ?
Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole Billyo.
Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly ? Where
the Henry Nevil's sawbones and ole clo ? Sorra one o
me knows. Hurrah there, Dix ! Forward the ribbon
counter. Where's Punch ? All serene. Jay, look at the
drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal ?
Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. A make,
mister. The Denzille lane boys. Hell, blast ye ! Scoot.
Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the bleeding limelight.
Yous join uz, dead Sir ? No hentrusion in life. Lou heap
good man. Allee samee this bunch. En avant, mes en-
Jants! Fire away number one on the gun. Burke's !
Thence they advanced five parasangs. Slattery's mounted
foot where's that bleeding awfur ? Parson Steve, apostates'
creed ! No, no, Mulligan ! Abaft there ! Shove ahead.
Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee !
What's on you ? Ma mere m'a mariee. British Beatitudes !
Retamplan Digidi Bourn Bourn. Ayes have it. To be
printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing
females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in
art shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my
time. Silentium 1 Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to
nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March !
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes) parching.
Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, b---------y
and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beerbeef
trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the
trampellers. Thunderation ! Keep the durned millingtary
step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt ! Heave to. Rug-
ger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my toot-
sies ! You hurt ? Most amazingly sorry !
Query. Who's astanding this here do ? Proud pos-
sessor of damnall. Declare misery. Bet to the ropes.
Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week gone. Yours ?
Mead of our fathers for the TJebermensch. Dittoh. Five
number ones. You, sir ? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the
cabby's caudle. Stimulate the caloric. Winding of the
MERRY-GO-DOWN 225
ticker. Stopped short never to go again when the old.
Absinthe for me, savvy ? Caramba ! Have an eggnog or a
prairie oyster. Enemy ? Avuncular's got my timepiece.
Ten to. Obligated awful. Don't mention it. Got a pec-
toral trauma, eh, Dix ? Pos fact. Got bet be a boomblebee
whenever he wus setting sleeping in hes bit garten. Digs
up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona ?
Yup, sartin, I do. Full of a dure. See her in her dishy billy.
Peels off a credit. Lovey lovekin. None of your lean
kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. Two Ardi-
launs. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don't wait
to get up. Five, seven, nine. Fine ! Got a prime pair
of mincepies, no kid. And her take me to rests and her
anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. Your starving
eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart. O gluepot.
Sir ? Spud again the rheumatiz ? All poppycock, you'll
scuse me saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest
a gert wool. Well, doc ? Back fro Lapland ? Your cor-
porosity sagaciating OK? How's the squaws and papooses ?
Womanbody after going on the straw ? Stand and deliver.
Password. There's hair. Ours the white death and the
ruddy birth. Hi ! Spit in your own eye, boss. Mummer's
wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. Jesified orchidised poly-
cimical Jesuit ! Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch. Baddy-
bad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi.
Hurroo ! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the
nappy. Here, Jock braw Hielentman's your barleybree.
Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot boil ! My
tipple. Merci. Here's to us. How's that ? Leg before
wicket. Don't stain my brandnew sitinems. Give's a
shake of pepper, you there. Catch aholt. Caraway seed
to carry away. Twig ? Shrieks of silence. Every cove
to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. lues petites jemmes.
Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was
axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to
Malahide. Me ? If she who seduced me had left but the
name. What do you want for ninepence. Machree, Mac-
ruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull
altogether. Ex !
Waiting, guvnor ? Most deciduously. Bet your boots
on. Stunned like seeing as how no shiners is acoming.
Underconstumble ? He've got the chink ad lib. Seed
226
MERRY-GO-DOWN
near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come
right in on your invite, see ? Up to you, matey. Out with
the oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they
there Frenchy bilks ? Won't wash here for nuts nohow.
Lil chile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our
side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We're
nae the fou. Au reservoir, Mossoo. Tanks you.
'Tis, sure. What say ? In the speakeasy. Tight. I
shee you, shir. Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt
but claretwine. Garn ! Have a glint, do. Gum, I'm
jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for
words. With a railway bloke. How come you so ? Opera
he'd like ? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police ! Some
H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. Gem-
ini, he's going to holler. The colleen bawn, my colleen
bawn. O, cheese it ! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a
firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead
cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the
jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire
big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise.
Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a
cram, that, Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion ? I think that
yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman
beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a mad-
dening back. O, lust, our refuge and our strength. De-
camping. Must you go ? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide
my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Comeahome,
our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the
cowslips for hersel. Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt ?
Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No
fake, old man Leo. S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my
timbers if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor
you no me tell ? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez,
vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord,
Amen.
You move a motion ? Steve boy, you're going it
some. More bluggy drunkables ? Will immensely splen-
diferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty
and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one ex-
pensive inaugurated libation ? Give's a breather. Land-
lord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo ? Hoots, mon,
wee drap to pree. Cut and come again. Right Boniface !
MERRY-GO-DOWN 227
Absinthe the lot. Nos omnes biberimus viridum toxicum
diabolus capiat posterioria nostria. Closingtime, gents. Eh ?
Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say onions ?
Bloo ? Cadges ads ? Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous.
Play low, pardner. Slide. Bonsoir la compagnie. And
snares of the poxfiend. Where's the buck and Namby
Amby ? Skunked ? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en gang
yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann
will yu help, yung man hoose frend tuk bungalo kee to find
plais whear to lay crown off his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm
about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my shins if this beent
the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, couple
of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls,
none ! Not a pite of sheeses ? Thrust syphilis down to
hell and with him those other licensed spirits. Time.
Who wander through the world. Health all. A la vfitre.
Golly, whatten tunket's you guy in the mackintosh ?
Dusty Rhodes. Peep at his wearables. By mighty ! Jubi-
lee mutton. Bovril, by James. Wants it real bad. D'ye
ken bare socks ? Seedy cuss in the Richmond ? Rawthere !
Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. Trumpery
insanity. Battle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was
once a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that
married a maiden all forlorn. Slung her hook, she did.
Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh of lonely canyon.
Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies.
Pardon ? See him today at a runefal ? Chum o yourn
passed in his checks ? Ludamassy ! Pore piccanninies !
Thou'U no be telling me thot, Pold veg ! Did urns blubble
big-splash crytears cos frien Padney was took off in black
bag ? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never
see the like since I was born. Tiens, tiens, but it is well sad,
that, my faith, yes. O get, rev on a gradient one in nine.
Live axle drives are souped. Lay you two to one Jenatzy
licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies ? High angle fire,
inyah ! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he,
nor any Rooshian. Time all. There's eleven of them.
Get ye gone. Forward, woozy wobblers ! Night. Night.
May Allah, the Excellent One, your soul this night ever
tremendously conserve.
Your attention ! We're nae the fou. The Leith police
dismisseth us. The least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap
228
MERRY-GO-DOWN
puking. Unwell in his abominable regions. Yooka. Night.
Mona, my thrue love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook.
Hark ! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap ! Pflaap ! Blase
on. There she goes. Brigade ! Bout ship. Mount street
way. Cut up. Pflaap ! Tally ho. You not come ? Run,
skelter, race. Pflaaaap !
Lynch ! Hey ? Sign on long o me. Denzille lane
this way. Change here for Bawdyhouse. We two, she
said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. Righto, any
old time, Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis, You coming long ?
Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black
duds ? Hush ! Sinned against the light and even now
that day is at hand when he shall come to judge the world
by fire. Pflaap ! Ut implerentur scripturae. Strike up a
ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical
Davy. Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller
on the Merrion hall ? Elijah is coming. Washed in the
Blood of the Lamb. Come on, you winefizzling ginsizzling
boozeguzzling existences ! Come on, you dog-gone, bull-
necked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed
fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage ! Come on,
you triple extract of infamy ! Alexander J. Christ Dowie,
that's yanked to glory most half this planet from 'Frisco
Beach to Vladivostok. The Deity aint no nickel dime
bumshow. I put it to you that he's on the square and a
corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing
yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus.
You'll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you
want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap ! Not half.
He's got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my
friend, in his backpocket. Just you try it on.
[james joyce. Ulysses,]
EPILOGUE
FTER having shewn in thejoregoing Chapters, that
Drunkenness reigns all the World over, Nulla in
parte mundi cessat Ebrietas. Let us see what
we may hence infer in its favour : And I ask if
the Agreement of so many different Nations, to do one and the
same Thing, proves nothing, and may not, in some Measure,
serve as an Apology for Drunkenness ? For if one considers,
that the surprizing Variety of the Humour and Temperament
of Men, do, notwithstanding, in no wise hinder them from
agreeing unanimously in this Point, one shall have a very
strong Temptation to believe, that the Desire of getting Drunk
is an innate Quality, and we shall be confirmed in this Sentiment
after tasting experimentally the exquisite Sweetness caused by
Drunkenness,
229
230
MERRY-GO-DOWN
And now, before I subscribe my self,
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 surprized, 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 Country Men make use of a
great many of our Words, but the Thing it self, let the Word
[or Vox significans) be what it will, the Thing (or res signifi-
catas) 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 Indulgencies 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
Tour Reverence's Pardon, Reverend Father, said 1,1 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'etoit au bon pere Saint Boniface. You see, Sir, the double
Entendre, and, that drinking of Bumpers, which some Pre-
cisians have ignorantly called Prof a nee, is a Practice very
Orthodox and Catholic.
MERRY-GO-DOWN
23I
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,
Voire ami tres-ajfectione
&
Valet bien-humble
F. SANS-TERRE
P.S. I paid the Waterman Six Pence.
FINIS
Which> being interpreted,
ts
THE END
^\u5^
'/\?
This Book was Printed and Made by The
Crypt House Press Limited Gloucester
under the supervision of F. Scott
Published by The Mandrake Press
London production arranged
by P. R. Stephensen and
Edward Goldston
The Edition is limited to 600 copies
This is Number 192