The ancient Bacchus, as represented in gems and statues, was a youthful
and graceful divinity; he is so described by Ovid, and was so painted by
Barry. He has the epithet of _Psilas_, to express the light spirits
which give wings to the soul. His voluptuousness was joyous and tender;
and he was never viewed reeling with intoxication. According to Virgil:
Et quocunque deus circum _caput_ egit _honestum_.
_Georg_. ii. 392.
which Dryden, contemplating on the red-faced boorish boy astride on a
barrel on our sign-posts, tastelessly sinks into gross vulgarity:
On whate'er side he turns his _honest_ face.
This Latinism of _honestum_ even the literal inelegance of Davidson had
spirit enough to translate, "Where'er the god hath moved around his
_graceful head_." The hideous figure of that ebriety, in its most
disgusting stage, the ancients exposed in the bestial Silenus and his
crew; and with these, rather than with the Ovidian and Virgilian deity,
our own convivial customs have assimilated.
We shall probably outlive that custom of hard-drinking which was so long
one of our national vices. The Frenchman, the Italian, and the Spaniard
only taste the luxury of the grape, but seem never to have indulged in
set convivial parties, or drinking-matches, as some of the northern
people. Of this folly of ours, which was, however, a borrowed one, and
which lasted for two centuries, the history is curious: the variety of
its modes and customs; its freaks and extravagances; the technical
language introduced to raise it into an art; and the inventions
contrived to animate the progress of the thirsty souls of its
votaries.[155]
Nations, like individuals, in their intercourse are great imitators; and
we have the authority of Camden, who lived at the time, for asserting
that "the English in their long wars in the Netherlands first learnt to
drown themselves with immoderate drinking, and by drinking others'
healths to impair their own. Of all the northern nations, they had been
before this most commended for their sobriety." And the historian adds,
"that the vice had so diffused itself over the nation, that in our days
it was first restrained by severe laws."[156]
Here we have the authority of a grave and judicious historian for
ascertaining the first period and even origin of this custom; and that
the nation had not, heretofore, disgraced itself by such prevalent
ebriety, is also confirmed by one of those curious contemporary
pamphlets of a popular writer, so invaluable to the philosophical
antiquary. Tom Nash, a town-wit of the reign of Elizabeth, long before
Camden wrote her history, in his "Pierce Pennilesse," had detected the
same origin.--"Superfluity in drink," says this spirited writer, "is a
sin that ever since we have mixed ourselves with the Low Countries is
counted honourable; but before we knew their lingering wars, was held in
that highest degree of hatred that might be. Then if we had seen a man
go wallowing in the streets, or lain sleeping under the board, we should
have spet at him, and warned all our friends out of his company."[157]
Such was the fit source of this vile custom, which is further confirmed
by the barbarous dialect it introduced into our language; all the terms
of drinking which once abounded with us are, without exception, of a
base northern origin.[158] But the best account I can find of all the
refinements of this new science of potation, when it seems to have
reached its height, is in our Tom Nash, who being himself one of these
deep experimental philosophers, is likely to disclose all the mysteries
of the craft.
He says--"Now, he is nobody that cannot drink _super-nagulum_;
_carouse_ the hunter's _hoope_; quaff _vpse freeze crosse_; with
_healths, gloves, mumpes, frolickes_, and a thousand such domineering
inventions."[159]
_Drinking super-nagulum_, that is, _on the nail_, is a device, which
Nash says is new come out of France: but it had probably a northern
origin, for far northward it still exists. This new device consisted in
this, that after a man, says Nash, hath turned up the bottom of the cup
to drop it on his nail, and make a pearl with what is left, which if it
shed, and cannot make it stand on, by reason there is too much, he must
drink again for his penance.
The custom is also alluded to by Bishop Hall in his satirical romance of
"_Mundus alter et idem_," "A Discovery of a New World," a work which
probably Swift read, and did not forget. The Duke of Tenter-belly in his
oration, when he drinks off his large goblet of twelve quarts, on his
election, exclaims, should he be false to their laws--"Let never this
goodly-formed goblet of wine go jovially through me; and then he set it
to his mouth, stole it off every drop, save _a little remainder_, which
he was by custom to _set upon his thumb's nail_, and lick it off as he
did."
The phrase is in Fletcher: