Bacchanalia or A Description of a Drunken Club. A Poem [by Charles Darby] |
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 | Bacchanalia |  |
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.
Yea 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 sounds all Knowledge in Experiments,
(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-ey'd Soul;
This was, I'm sure, the old Philosophy,
They ever sought, for Truth, i'th' bottom of the Bowl.
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.
Yea 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 sounds all Knowledge in Experiments,
(Although indeed I know what 'tis, full well,
To make Mans Reason truckle to his sense)
9
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-ey'd Soul;
This was, I'm sure, the old Philosophy,
They ever sought, for Truth, i'th' bottom of the Bowl.
| Bacchanalia | |