HOR., 2 Sat. vi. 60.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, May 8._

The summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me
to pass away a month or two in the country, and indeed nothing could be
more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by
two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations:
and I am admonished by some of our club, who have lately visited
Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that
time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice
is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could
think, been astonished that drinking should be the vice of the country.
If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight,
by perspectives, we should methinks more particularly labour to improve
them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects which Nature has
produced to entertain us in the country; and do we in that place destroy
the use of what organs we have? As for my part, I cannot but lament the
destruction that has been made of the wild beasts of the field, when I
see large tracts of earth possessed by men who take no advantage of
their being rational, but lead mere animal lives, making it their whole
endeavour to kill in themselves all they have above beasts; to wit, the
use of reason, and taste of society. It is frequently boasted in the
writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe
that we are drawn out of woods and solitudes into towns and cities, and
from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity
and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I
could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they
have brought us to dwell in society (a blessing which no other creatures
know), so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out
all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which
only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise,
that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in
performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I'll
undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great
Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so
many hours in the parlour and the pigsty, it would appear, the gentleman
of the house gi