society, as you cannot be tolerated in good company; and when by chance you are seen by the world, your disfigured bloated appearance and imbecility make you the laughing stock of all, for none can pity you, and you say you are happy in your vice? You dare to cry down the propriety of abstinence! Ah! mend your ways, poor drunkard, and return to the paths of wisdom; I abstain it is true from drinking strong liquors, and eating rich food, the goodness of which might the more delight my palate: but by this simple sacrifice, I am free from all those diseases which follow inebriety. I am happy, I enjoy a good state of health, and above all the world's best treasure, peace of mind,' which is far better than all your riotous excesses, those poisonous momentary delusions of happiness.”

Dr. Johnson touches beautifully on this subject in his Rasselas in the following passage: "The first years of man must make provision for the last. He that never thinks, never can be wise. Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short and miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phan

toms of delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts, but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let us therefore stop, while to stop is in our power: let us live as men, who are sometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health, only by the maladies which riot has produced."

It cannot be denied that intemperance is the most foolish vice a man can indulge in, from others he may gain some good, for instance, gambling (though bad in itself) increases a man's tact, but from drunkenness no earthly good can proceed; it is strange how this vice has reigned in the greatest men; the great moralist Addison was once a tippler. "He studied all the morn· ing, then dined at a tavern, and went afterwards to Buttons, where the wits of the time used to assemble. From the coffee house, he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine." Steele also while an officer in the army was much addicted to intemperance. "Now become an officer, Steele gave himself up to every pleasurable excess; but his debaucheries were not interrupted by serious

reflections on their destructive tendency." Sheridan used to say, "If the thought is slow to come, a glass of good wine encourages it, and when it does come, a glass of good wine rewards it." At this rate several bottles must have been consumed in writing a few pages of the School for Scandal. Pit also drank a large quantity of port wine before making a speech in Parliament, and Lord Byron wrote many of his finest passages when not in a very sober state. Those are strange facts, and greater men than these I have mentioned in their various departments, the world never saw. I could enumerate many more instances, in Shakspeare, Burns, and others of transcendent Genius. I shall conclude with that beautiful passage in Shakspeare, on drunkenness from As you like it."

GRATITUDE IN AN OLD SERVANT.

"But do not so; I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corner thrown;

Take that and he that doth the ravens feed,

:

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;

All this I give you : let me be your servant;
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty :
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors to my blood :
Nor did not with unbashful forhead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly let me go with you,
I'll do the service of a younger man,
In all your business and necessities."

I remember in my younger days, hearing a distinguished Orientalist give his pupils (of whom I was one) a lecture on drunkenness, when he concluded with the above quotation, I dare say there are many now in India, who regret not having followed the advice of this amiable man.

Tuesday, March 19, 1844.

POLYPHILUS.

No. 34.

On Patriotism.

"Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering in a foreign strand."

Sir Walter Scott.

Whether or not I am adding to the quantity of waste paper, which is daily issuing from the Press, I know not. I have not yet passed the ordeal of criticism. Perhaps as Fielding says "I may possibly be induced, by the same sort of vanity as other puny authors have been, to desire to be in print." If I am considered a pedant I am certain I belong to that supportable class, thus described by Addison "Of all the species of pedants, which I have mentioned (the military pedant, the law pedant, the state pedant,) the Bookpedant is much the most supportable; he has at least an exercised understanding, and a head which is full though confused, so that a man who converses with him may often receive from him hints of things that are worth knowing and which he may possibly turn to his own advantage though they are of little use to the owner."