This Fable is intended to shew us the prevalence of custom; and how
by using ourselves to any evil practice, we may let it grow into
such a habit as we shall never be able to divest ourselves of. “O!
that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their
brains!” There is no vice which gains an ascendant over us more
insensibly, or more incurably, than drunkenness: it takes root by
degrees, and comes at length to be past both remedy and shame. Habitual
drunkenness stupifies the senses, destroys the understanding, fills
its votaries with diseases, and makes them incapable of business. It
cuts short the thread of life, or brings on an early old age, besides
the mischief it does in the mean time to a man’s family and affairs,
and the scandal it brings upon himself: for a sot is one of the most
despicable and disgusting characters in life. After he has destroyed
his reasoning faculties, and thus shewn his ingratitude to the giver of
them, he flies to palliatives as a remedy for the diseases which his
intemperance has caused, and goes on in a course of taking whets and
cordials, and more drink, till he falls a martyr to the vice, to which
through life he has been a slave.
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