130 ABSTINENCE FIIOM DRINKING. 



but if he exceed it, 'tis at his own peril. Wine and poetry 

 go joyously together. Bacchus and Apollo were aye boon 

 companions ; but I never heard of Diana having attached 

 herself to the jolly god, or of an amour between Hebe 

 and Adonis. Hard work upon wine will parch up the 

 body, and make the hand ricketty. You ken that yoursel, 

 Christopher. A keen deer-stalker's walk will keep a 

 horse in a pretty decent trot, and his run changes that trot 

 into a gallop, a sort of Eclipse pace. Would you then 

 have him Bacchi plenus ? Yes, I verily believe you 

 would. Well, my good Anacreon, only just try that 

 system yoursel a wee bit. During the first week your 

 mouth will be drinking bog water in every black pool you 

 find ; in the next your flesh will vanish from your solitary 

 bones ; and in the third, yes, in the third, at latest, you 

 will die by spontaneous combustion. 



The best part of a bottle of champagne may be allowed 

 at dinner: this is not only venial but salutary. A few 

 tumblers of brandy and soda-water are greatly to be 

 commended, for they are cooling. Whiskey cannot rea- 

 sonably be objected to, for it is an absolute necessary, and 

 does not come under the head of intemperance, but rather, 

 as Dogberry says, or ought to say, " it comes by nature." 

 Ginger-beer I hold to be a dropsical, insufficient, and 

 unmanly beverage ; I pray you avoid it ; and as for your 

 magnums and pottle-deep potations, why really at this 

 season of the year, as Captain Bobadil says, "We cannot 

 extend thus far." 



When the nerves are unsteady, the rifle in the sports- 

 man's hand begins to betray a want of fixed purpose and 

 resolution ; it does, as it were, vibrate considerably. Under 



