University of Virginia Library

You ask me, friend, what cause can be assigned
For all the various humours of mankind;
Whence, in opinions, tempers, manners, mien,
Thought, speech and act, such diff'rence should be seen?
Why, in one word to tell you what I think:
The cause of all these various things is — Drink!
Ay, you may laugh; but, if it may suffice
In men and manners to believe one's eyes,
Drink, I do say it, is the subtle matter
That makes in human engines such a clatter
That gives account mechanical and true
Why men from men should differ as they do,
Account of ev'ry passion, system, strife,—
In short, of all the incidents of life.
For what is life? Life, as a man may say
Is but the moisture of the human clay,
That holds the soul united to its tether,
And keeps the dusty particles together.
Cantábs, they say, Oxonian bards outshine,
That is, in other words, have better wine;
Change but the liquor, and, you'll see Cantábs
Will be the minnows, Oxford men the dabs.

Why do the doctors, in consumptive cases,
Advise in better air to wash our faces?
Do not the doctors know, who thus prescribe,
That air's the liquor which our lungs imbibe?
Well the sagacious health-smiths point the way
To stir life's fire and make the bellows play;
The tainted lobe, regaled with fresher dew,
Heaves and ferments the dregs of life anew,
And, with fresh dew fermenting thus his dregs,
A man once more is set upon his legs;
He that before was down among the dumps,
Looks up again, again bestirs his stumps,
Pays off the doctor, and begins to think
What place will yield him fittest air to drink.

When our distempers did their names receive,
(One instance more, good doctors, by your leave,)
Some chronic matters, such as gout and stone,
That would the force of no arcana own,
To save their credit, these, the learned dons
Cried out, were fix'd hereditary ones:
If a man's father, grand-or great-grand sire
Had had the same, 'twas needless to enquire;
Plain was the case, and safe the doctor's fame;
The poor old ancesters bore all the blame.
Now, I'll appeal to common sense and you,
If such a flam as this can e'er be true?
Judge if our thesis does not solve such failings
Better than twenty Hippocrates' or Galens.
Let these old gentlemen say what they please,
'Tis the same drink creates the same disease:
The same bad milk which through two children passes,
May send 'em both in time to that of asses;
If one survives the other for a season,
'Tis intermediate drinking is the reason.
Father and son did one consumption strike?
Truth is, they drank consumedly alike.
What wonder is't, if when relations hap
Oft to claim kindred by the self-same tap,
That he who like his father topes about
Should, like his father, suffer from the gout?
Causes alike alike effects impart;
Then, what occasion for new terms of art,
“Stamens,” and “embryos,” and “animalcules,”
And suchlike fixed hereditary calcules?
It is so hardly to be understood
That all men's toes are made of flesh and blood.

In grave Divinity should it be sung
How diff'rent sects from diff'rent drinkings sprung,
You'll find, if once you enter on the theme,
Religion various, but the cause the same.
Now, therefore, Calvin's meagre jaws compare
With Luther's count'nance, ruddy, plump and fair;
Imagine them alive, and tell me whether
These godly heroes ever drank together?
If not, according to our present system,
We may of course in diff'rent parties list 'em.

England indeed preserved the happy mean
Betwixt the fat Reformer and the lean;
And yet, in England, num'rous sects prevail,
Such is its great variety of ale.
Hence Presbyterians, Independents, Quakers,
And such-like prim salvation-undertakers;
Hence Anabaptists, Seekers and what-nots,
Who doubtless suck in schism with their pots.
Were't not for this, the whole fanatic fry
Might come to church as well as you and I.
Who can believe that organs and a steeple
Should give offence to any Christian people?
Does reason, think ye, tell these righteous folks
That sin's in gowns and purity in cloaks?
Or do their saints, by gospel truth's command,
Reject the surplice and receive the band?
No, no! 'tis Drink that makes the men so fickle
('Tis Drink that builds the sep'rate conventícle)
Form to themselves a thousand diff'rent shams,
Which they call scruples, but, I say, are drams.