Drink.

WHEN Panurge and his fellows, as Rab'lais will tell us,
Set out on a sail to the ends of the earth,
And jollily cruising, carousing, and boozing,

To the oracle came in a full tide of mirth,
Pray what was its answer? come tell if you can, sir;
'Twas an answer most splendid and suge, as I think;
For sans any delaying, it summ'd up by saying,
The whole duty of man is one syllable·

O bottle mirific! advice beatific!

"DRINK."

A response more celestial sure never was known;
I speak for myself, I prefer it to Delphi,

Though Apollo himself on that rock fixed his throne;
The foplings of fashion may still talk their trash on,
And declare that the custom of toping should sink ;
A fig for such asses, I stick to my glasses,

And swear that no fashion shall stint me in drink.

* See Rabelais' Pantagruel, Livre V. chap, xliv. After arriving at the oracle of the holy bottle, and asking its advice, "de la sacrée bouteille yssit ung bruit tel que font les abeilles naissantes de la chair dung jeune taureau occiz et accoustre selon l'art et invention d'Aristeus; ou tel que faict une guarot desbandant l'arbaleste, ou, en esté, une forte pluye soubdainement tumblant. Lors feut ouy ce mot, TRINQ," which Bacbue the priestess' son interprets to be a panomphean, signifying Drink.-C. N. C. N. [Maginn was very fond of Rabelais, and once said that he thought the stories he told in Pantagruel were repeated in his early life to boon companions, and written down by him, in advanced years, rather to amuse himself than for fame. He (Maginn) had found that all the authorities cited in the trial chamber were correct and genuine. He believed, also, that Shakspere must have been a close student of Rabelais, and that the first scene in "The Tempest" proved this; also, that Father John was Rabelais' pet character, and that with which he took most pains. There was no imitating Rabelais.-M.]

+ Odoherty. VOL. I.-16

+ Hogg.

§ Timothy Tickler.

|| North

Long, long may its brightness, in glory and lightness,
Shine clear as the day-star on morning's sweet brink!
May their sway ne'er diminish! and therefore I finish,
By proposing the health of the four whom I drink.*

Tra li ra.

Hungry and chill'd with bivouacking,
We rise ere song of earliest bird —Tra li ra.
Cannon and drums our ears are cracking,
And saddle, boot, and blade's the word
"Vite en l'avant," our bugle blows,
A flying gulp and off it goes,
Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee!-Crambambulee!

Victory's ours, off speed despatches,

Hourra! The luck for once is mine-Tra li ra.
Food comes by morsels, sleep by snatches,

No time, by Jove, to wash or dine-Tra li ra.
From post to post my pipe I cram,

Full gallop smoke, and suck my dram.
Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee !-Crambambulee

When I'm the peer of kings and kaisers,

An order of my own I'll found —Tra li ra.

Down goes our gage to all despisers;

Our motto through the world shall sound-Tra li ra.

"Toujours fidele et sans souci,

C'est l'ordre de Crambambulee!"

Cram-bam-bim-bam-bu-lee! - Crambambulee!

* From Blackwood for September, 1825, sang at THE NOCTES. — M. ↑ From Blackwood for December, 1825, sang at THE NOCTES. M.

Twenty-one Maxims to Marry_by.*

"To be thus, is nothing;

But to be safely thus-!"

*

SHAKSPERE.

I NEVER knew a good fellow, in all my life, that was not, some way or other, the dupe of women. One man is an ass unconsciously; another, with his eyes open: but all, that are good for any thing, are saddled and bridled in some way, and at some time or other.

If a good fellow drinks-your best perhaps won't drink very much now—but, if he does drink, ten to one, it is because he is out of humour with some woman. If he writes, what can

he write about, but woman? If he games, why is it, but to get money to lavish upon her? For all his courage, ardour, wit, vanity, good-temper, and all other good qualities that he possesses, woman keeps an open market, and can engross them wholly! Why, then, after we have abused women—which we all of us do--and found out that they are no more to be trusted than fresh-caught monkeys-which the best of us are very likely to do; — after all, what does it come to but this-that they are the devil's plagues of our lives-and we must have them?

