This they chiefly ascribe to the growth of vegetables, which incorporate into their own substance many fluid bodies that never return again to their former nature: but, with submission, they ought to throw into their account those innumerable rational beings which fetch their nourishment chiefly out of liquids; especially when we consider that men, compared with their fellow-creatures, drink much more than comes to their share.

But, however highly this tribe of people may think of themselves, a drunken man is a greater monster than any that is to be found among all the creatures which God has made; as indeed there is no character which appears more despicable and deformed, in the eyes of all reasonable persons, than that of a drunkard. Bonosus, one of our own countrymen, who was addicted to this vice, having set up for a share in the Roman empire, and being defeated in a great battle, hanged himself. When he was seen by the army in this melancholy situation, notwithstanding he had behaved himself very bravely, the common jest was, that the thing they saw hanging upon the tree before them was not a man, but a bottle.

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 sober man, by the strength of reason, may keep under and subdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined; but wine makes every latent seed sprout up in the soul, and show itself; it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome, 'Put less water in your

wine,' says the philosopher, and you will quickly make her so.' 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 assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults. of a man, and show them in the most odious colours, but often occasions faults to which he is not naturally subject. There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, that drunkenness does not produce but discover faults. Common experience teaches us the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. The person you converse with, after the third bottle, is not the same man who at first sat down at table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is ascribed to Publius Syrus, Qui ebrium ludificat, lædit absentem: 'He who jests upon a man that is drunk injures the absent.'

Thus does drunkenness act in a 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 besides these ill effects which this vice produces in the person who is actually under its dominion, it has also a bad influence on the mind even in its sober moments, as it insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent

excesses.

I should now proceed to show the ill effects which

this vice has on the bodies and fortunes of men; but these I shall reserve for the subject of some future paper.

**For the information of gentlemen, and promotion of trade among booksellers, there is this day published The Monthly Catalogue of all books, sermons, and pamphlets, which were published in the months of May and June last, the name of the printer and price being to each book. Printed for B. Lintot, price 3d. each month; to be continued monthly. Spect. in folio.

No. 570. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1714.

-Nugæque canora.

HOR. Ars Poet, 822.

Chiming trifles.

ROSCOMMON.

THERE is scarcely a man living who is not actuated by ambition. When this principle meets with an honest mind and great abilities, it does infinite service to the world; on the contrary, when a man only thinks of distinguishing himself without being thus qualified for it, he becomes a very pernicious or a very ridiculous creature. I shall here confine my

self to that petty kind of ambition, by which some 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 see an artist in the streets gain a circle of admirers, by carrying a long pole upon his chin or forehead in a perpendicular posture. Ambition has taught some to write with their feet, and others to walk upon their hands. Some tumble into

By Addison. See Tat. Nos. 152, 205, 241; Spect. Nos. 189, 195; and Guard. No. 56.

fame, others grow immortal, by throwing themselves through a hoop.

'Cætera de genere hoc adeo sunt multa, loquacem

Delassare valent Fabium.

HOR. 1 Sat. i. 13.

"With thousands more of this ambitious race

Would tire ev'n Fabius to relate each case.'

HORNEOK.

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 a discourse with him; and talking of a certain great man, who shall be nameless, he told me that he had sometimes the honour to treat him with a whistle; adding (by the way of parenthesis), 'for you must know, gentlemen, that I whistle the best of any man in Europe.' This naturally put me upon desiring him to give us a sample of his art; upon which he called for a case-knife, and, applying the edge of it to his mouth, converted it into a musical instrument, and entertained me with an Italian solo. Upon laying down the knife, he took up a pair of clean tobacco-pipes; and, after having slid the small end of them over the table in a most melodious trill, he fetched a tune out of them, whistling to them at the same time in concert. In short, the tobacco-pipes became musical pipes in the hands of our virtuoso, who confessed to me ingenuously he had broke such quantities of them, that he had almost broke

This man's name was Daintry. He was in the trained bands, and commonly known by the name of captain Daintry. The annotator received this information from old Mr. Heywood. See Guard. in 8vo. No. 84, and note on Mr. J. Heywood.

himself before he had brought this piece of music to any tolerable perfection. I then told him I would bring a company of friends to dine with him the next week, as an encouragement to his ingenuity; upon which he thanked me, saying that he would provide himself with a new frying-pan against that day. I replied, that it was no matter; roast and boiled would serve our turn. He smiled at my simplicity, and told me that it was his design to give us a tune upon it. As I was surprised at such a promise, he sent for an old frying-pan, and, grating it upon the board, whistled to it in such a melodious manner, that you could scarce distinguish it from a bass-viol. He then took his seat 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 sing out he would accompany his voice with a tobaccopipe. As my friend has an agreeable bass, he chose rather to sing to the frying-pan, and indeed between them they made up a most extraordinary concert. Finding our landlord so great a proficient in kitchen music, I asked him if he was master of the tongs and key. He told me that he had laid it down some years since as a little unfashionable; but that, if I pleased, he would give me a lesson upon the gridiron. He then informed me that he had added two bars to the gridiron, in order to give it a greater compass of sound; and I perceived was as well pleased with the invention as Sappho could have been upon adding two strings to the lute. To be short, I found that his whole kitchen was furnished with musical instruments; and could not but look upon this artist as a kind of burlesque musician.

He afterwards of his own accord fell into the imitation of several singing birds. My friend and I