might be." This was considered as a trial of victory among these "canary-birds," or bibbers of canary wine.*

We have a very common expression to describe a man in a state of ebriety, that "he is as drunk as a beast," or that "he is beastly drunk." This is a libel on the brutes, for the vice of ebriety is perfectly human. I think the phrase is peculiar to ourselves and I imagine I have discovered its origin. When ebriety became first prevalent in our nation, during the reign of Elizabeth, it was a favourite notion among the writers of the time, and on which they have exhausted their fancy, that a man in the different stages of ebriety showed the most vicious quality of different animals; or that a company of drunkards exhibited a collection of brutes, with their different characteristics.

"All dronkardes are beasts," says George Gascoigne, in a curious treatise on them,† and he proceeds in illustrating his proposition; but the satirist Nash has classified eight kinds of "drunkards;" a fanciful sketch from the hand of a master in humour, and which could only have been composed by a close spectator of their manners and habits.

"The first is ape-drunk, and he leaps and sings and hollows and danceth for the heavens; the second is lyon-drunk, and he flings the pots about the house, calls the hostess w-e, breaks the glass-windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him; the third is swinedrunk, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes; the fourth is sheep-drunk, wise in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word; the fifth is maudlen-drunk, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his drink, and kiss you, saying, ' By God! captain, I love thee; go thy ways, thou dost not think so often of me as I do of thee: I would (if it pleased God) I could not love thee so well as I do,' and then he puts his finger in his eye and cries. The sixth is martin-drunk, when a man is drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir; the seventh is goat-drunk, when in his drunkenness he hath no mind but on lechery. The eighth is fox-drunk, when he is crafty-drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never

* This term is used in Bancroft's "Two Books of Epigrams and Epitaphs," 1639. I take it to have been an accepted one of that day.

"A delicate Diet for daintie mouthed Dronkardes, wherin the fowle Abuse of common carowsing and quaffing with hartie Draughtes is honestlie admonished." By George Gascoigne, Esquier. 1576.

bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen practised in one company at one sitting; when I have been permitted to remain sober amongst them only to note their several humours." These beast-drunkards are characterised in a frontispiece to a curious tract on Drunkenness where the men are represented with the heads of apes, swine, &c. &c.

A new era in this history of our drinking-parties occurred about the time of the Restoration, when politics heated their wine, and drunkenness and loyalty became more closely connected. As the puritanic coldness wore off, the people were perpetually, in 1650, warmed in drinking the king's health on their knees; and, among various kinds of "ranting cavalierism," the cavaliers during Cromwell's usurpation usually put a crumb of bread into their glass, and before they drank it off, with cautious ambiguity exclaimed, "God send this crum well down!" which by the way preserves the orthoëpy of that extraordinary man's name, and may be added to the instances adduced in our present volume "On the orthography of proper names." We have a curious account of a drunken bout by some royalists, told by Whitelocke in his Memorials. It bore some resemblance to the drinking-party of Catiline: they mingled their own blood with their wine.* After the Restoration, Burnet complains of the excess of convivial loyalty. "Drinking the king's health was set up by too many as a distinguishing mark of loyalty, and drew many into great excess after his majesty's restoration."+

LITERARY ANECDOTES.

A WRITER of penetration sees connexions in literary anecdotes which are not immediately perceived by others: in his hands anecdotes, even should they be familiar to us, are susceptible

I shall preserve the story in the words of Whitelocke; it was something ludicrous, as well as terrific.

"From Berkshire (in May, 1650) that five drunkards agreed to drink the king's health in their blood, and that each of them should cut off a piece of his buttock, and fry it upon the gridiron, which was done by four of them, of whom one did bleed so exceedingly, that they were fain to send for a chirurgeon, and so were discovered. The wife of one of them hearing that her husband was amongst them, came to the room, and taking up a pair of tongs laid about her, and so saved the cutting of her husband's flesh."-Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 453, second edition. + Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale.

of deductions and inferences, which become novel and important truths. Facts of themselves are barren; it is when these facts pass through reflections, and become interwoven with our feelings, or our reasonings, that they are the finest illustrations; that they assume the dignity of "philosophy teaching by example;" that, in the moral world, they are what the wise system of Bacon inculcated in the natural knowledge deduced from experiments; the study of nature in her operations. "When examples are pointed out to us," says Lord Bolingbroke, "there is a kind of appeal, with which we are flattered, made to our senses, as well as to our understandings. The instruction comes then from our authority; we yield to fact, when we resist speculation."

