Chap. XV Of Free Masons, and Other Learned Men, That Used to Get Drunk
If what brother Eugenius Philalethes, author of Long Livers, a book dedicated to the Free Masons, says in his Preface1 to that treatise, be true, those mystical gentlemen very well deserve a place amongst the learned. But, without entering into their peculiar jargon, or whether a man can be sacrilegiously perjured for revealing secrets when he has none, I do assure my readers, they are very great friends to the vintners. An eye-witness of this was I myself, at their late general meeting at Stationers’ Hall, who having learned some of their catechism, passed my examination, paid my five shillings, and took my place accordingly.
We had a good dinner, and, to their eternal honour, the brotherhood laid about them very valiantly. They saw then their high dignity; they saw what they were, acted accordingly, and shewed themselves (what they were) men2. The Westphalia hams and chickens, with good plum pudding, not forgetting the delicious salmon, were plentifully sacrificed, with copious libations of wine for the consolation of the brotherhood. But whether, after a very disedifying manner their demolishing huge walls of venison pasty, be building up a spiritual house, I leave to brother Eugenius Philalethes to determine. However, to do them justice, I must own, there was no mention made of politics or religion, so well do they seem to follow the advice of that author3. And when the music began to play, “Let the king enjoy his own again,” they were immediately reprimanded by a person of great gravity and science.
The bottle, in the mean while, went merrily about, and the following healths were begun by a great man, The King, Prince and Princess, and the Royal Family; the Church as by Law established; Prosperity to Old England under the present Administration; and Love, Liberty, and Science; which were unanimously pledged in full bumpers, attended with loud huzzas.
The faces then of the most ancient and most honourable fraternity of the Free Masons, brightened with ruddy fires; their eyes illuminated, resplendent blazed.
Well fare ye, merry hearts, thought I, hail ye illustrious topers, if liberty and freedom, ye free mortals, is your essential difference, richly distinguishes you from all others, and is, indeed, the very soul and spirit of the brotherhood, according to brother Eugenius Philalethes4. I know not who may be your alma mater, but undoubtedly Bacchus is your liber pater.
’Tis wine, ye Masons, makes you free,
Bacchus the father is of liberty.
But leaving the Free Masons, and their invaluable secrets, for I know not what they are worth, come we now to speak of other men of learning, who loved to indulge their genius with the delicious juice of the grape. And here we need not fly to antiquity, which would swell this work into a large volume, later times will furnish us with many a bright example. Non semper confugiamus ad vetera.
A man of learning, after ten or twelve hours daily study, cannot do better, than to unbend his mind in drinking plentifully of the creature; and may not such a one say to himself these verses of the French poet:—
“Dois-je mal a propos secher a faire un livre
Et n’avoir pour tout fruit des peines que je prends
Que la haine de sots et les mepris des grands5.”
Why should I pass away my time in vain,
And, to compose a book, dry up my brain,
When all the recompense I’m like to find,
For all the toil and labour of my mind,
Is the unthinking silly ideot’s hate,
And the contempt and scorn of all the great
I must own I would have the indefatigable labour of such a one gain an immortal reputation after his death; but after all, to weary one’s self all one’s life long with those views, is very chimerical. And certainly, he that makes but little account of the honours that might accrue to him after his death, acted like a man of sense. Si venit post fata gloria non propero6.
Is it not infinitely better to divert one’s self while one lives, than to idle all one’s life away on poring upon books? Much better will the following song become the mouth of a man of letters, which I have transcribed out of the Mercure Galant, of the year 1711, p. 67.
“De ceux qui vivent dans l’histoire,
Ma foi je n’envierai le sort.
Nargues du Temple de Memoire
Ou l’on ne vit que lorsque l’on est mort.
J’aime bien mieux vivre pendant ma vie
Pour boire avec Silvie;
Car je sentirai
Les momens que je vivrai
Tant que je boirai.”
Faith, I shan’t envy him, whoe’er he be,
That glorious lives in history;
Nor memory’s rich fane amuse my head,
Where no one lives but when he’s dead.