For, if you are "five-and-twenty, or thereabouts," and good for any thing, you'll certainly become attached to some woman; and-you'll find I'm right, so take warning in time-depend upon it, it had better be to an honest one. It's Cockney taste, lads, nasty, paltry, Bond-street stuff-to be seen driving about in a cabriolet with the mistress of half the town. And, for the attachment, never flatter yourselves that you are certain to get "tired" of any woman with whom you constantly associate. Depend upon it, you are a great deal more likely to become very inextricably fond of her. Kick it all out of doors, the stale trash, that men are naturally "indifferent" to their wives. How

* The Maxims to Marry by, which contain good sense, close observation, and sharp truth, appeared in Blackwood for May, 1826. They were particularly "Addressed to single gentlemen.” — M.

- comes

the deuce should a fine woman be the worse for being one's wife? And are there not five hundred good reasons-to every body but a puppy-why she must be the better? Then, as you must all of you be martyred, suffer in respectable company. MARRY! boys-it's a danger; but, though it is a danger, it is the best. It is a danger! I always feel thankful when a man is hanged for killing his wife; because I should not choose to kill a wife of my own-and yet the crying of the " "dying speech". for the barbarous and inhuman murder!" &c; &c.— is a sort of warning to her as one rat, losing his tail in the rattrap, frightens the whole granary-full that are left. But, though marriage is a danger, nevertheless, hazard it. Between evils, boys!—you know the proverb?-choose the least. Marry, I say, all and each of you! Take wives; and take them in good time, that "your names may be long in the land." And then, seeing that you could, one and all of you, have wives the question, how you should go about to get them? Then, in the first place, I shall assume, that he who reads this paper and marries, marries for a wife. Because, if he wants a "fortune" to boot, or a "place," or to be allied (being plebeian) titled family," the case is out of my métier; he had better apply to an attorney at once. Don't make these things indispensable, any of you, if you can help it.. For the fortune, a hundred to one—when you get it—if it does not over-ride you with "settlements," and "trusts," and whole oceans of that sort of impertinence, which every proper man should keep clear of. No woman ought to be able to hold property independent of her husband. And, if that is not the law, all I can say is, that it ought to be so. Then, for the “Place—it's very well to have a place, where you can get one but it must be the very devil to have the donor eternally, all your life afterwards, reminding you how you came by it. And, for the "Titled family," why, shut the book this minute, and don't have the impudence to read another line that I write, if you wouldn't quoit a brother-in-law that was "right honourable," with one impetus from CharingCross to Whitechapel, just as soon as a kinsman that was a clerk in the Victualling-office-provided he deserved it, or you took it into your head that it was convenient to do it! Besides, a

to a

nice woman is worth all the money in the Bank. What would would you do with it, after you had it, but give it all for one? Please your taste, my children; and so that you get an honest woman, and a pleasing one, to the devil send the remainder. And then to guide your choice, take the following maxims: Those who have brains, will perceive their value at a glance; and such as are thick-headed can read them three or four times over. And let such not be too hastily disheartened; for it is part of wit; (and of this Magazine,) to bear with dulness; and one comfort is, when you have at least beaten anything into a skull of density, the very devil himself can hardly ever get it out again. "We write on brass," as somebody or other observes, and somewhere, "less easily than in water; but the impression, once made, endures for ever."

Parim First.

Now, in making marriage, as in making love-and indeed in making most other things-the beginning it is that is the difficulty. But the French proverb about beginnings—“ C'est le premier pas qui coute" — goes more literally to the arrangement of marriage; as our English well illustrates the condition of love,- "The first step over, the rest is easy." Because, in the marrying affair, it is particularly, the "first step" that "costs"

as to your cost you will find, if that step happens to go the wrong way. And most men, when they go about the business of wedlock, owing to some strange delusion, begin the affair at the wrong end. They take a fancy to the white arms (sometimes only to the kid gloves)—or to the neat ancles of a peculiar school girl; and conclude, from these premises, that she is just the very woman of the world to scold a houseful of servants, and to bring up a dozen children! This is a convenient deduction, but not always a safe one. Pleasant-like Dr. Maculloch's deductions in his Political Economy-but generally wrong. "Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silk, betray thy poor heart," as Shakspere says, &c. &c. "to woman!" -Implying thereby, that red sashes and lace flounces are but as things transitory; and that she who puts ornaments of gold and silver upon her own head, may be a crown to her husband"