rated us, a heaviness of the limbs
follows, the legs of the tottering person are impeded; the tongue
grows torpid, the mind is dimmed, the eyes swim; noise, hiccup, and
quarrels arise.--"Lucretius, i. 3, 475.]

The worst state of man is that wherein he loses the knowledge and
government of himself. And 'tis said amongst other things upon this
subject, that, as the must fermenting in a vessel, works up to the top
whatever it has in the bottom, so wine, in those who have drunk beyond
measure, vents the most inward secrets:

"Tu sapientum
Curas et arcanum jocoso
Consilium retegis Lyaeo."

["Thou disclosest to the merry Lyacus the cares and secret
counsel of the wise."--Horace, Od., xxi. 1, 114.]

[Lyacus, a name given to Bacchus.]

Josephus tells us that by giving an ambassador the enemy had sent to him
his full dose of liquor, he wormed out his secrets. And yet, Augustus,
committing the most inward secrets of his affairs to Lucius Piso, who
conquered Thrace, never found him faulty in the least, no more than
Tiberias did Cossus, with whom he intrusted his whole counsels, though we
know they were both so given to drink that they have often been fain to
carry both the one and the other drunk out of the Senate:

"Hesterno inflatum venas ut semper, Lyaeo."

["Their veins full, as usual, of yesterday's wine."
--Virgil, Egl., vi. 15.]

And the design of killing Caesar was as safely communicated to Cimber,
though he would often be drunk, as to Cassius, who drank nothing but
water.

[As to which Cassius pleasantly said: "What, shall I bear
a tyrant, I who cannot bear wine?"]

We see our Germans, when drunk as the devil, know their post, remember
the word, and keep to their ranks:

"Nec facilis victoria de madidis, et
Blaesis, atque mero titubantibus."

["Nor is a victory easily obtained over men so drunk, they can
scarce speak or stand."--Juvenal, Sat., xv. 47.]

I could not have believed there had been so profound, senseless, and dead
a degree of drunkenness had I not read in history that Attalus having,
to put a notable affront upon him, invited to supper the same Pausanias,
who upon the very same occasion afterwards killed Philip of Macedon,
a king who by his excellent qualities gave sufficient testimony of his
education in the house and company of Ep