The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1858-09-02

Despis d, unwcpt, you fall you might have left
/ A sacred, CHERISHED, sadly pleasing nanfe
A name sti Il to beutter'd with sigh 9F
Your last ungraceful scene has quite effaced
All sense and memory of your former worth"
But Shakespeare, before Armstrong,
had delineated the truth attending vinous
potations. Cassie, in OMeKo, after his
debauch so pregnant with fatal conse-
quences, says: Drunk? and speak
parrot and squabble swagger swear?
and discourse fustian with ones shadow
%, thou invisible spirit of wine, if
thou hast no name to be known by, let
us cali thee-devil 10, that men should
put an enemy in their mouths, to steal
away their brains that we should with
joy, revel, and applause, transform our
selves into beasts.-To be now sensible
man. by and by fool, and presently a
beast O, strange Every inordinate
cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a
devil" "pss f,t,Etf
Such is indeed the truth in alcoholic
drinks. If man could actually see
himself when he is intoxicated, he would
drink water all his lfe Let him, then,
view the counterpart Of himself in those
wretched beings who tumble in the gut
ter after reeling and staggering along the
streets. What an odious and repulsive
spectacle See the beastly physiogno-
my, the haggard eyes, the disheveled
locks, the stupid mouth half open with
convulsive and ignoble movements, the
dropping head, and the oppressed stom-
ach disgorging putrid exhalations +! What
has become of the noble human face and
erect figure Of which it has been said, to
express its beauty, that Gcd made man in
his own image :? The drunken man diff
fuses an infected odor, he wallows in his
filth, he soils his garments, he is covered
with a viscous sweat, and finally falls in
to deep sleep, or, rather, heavy, stu
pid lethargy, from which be sometimes,
when the cerebral vessels are too much
stagnated, never awakes. But if he
again rouses, consider his rum -colored
flesh, transfxed, bloated, poisoned, and
loaded with incandescent pimples /; his
swollen, hanging eyelids, scarcely able to
be raised, his looks brutified and askance,
his postures and motions in every sense
ridiculous and hideous, his legs tottering
and unable to bear his body, and his
whole system depraved, diseased, ruined
Michael Montaigne, in his Essays, p.
ls2, written in 1879, says: Drunken
ness seems to me to be gross and british
vice. There are vices wherein there is
mixture of knowledge, diligence, vaor,
prudence, dexterity, and cunning this
is totally corporeal and earthly. The
thickestskulled nation this day in Eu-
rope is that where it is most in fashion.
Other vices discompose the understand
ing; this totally overthrows it. and stuns
the body" So says Montague, and two
thousand years ago, Lucretius, Latin
poet, described the same effects -
When fumes or wine have filPd the swelling
veins,
Unusual weight throughout the body reigns
The legs, so ninhle in the race before,
Can now exert their wonted pow'r no more;
Falters the tongue, tears gush into the eyes,
And hiccoushs, noise, and jarring tumults rise
| have already extracted the wonder
full praises of alcohol, given in Holins-
hed's Chronicles in 1877, and now that
| am in the vein of quotation, must give
two passages from English authors of an
early age, who took more truthful views
The first is from a curious work by Geo.
Gascoigne, scholar and poet, who
published in 1876, a treatise with the
following quaint title. l can give you
the words, but fully to enjoy them you
should see, as now do while reading,
the droll old fashioned spelling: g" A Del
icate Dish for Daintie Nouthed Drunk
ards, mherein The Fowle Abuse of Com
mon Carrowsing and Quo6inge aciM Har-
tie Draughtes is honesaie admonished." |
have never seen but one copy of the
work, and it may be the only one in
America-that in the Library of the Col
lege of Physicians and Surgeons in New
York City, where | saw it in the winter
of 1910, while attending medical lee
lures. 1t is a small duodecimo volume,
with curious and characteristic frontis-
piece, where the beast drunkards are
represented as men with heads of apes,
lions, swine, sheep, goats, foxes, &c.
+" Ill drunkards are beasts" Gascoirne
tells us, on page 1o7, and goes on to IL
lustrate his proposition in a sketch of
mastery humor, and which could only
have been composed by close spectator
of their manners and habits. "The
first" he continues, is ape-drunk, and
he leaps, and sings, and hollows. and
danceth for the heavens /; the second is
lyon-arank, and he filings the pots about
the house, calls the hostess prostitute,
(Gascoigne employs coarser word not
now used to ears polite" breaks the
glass windows with his dagger, and is
apt to quarrel with any man that speaks
to him the third is sscine ne-drunk, heavy,
lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for lit
tie more drink and few more clothes ;;
the fourth is sheepe- drunk. wise in his
own conceit when he cannot bring forth
right word the fifth is maadlin drunk,
where fellow will weep for kindness in
the midst of his drink, and kiss you,
saying, BY God Captain. love thee,
go thy ways. thou dost not think so often
OF me as | do of thee would (if it
pleased God | could not love thee SO
well as | do and then he puts his finger