Chap. X Of Churchmen
If one formed a judgment of the manner of Churchmen’s lives by their discourses, certainly one would take them for models of sobriety. But there is a great deal of difference between preaching and practising. This distinction is very solid, and daily experience confirms it. And if those gentlemen would do themselves justice, how many amongst them might say in particular,
Alas! how can I ever dare pretend,
From man this ancient error to remove,
Which they, ev’n to distraction, fondly love:
If I, who blame it, with such pain defend
Myself from this contagious malady,
This epidemic poison of the mind.
Weak reason, feeble thing, of which mankind
So boasts, this we can only build on thee,
Unjust continuing still, and false and vain,
In our discourses loudly we complain
Against the passions, weakness, vice, and yet
Those things we still cry down, we still commit.
One cannot, therefore, without indignation, hear Churchmen declaim against drunkenness, while they themselves are such ruddy examples of it.
Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione quærentes.1
With patience who can hear west-country cudden
Rail against roasted beef and good plum pudden?
If the law of prescription take place, one cannot dispute with them that of fuddling with any colour of reason, for in St. Jerom’s time, the priests were very much given to wine. This we learn from an epistle of that father, in which he very severely reprehends them. They have been no changelings since. We read in the adages of Erasmus, that it was a proverb amongst the Germans, that the lives of the monks consisted in nothing but eating, drinking, and——Monachorum nunc nihil aliud est quam facere, esse, bibere. Besides, a vast number of councils, who made most severe canons against priests that should get drunk, evidently shew, that they used frequently to do so. Such were the Councils of Carthage, Agathon, the first of Tours, that of Worms, Treves, &c. To make this more clear, we shall copy a little of what H. Stephens says on this subject, in his apology for Herodotus:— “But to return, says he, to these proverbs, theologal wine, and the abbots, or prelates table. I say, that without these, one could never rightly understand this beautiful passage of Horace, viz.
“Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
Pulsanda tellus: Nunc saliaribus
Ornare pulvinar Deorum
Tempus erit dapibus sodales.”1a
“Come, boys, lets put the flowing goblet round,
Drink hard, and with brisk measures beat the ground.
The tables of the gods now bright shall shine
With cheer luxurious, fit for mouths of priests,
When holy epicures become your guests,
And venerably quaff large cups of wine.”
Nor this other,
“Absumet hæres cæcuba dignior
Servata centum clavibus: & mero
Tinget pavimentum superbo
Pontificum potiore cænis.”1b
“A worthy heir shall then with joy unbind
Cæcubian, by a hundred locks confin’d,
And tinge with better wines the ground,
Than e’er at feasts pontifical are found.”
“You see how necessary these proverbs are, to let us into the true understanding of these two passages of this poet. Here follows, word for word, what a certain gloss says of the last of them, Mero dicit potiore (meliore) cænis pontificum, quam quo pontifices in cænis suis, quæ semper sumtuosissimæ fuerunt, unde nunc theologicum dicunt vinum, usi sunt. That is, with better wine than that which the chief priests used at their suppers, which were always most sumptuous and expensive, and which sort of wine we call now theological.
“By this you plainly see how much attached to divines and prelates those gentlemen are who make profession of being expositors of the poets. But in relation to this same theologal, or theological, I know very well that it is a great question if it should be called vinum theologale, or vinum theologalis per appositionem; for the wicked laity, some of them will have it, that when these good men get tipsy they agree no otherwise than dogs and cats. But I shall leave this dispute to be decided by the readers. And as to these two proverbs, they put me in mind of another, and that is, an abbot’s face, which proverb being very ancient, makes me believe that formerly the abbots had their faces illuminated.—But without going any farther for witnesses, I shall content myself with presenting my readers with the following piece of antiquity, viz.
“Sanctus Dominicus sit nobis semper amicus,
Cui canimus rostro jugiter preconia nostro
De cordis venis siccatis ante lagenis.
Ergo tuas laudes si tu nos pangere gaudes
Tempore paschali, fac ne potu puteali
Conveniat uti, quod si fit undique muti
Semper erunt fratres qui non curant nisi ventres.”
“O good Saint Dominic, be ay propitious,
Whose praise we daily chirp in notes delicious
From all the veins of all our hearts,
Having toss’d up some double quarts.
Therefore, if’t be thy true desire,
We chaunt thy lauds at Easter quire.
Let not thy saintship think it meet
We drink from well tho’ ne’er so sweet,
Liquor unworthy priest or parson,
If so, your friers will hang an arse on,
Who nothing mind, I need not tell ye,
Most holy patron, but their belly.
So used, they’ll ev’ry soul be dumb,
No dixit dominus, but ———— mum.”
Not unlike this is what follows:—
“O monachi, vestri stomachi sunt amphora Bacchi,
Vos estis, Deus est testis, teterrima pestis!”
“O monks, ye reverend drones, your guts
Of wine are but so many buts;
You are, God knows (who can abide ye?)
Of plagues the rankest, bona fide!”
1. Juvenal. Satire II.24.
1a. Horace, Odes I.xxxvii.1-4.
1b. Horace, Odes II.xiv.25-28.