"The nature and use of aliments maketh men either chaste or
incontinent; either courageous or cowardly; either meek or
quarrelsome: let those who deny these truths come to me; let them
follow my counsel in eating and drinking, and I promise them they
will find great helps thereupon towards moral philosophy. They
will acquire more prudence, more diligence, more memory."--GALEN.
Fully impressed with the truth of this axiom, Mr. Hogarth engraved
the two following prints, in which he has considered porter as
the liquor natural to an English constitution; and that villanous
distillation, gin, as pernicious and poisonous. While that noble
beverage properly termed British Burgundy[37] refreshes the weary,
exhilarates the faint, and cheers the depressed, an infernal
compound of juniper and fiery spirits debases the mind, destroys the
constitution, and brings its thirsty votaries to an untimely grave.
These, as well as the four preceding prints, are calculated for the
lower orders of society, and exhibit such a contrast as must strike
the most careless observer. In the first, we see healthy and happy
beings inhaling copious draughts of a liquor which seems perfectly
congenial to their mental and corporeal powers; in the second, a
group of emaciated wretches who, by swallowing liquid fire, have
consumed both.