I had much rather, while I life enjoy,
The precious moments all employ,
With my lov’d Silvia, and delicious wine,
Both wonderful, and both divine.
For that I truly live, and healthy prove,
Is that I drink, and that I love.
This is exactly the same thing that Racan said to Maynard in this ode7.
“Je sai, Maynard, que les merveilles
Qui naissent de tes longues veilles
Vivront autant que l’univers;
Mais que te sert il que ta gloire
Eclipse au Temple de Memoire
Quand tu seras mangé des vers?
Quitte cette inutile peine,
Bûvons plûtôt a longue haleine
De ce doux jus delicieux,
Qui pour l’excellence précéde
Le bruvage que Ganimede
Verse dans la coupe des dieux.”
Maynard, I know thy thoughts express’d in rhyme,
Those wonders of thy bright immortal pen,
Shall live for ever in the minds of men,
Till vast eternity shall swallow time.
Yet should thy glories, now so radiant bright,
In Memory’s rare temple lose their light;
Suffer eclipse, when to the worms a prey,
Those reptiles eat thy poor remains away.
Does this reflection chagrin thee, my friend,
Thus to the useless thought decree an end?
Drink, and drink largely, that delicious juice,
The em’rald vines in purple gems produce,
Which for its excellence surpasses far
That liquor which, to bright celestial souls,
Jove’s minion, Ganimede, with steady care,
Richly dispenses in immortal bowls.
So much for poetry, let us come to the point, and instance some learned men, that have loved this diversion. And first, enter Erasmus, who certainly was no enemy to wine, since he chose rather to continue where the plague was than drink water. To prove this, I shall instance part of a letter written to this great man by Armonius, an Italian, and a very learned person:— “Immediately after my arrival in England, I endeavoured to inform myself where you were, because in your last you told me, the plague had forced you to quit Cambridge. At length I was told for certain, that you had indeed left the town, but retiring into a place where there was no wine, which to you being worse than the plague, you returned thither, and where you now are. O intrepid soldier of Bacchus, whom so eminent a danger could not compel to desert his general!” The Latin having much more force, for the sake of those who understand that language, I shall take the liberty to insert it, as follows:— Simul atque Anglicum solum tetigi, ubi locorum esses rogare cepi, siquidem Cantabrigiensem pestem fugere te scripsisti. Unus tandem sixtinus mihi dixit te quidem Cantabrigiam. Ob pestem reliquisse et concessisse nescio quo, ubi cum vini penuria laborares, et eo carere gravius peste duceres, Cantabrigiam repetiisse atque ibi nunc esse. O fortem Bassarei commilitonem, qui in summo periculo ducem deserere nolueris8.
“Daniel Heinsius loved to drink a little. One day, when he was not in a condition to read his lectures, having got drunk the day before, some arch wags fixed these words on the school-door:— Daniel Heinsius, non leget hodie, propter hesternam carpulam9.”
“George Sharpe, a Scotchman, professor, and vice-chancellor of Montpelier, who died in the year 1673, on his birth-day, aged fifty-nine years, was a great drunkard10.”
Barthius 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 Haerlaem 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 entertain 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 Rhine11.”
Scaliger treats as a drunkard, John Kuklin, a calvinist minister, native of Hesse, and a very learned man12.
“Nicolas de Bourbon, of Bar sur l’Aube, was nephew’s son to the poet Nicolas Bourbon, who lived in the time of Francis the First; after having been king’s professor, then canon of Langres, made himself father of the oratory.——He was a prodigious dry soul, and loved good wine, which made him often say, That though he was of the French academy, yet that when he read French verses he fancied he was drinking water.”
The 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 Bourdeaux, 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 VI. continuing his intemperance, he grew at last so dropsical by drinking, that by way of jeer he said he was in labour. Vino intercute, not aquâ 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 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 years 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,
φεύ τινες ὕδωρ
πίνουσι μανίην σώφρονα μαινόμενοι. A
“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 minister, And what is that, says he, that you call the Lord’s Prayer? The standers by answered, 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.”12a
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 vomitted his purple soul out, Purpuræam vomit ille animam13.”
