Has found out a way to renew not only his youth, but his childhood, by
being stewed, like old Aeson, in liquor; much better than the virtuoso's
way of making old dogs young again, for he is a child again at second
hand, never the worse for the wearing, but as purely fresh, simple, and
weak as he was at first. He has stupefied his senses by living in a
moist climate, according to the poet, _Boeotum in crasso jurares aëre
natum_. He measures his time by glasses of wine, as the ancients did by
water-glasses; and as Hermes Trismegistus is said to have kept the first
account of hours by the pissing of a beast dedicated to Serapis, he
revives that custom in his own practice, and observes it punctually in
passing his time. He is like a statue placed in a moist air; all the
lineaments of humanity are mouldered away, and there is nothing left of
him but a rude lump of the shape of a man, and no one part entire. He
has drowned himself in a butt of wine, as the Duke of Clarence was
served by his brother. He has washed down his soul and pissed it out,
and lives now only by the spirit of wine or brandy, or by an extract
drawn off his stomach. He has swallowed his humanity and drunk himself
into a beast, as if he had pledged Madam Circe and done her right. He is
drowned in a glass like a fly, beyond the cure of crumbs of bread or the
sunbeams. He is like a springtide; when he is drunk to his
high-water-mark he swells and looks big, runs against the stream, and
overflows everything that stands in his way; but when the drink within
him is at an ebb, he shrinks within his banks and falls so low and
shallow that cattle may pass over him. He governs all his actions by the
drink within him, as a Quaker does by the light within him; has a
different humour for every nick his drink rises to, like the degrees of
the weather-glass; and proceeds from ribaldry and bawdry to politics,
religion, and quarrelling, until it is at the top, and then it is the
dog-days with him; from whence he falls down again until his liquor is
at the bottom, and then he lies quiet and is frozen up.