For this reason, writers and artists should, among their recreations, be forming a constant acquaintance with the history of their departed kindred. In literary biography a man of genius always finds something which relates to himself. The studies of artists have a great uniformity, and their habits of life are monotonous. They have all the same difficulties to encounter, although they do not all meet with the same glory. How many secrets may the man of genius learn from literary anecdotes! important secrets, which his friends will not convey to him. He traces the effects of similar studies; warned sometimes by failures, and often animated by watching the incipient and shadowy attempts which closed in a great work. From one he learns in what manner he planned and corrected; from another he may overcome those obstacles which, perhaps, at that very moment make him rise in despair from his own unfinished labour. What perhaps he had in vain desired to know for half his life is revealed to him by a literary anecdote; and thus the amusements of indolent hours may impart the vigour of study; as we find sometimes in the fruit we have taken for pleasure the medicine which restores our health. How superficial is that cry of some impertinent pretended geniuses of these times who affect to exclaim, "Give me no anecdotes of an author, but give me his works!" I have often found the anecdotes more interesting than the works.

Dr. Johnson devoted one of his periodical papers to a defence of anecdotes, and expresses himself thus on certain collectors of anecdotes: "They are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not well what advantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by which Tickell has

distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind,-the irregu larity of his pulse; nor can I think myself overpaid for the time spent in reading the life of Malherbe, by being enabled to relate, after the learned biographer, that Malherbe had two predominant opinions; one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast of ancient descent; the other, that French beggars made use, very improperly and barbarously, of the phrase noble gentlemen, because either word included the sense of both."

These just observations may, perhaps, be further illustrated by the following notices. Dr. J. Warton has informed the world that many of our poets have been handsome. This, certainly, neither concerns the world, nor the class of poets. It is trifling to tell us that Dr. Johnson was accustomed "to cut his nails to the quick." I am not much gratified by being informed, that Menage wore a greater number of stockings than any other person, excepting one, whose name I have really forgotten. The biographer of Cujas, a celebrated lawyer, says that two things were remarkable of this scholar. The first, that he studied on the floor, lying prostrate on a carpet, with his books about him; and, secondly, that his perspiration exhaled an agreeable smell, which he used to inform his friends he had in common with Alexander the Great! This admirable biographer should have told us whether he frequently turned from his very uneasy attitude. Somebody informs us, that Guy Patin resembled Cicero, whose statue is preserved at Rome; on which he enters into a comparison of Patin with Cicero; but a man may resemble a statue of Cicero, and yet not be Cicero. Baillet loads his life of Descartes with a thousand minutiæ, which less disgrace the philosopher than the biographer. Was it worth informing the public, that Descartes was very particular about his wigs; that he had them manufactured at Paris; and that he always kept four? That he wore green taffety in France: but that in Holland he quitted taffety for cloth; and that he was fond of omelets of eggs?

It is an odd observation of Clarendon in his own life, that "Mr. Chillingworth was of a stature little superior to Mr. Hales; and it was an age in which there were many great and wonderful men of THAT SIZE." Lord Falkland, formerly Sir Lucius Carey, was of a low stature, and smaller than most men; and of Sidney Godolphin, "There was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room; so that Lord

Falkland used to say merrily, that he thought it was a great ingredient in his friendship for Mr. Godolphin, that he was pleased to be found in his company where he was the properer man." This irrelevant observation of Lord Clarendon is an instance where a great mind will sometimes draw inferences from accidental coincidences, and establish them into a general principle; as if the small size of the men had even the remotest connexion with their genius and their virtues. Perhaps, too, there was in this a tincture of the superstitions of the times: whatever it was, the fact ought not to have degraded the truth and dignity of historical narrative. We have writers who cannot discover the particulars which characterise THE MAN-their souls, like damp gunpowder, cannot ignite with the spark when it falls on them.

It

Yet of anecdotes which appear trifling, something may be alleged in their defence. It is certainly safer for some writers to give us all they know, than to try their discernment for rejection. Let us sometimes recollect, that the page over which we toil will probably furnish materials for authors of happier talents. I would rather have a Birch, or a Hawkins, appear heavy, cold, and prolix, than that anything material which concerns a Tillotson, or a Johnson, should be lost. must also be confessed, that an anecdote, or a circumstance, which may appear inconsequential to a reader, may bear some remote or latent connexion: a biographer who has long contemplated the character he records, sees many connexions which escape an ordinary reader. Kippis, in closing the life of the diligent Dr. Birch, has, from his own experience, no doubt, formed an apology for that minute research, which some have thought this writer carried to excess. "It may be alleged in our author's favour, that a man who has a deep and extensive acquaintance with a subject, often sees a connexion and importance in some smaller circumstances, which may not immediately be discerned by others; and, on that account, may have reasons for inserting them, that will escape the notice of superficial minds.”

CONDEMNED POETS.

I FLATTER myself that those readers who have taken any interest in my volume have not conceived me to have been deficient in the elevated feeling which, from early life, I have