I shall not vouch for the truth of this story, but you have it as I find it; nor must it be expected that Buchanan, who was their mortal enemy, should find any favour from the priests of the church of Rome.
Justus Lipsius got sometimes drunk; he tells us so himself, in his Commentary on Seneca, for in that passage where the philosopher says, that drunkenness cures some certain distempers, he makes on the word distempers this remark following—Melancholy (we know it by experience) or cold. And in the discourses which he says were carried on between Carrio Demius and Dusa, upon subjects of literature, and which he inserts in his Ancient Lessons, they had always a glass in their hand.
Every one knows that Baudius, professor in the university of Leyden, was a great drinker, and Culprit himself pleads guilty to the indictment. Habemus rerum confitentem. Here follow his own words, which I own I cannot translate without losing their beauty in the Latin, but the substance is, that he defies envy itself to say any thing against him, but that like the ancient Cato, he drank pretty liberally of the juice of the grape. Concurrant omnes, says he, non dicam ut ille satiricus, Augures, Haruspices, sed quicquid est ubique hominum curiosorum, qui in aliena acta tam sedulo iniquirunt ut ea fingant quæ nunquam fuerunt, nihil inveniet quod in nobis carpere possit livor, quam quod interdum ad exemplum prisci Catonii liberalitatis invitare nos patiamur, nec semper constitimus ultra sobrietatem veterum Sabinorum14. And in another letter he says, that the most virulent detractor could never reproach him with any thing, but that he got sometimes drunk. Malignitas obtrectatorum nihil aliud in nobis sigillare potest quam quod nimis commodus sum convivator, et interdum largius adspargor rore liberi patris15.
Balzac made also some little debauches with some of his friends at his country-house; and what he wrote to an officer who was then prisoner in Germany, makes it evidently appear that he thought it lawful so to do. “In relation,” says he, “to the German manner of drinking healths, which you speak of with such trouble, as if they were so many Turkish bastinadoes, I think your sobriety in that respect to be a little too delicate, you must learn to howl when you are in company of wolves, as the proverb has it, and not to instance great generals. Don’t you know, that wise ambassadors of kings have heretofore got drunk for the good of their master’s affairs, and sacrificed all their prudence and gravity to the necessity of great men, and the custom of the country where they were. I do not advise you here to any forbidden acts of intemperance, but I think it no manner of harm now and then to drown your chagrin in Rhenish wine, and to make use of that agreeable means to shorten the time, the long continuance of which is ever extremely tedious to prisoners16.”
The illustrious professor of Utrecht, whose name shall live as long as the republic of letters shall subsist, was a great drinker, and valued himself for drinking a great deal. It is reported of this learned man, that at the congress of the last peace, a certain German prince, of a sovereign house, came on purpose to have a brush with our professor, who accepted the challenge, and came off victorious, having fairly laid his enemy speechless on the floor.
1. Vide Preface, p. 17, l. 6, where are these words, viz. Thus shall princes love and cherish you as their most faithful children and servants, and take delight to commune with you, inasmuch as amongst you are found men excellent in all kinds of sciences, and who, thereby, may make their names, who love and cherish you, immortal
2. Page 6, l. 9.
3. Page 16, l. 19.
4. Page 5, l. 12. Page 42, l. 13.
5. Oeuv. div. du Sieur D’Espreaux, p. 246.
6. Martial.
7. Parnass. Franc, p. 97.
8. Bayle Dict. Art. Ammon.
9. Menagian, t. i. p. 26.
10. Patinian, p. 106.
11. Rec. de Partic. p. 318, ed. 4.
12. Scaliger, p. 409.
12a. Propertius I.i.1-2.
13. Bayle Dict. Art. Buchan. D.
14. Ep. xxxiii. centur. 3.
15. Ep. xxvi. centur. 3.
16. Lett. Chois. lib. ii. lett. 5.