This vice has very fatal effects on the mind, the body, and fortune of the person who is devoted to it.

In regard to the mind, it first of all discovers every flaw in it. The fober man, by the strength of reason, may keep under, and fubdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined; but wine makes every latent feed fprout up in the foul, and fhew itfelf; it gives fury to the paffions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them. When a young fellow complained to an old philofopher, that his wife was not handfome,. Put lefs water in your wine, fays the philofopher, and you will quickly make her fo. Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an affaffin. It gives bitterness to refentment, it makes vanity infupportable, and difplays every little fpot of the foul in its utmost deformity.

Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and shew them in the most odious colours, but often occafions faults to which he is not naturally fubject. There is more of turn than of truth in a faying of Seneca, that drunkenness does not produce, but difcover faults. Common experience teaches us the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infufes qualities into the mind which the is a ftranger to in her fober moments. The perfon you converfe with, after the third bottle, is not the fame man who at first sat down at table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettieft fayings I ever met with, which is afcribed to Publius Syrus, Qui ebrium ludificat ladit abfentem; He who jefts upon a man that is drunk, injures the absent.

Thus does drunkenness act in direct contradiction to reason, whose business it is to clear the mind of every vice which is crept into it, and to guard it against all the approaches of any that endeavours to make its entrance. But, befides thefe ill effects

which this vice produces in the person who is actually under its dominion, it has alfo a bad influence. on the mind even in its fober moments, as it insenfibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes thofe faults habitual which are produced by frequent exceffes.

I fhould now proceed to fhew the ill effects which this vice has on the bodies and fortunes of men ; but these I fhall referve for the fubject of fome future paper.

No. 570. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21.

-Nugæque canora.

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 322.

Chiming trifles.

ROSCOMMON.

T

HERE is scarce a man living who is not actuated by ambition. When this principle meets with an honest mind and great abilities, it does infinite fervice to the world; on the contrary, when a man only thinks of diftinguishing himself, without being thus qualified for it, he becomes a very pernicious or a very ridiculous creature. I fhall here confine myself to that pretty kind of ambition by which fome men grow eminent for odd accomplishments, and trivial performances. How many are there whose whole reputation depends upon a pun or a quibble? You may often fee an artist in the streets gain a circle of admirers by carrying a long pole upon his chín or forehead in a perpendicular posture. Am. bition has taught fome to write with their feet, and others to walk upon their hands. Some tumble into fame, others grow immortal by throwing themselves through a hoop.

F 2

Getera

Cetera de genere hoc adeo funt multa, loquacem Delaffere valent Fabium

HOR. Sat. i. lib. i. ver. 13.

With thousands more of this ambitious race
Wou'd tire e'en Fabius to relate each cafe.

HORNECK.

I am led into this train of thought by an adventure I lately met with.

I was the other day at a tavern, where the master of the house accommodating us himself with every thing we wanted, I accidentally fell into discourse with him; and talking of a certain great man, who fhall be nameless, he told me that he had fometimes the honour to treat him with a whiftle, (adding, by way of parenthesis) for you must know, gentlemen, that I whistle the best of any man in Europe. This naturally put me upon defiring him to give us a fample of his art; upon which he called for a cafe-knife, and applying the edge of it to his mouth, converted it into a musical instrument, and entertained me with an Italian folo. Upon laying down the knife, he took up a pair of clean tobacco-pipes; and afterhaving flid the small end of them over the table in a moft melodious trill, he fetched a tune out of them, whistling to them at the fame time in concert. In fhort, the tobacco-pipes became mufical-pipes in the hands of our virtuofo, who confeffed to me ingeni. oufly, he had broke fuch quantities of them, that he had almoft broke himfelt, before he had brought this piece of mufic to any tolerable perfection. I then told him I would bring a company of friends to dine with him next week, as an encouragement to his ingenuity; upon which he thanked me, fay. ing, that he would provide himself with a new fry. ing pan against that day. I replied, that it was no matter; roast and boiled would serve our turn. He fmiled at my fimplicity, and told me, that it was

his

his design to give us a tune upon it. As I was fur-
prifed at fuch a promife, he fent for an old frying-
pan, and, grating it upon the board, whistled to it
in fuch a melodious manner, that you could fcarce
diftinguish it from a bass-viol. He then took his
feat with us at the table, and hearing my friend that
was with me hum over a tune to himself, he told
him, if he would fing out, he would accompany his
voice with a tobacco-pipe. As my friend has an a-
greeable bafs, he chofe rather to fing to the frying-
pan; and indeed between them they made up a most
extraordinary concert. Finding our landlord fo
great a proficient in kitchen-mufic, I afked him if
he was master of the tongs and key. He told me
that he had laid it down fome years fince, as a little
unfashionable; but that if I pleafed he would give
me a leffon upon the gridiron. He then informed
me that he had added two bars to the gridiron, in
order to give it a greater compafs of found; and, I
perceived, was as well pleafed with the invention, as
Sappho could have been upon adding two ftrings to
the lute. To be fhort, I found that his whole kitch-
en was furnished with mufical inftruments
; and
could not but look upon this artist as a kind of bur-
lefque musician.

He afterwards, of his own accord, fell into the imitation of feveral finging-birds. My friend and I toafted our mistreffes to the nightingale, when all of a fudden we were furprised with the mufic of the thrush. He next proceeded to the fky-lark, mounting up by a proper fcale of notes, and afterwards falling to the ground with a very eafy and regular defcent. He then contracted his whiftle to the voice of feveral birds of the fmalleft fize. As he is a man of a larger bulk and higher ftature than ordinary, you would fancy him a giant when you looked upon him, and a Tom-Tit when you fhut your eyes. I must not omit acquainting my reader, that this accomplished perfon was formerly the mafter of a toy

F 3

fhop

fhop near Temple-Bar; and that the famous Charles Mathers was bred up under him. I am told that the misfortunes which he has met with in the world, are chiefly owing to his great application to his mufic; and therefore cannot but recommend him to my readers as one who deferves their favour, and may afford them great diverfion over a bottle of wine, which he fells at the Queen's arms, near the end of the little piazza in Covent Garden.

Luc.

S the work I have engaged in will not only confift of papers of humour and learning, but of feveral effays moral and divine, I fhall publifh the following one, which is founded on a former SPECTATOR, and fent me by a particular friend, not queftioning but it will please such of my readers, as think it no difparagement to their understandings to give way fometimes to a serious thought.

SIR,

IN your paper of Friday, the 9th inftant, you had occafion to confider the ubiquity of the Godhead, and at the fame time to fhew, that as he is prefent to every thing, he cannot but be attentive to every thing, and privy to all the modes and parts of its existence: or, in other words, that his omnifcience and omniprefence are co exiftent, and run together through the whole infinitude of space.