520 PEOSE HALIEUTICS. 



prestige in its favour, that whereas the glutton might 

 sometimes munch and monophagize in solitude, leading 

 the life of a wolf or of a lion,* those who drank generally 

 drank together, and, as it was always said and supposed, to 

 each other's health and prosperity. In Pagan times drun- 

 kenness was so general that it may be said to have been 

 the world's epidemic : feebly opposed by moralists on the 

 grounds of inexpediency, it was not to be restrained or 

 put down by the legislature ; for was not Bacchus — a 

 god who would take vengeance on water-drinkers, ' siccis 

 omnia nam dura Deus proposuit' — to be minded before 

 men?t Whilst therefore the ancients knew and ad- 

 mitted all the practical inconveniences residting from 

 inebriety, iem felt the degradation of a moral being like 

 man, drinking away his reason and voluntarily debasing 

 himself to the level of the brutes which have no under- 

 standing : and this was the reason that the good advice 

 of sages was thrown away upon the public, who could not 



contend for each sprig of parsley, lite so many competitors at the 

 Isthmian games ;' you who no sooner see a hare brought to 

 market, than there you are, hovering like a hawk, ready to pounce 

 upon it : show me partridge or quail that has a better chance, or 

 anything with wings, from a peacock to a tit, safe from your in- 

 fernal beak and talons ; you have robbed our sky of all its larks 

 and linnets, till it has become sad and silent as Avernus itself. 

 Audacious villain ! like some devouring locust, you find plenty, 

 and leave famine in your rear.' 



* Visceratio sine amioo vita leonis et lupi est. — Seneca. 



t Perhaps it was partly on account of the greater temptations 

 to this offence, and partly in consequence of the greater difficulty 

 of eradicating a sin which men first deified and then blindly wor- 

 shiped, that made St. Paul charge Timothy to see, if a man de- 

 sire the office of bishop or deacon, that he be not irdpotvos, given 

 to excess in wine: he does not in either instance specify gluttony, 

 supposing, the greater victory gained, the lesser will foUow na- 

 turally. 



' In which a crown of parsley was the victor's prize. 



