Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1872-05-30
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS
AGO.
English Life In the Eighteenth Gem

subject of English social life during
the reigns Of Anna and the first three
Georges would be astonished to learn
what an utterly dissolute, reckless and
drunken life it was. Take for example
:ne !lterary men, and, without descend.
ing to the "Grab street choir" we will
ma the great majority much given to
wnat we would CALL debauchery. Pope,
whose sickly constitution would not
penny excesses of this kind, describes
himself in the early part of his career
as sitting with the Addison coterie
until z O'Clock in the morning
drinking punch and Burgundy
! amid the fumes of tobacco. Even tho
model Addison was accustomed to tarrv
TOO long at his cups, and fuddle his
brains with generous wine. In a letter
to Lord Bathurst he says: II have
lately had the honor to meet nv Lord
Ehngham at Amsterdam, where wa
have drank Mr.. Woods health a him.
dred times in excellent champaipne. ~
In this instance, as in too many others
l fear, he overstepped the rule which
ne prescribed in No. 1876 CT the Specta-
soE We're to prescribe 3 rule for
drinking, i" says @he,.tit shoasa be
formed upon q saying quoted by Sir
William Temple. The first glass for
myself, the second for my friends, the
third for good humor, and the fourth
Tor my enemies"
Poor Dick Steele passed his life in
alternate fits of dissipation and re.
Pentance. There was a letter written
by him to Mistres Scarlock, afterward
his second wife, and preserved along
with hundreds of others, which forcibly
suggests tho difference in manner be-
tween his day and our own. 1t is dated
Saturday night, Aug. 3Oth, l7O7. and
reads as follows: "Dear, lovely Mrs.
Scarlock, I have been in good company.
where your health, under the character
OF the woman I loved best, has been
often drunk, so I may soy that I am
dead drunk for your sake.
The fine ladies of that day not onlv
smiled approvingly upon q tippling
beaux, but occasionally tippled a little
themselves, which they could do with
out losing caste. In letter from Pri
or to Boiling broke, dated May 22d, 1714,
he says in the postscript, clad Jer-
sey is just gone from here. We drank
your health together in usQuebou0A
after our tea.'' Gay, the auth
or of the '' Beggar's Opera" in a letter
written at Tunbridge Wells, gives us q
curious item OF watering place gossip.
I've have a young lady here" he
writes, "that is very particular in her
desires. l have known some young la
dies who, if ever they prayed, would
ask for some equippage or title, hus-
band or matadores but this lady, who
is but seventeen and has s30, 600 to her
fortune, places all her wishes on a good
pot of ale. When her friends, for the
sake OF her shape and complexion,
would dissuade her from it, she an
swers, with the truest sincerity, that
by the loss of shape and complexion
she could only lose husband, where
as ale is her passion" This believe
is the only instance on record of q
young lady who would barter her
shape, complexion, and chances for o
husband for all the other pleasures this
world can give.
There is an anecdote related in which
q certain English Bishop figures, which
fairly illustrates the tremendous drink
ing capacity of some of those eigh.
teenth century wine topers. It is said
that when the Bishop was moving from
the deanery of St. Paul's he asked
a learned friend of his, BY the
name of Will Hay, how he should move
some especially fine claret, about which
he was anxious. Pray, my Lord
Bishop" says Hay, chow much of the
wine have you e" "Six Dozen" saws
the Bishop. eff that is ALL" replied
Hay, "you have but to ask me six
times to dinner, and I will carry it all
away myself" We are told that the
younger Pitt, coming to the House of
Commons, after drinking one bottle of
Port wine at his house, would 20 into
Bellamy's with Dundas and help finish
a couple more. The Duke of York.
second son of George ILL.,, was such a
powerful drlnker that six bottles after
dinner scarcely made a perceptible
change in his countenance
In our own great metropolis the
lives OF its citizens are not always Sc
cure from the attacks of drunken
ruttians; and the details of the car hook
tragedy are still fresh in tue minds of
all. Unless DR.. johnson greatly exag.
gerates, however, the New York of our
day is model in this regard compared
with the London of his. In his imita-
tion of the Sd Satire of Juvenal, written
in 1913, occur these lines:
Prepare for death II here At night you roam,
Some fiery fop with new commission vain.
VINO sleeps on brambles tin ho kills his man,