maintains, as I have observed in the foregoing chapter, That wine warms
as well the mind as the body. Monsieur Hofman says a great deal more,
viz. That experience proves, that those climates which produce good
wine, produce also people that "have infinitely more wit than those of
the north, who drink nothing but beer. Gryllus believes, That the Greeks
were called fathers of wisdom, on account of the excellency of their
wine; and, that they lost their ancient lustre by reason of the Turks
rooting out their vines. The Heathens placed Pallas and Bacchus in the
same temple, to shew, that wine increased their wisdom, and that the
Gods were represented wiser than men, only because they drank nectar and
ambrosia."

In respect of poets the world was always so sensible of the necessity
they lay under, of having their imagination roused by wine, that nobody
ever had any good opinion of the productions of a poet that drank water,
that _Non est Dythyrambus si aquam bibat_; and wine was called the poets
great horse. "There never were any excellent poets," says Mr. Bayle,
"that could versify, till after drinking pretty plentifully[5]."

And if we believe Plato, "He could never open the gates of poesy till he
was a little beyond himself. The soul can speak nothing grand, or above
the common, if it be not somewhat agitated[6]."

Horace[7], who knew by experience this truth, goes yet farther.

Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possint,
Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus.

Poor water-drinkers sing an irksome tune,
Short-liv'd their numbers, and their airs jejune.

Ovid bewailed himself very bitterly for want of wine in his exile.

"Impetus ille sacer, qui vatum pectora nutrit
Qui prius in nobis esse solebat, abest."[7a]

That sacred rage that feeds a poet's breast,
Common to me, is now no more possest.

La Motte[8], my beloved Frenchman, has something not unlike it.

"Loin une raison trop timide
Les froids poetes qu'elle guide
Languissent et tombent souvent.
Venez yvresse temeraire,
Transports ignorez du vulgaire
Tels que vous m'agitiez vivant."

Away, too fearful reason, haste, be gone,
Those frozen poets, whom thy phantoms guide,
Languish, and often feebly slide,
Down to the lowest ebb of wretchless song,
Insipid notes, and lifeless numbers sing.
O come, sweet drunkenness, thou heady thing,
With transports to the vulgar herd unknown,
Which agita