donc avec eclat
Cet auguste Pontificat."

Under this holy father's reign
Hang sorrow, let us ne'er complain;
I think all of us should turn sots,
And fuddle with one another,
His name, and so his arms, are pots,
And a gallon pot was his mother;
Then let us brightly celebrate
This most august Pontificate.

In the main, this is nothing but a little punning or playing with words,
but it is one of those agreeable trifles that may now and then be worth
our thinking on.

One may add to the number of such popes as loved fuddling, all those who
sat at Avignon; for if we believe Petrarch[2], the long residence that
the court of Rome made at Avignon, was only to taste the good French
wines; and that it was merely on that account they stayed so long in
Provence, and removed with so much reluctance.

Let us now pass on to Saints and Bishops. I shall only instance one of
each, because I hate prolixity. The first Saint that presents himself to
me, is the renowned St. Augustin, who himself owns, that he used to get
drunk sometimes. _Crapula autem nonnunquam surrepit servo tuo
misereberis ut longe fiat a me._ Thy servant has been sometimes
crop-sick through excess of wine, have mercy on me, that it may be ever
far from me. It is true, [3]M. Cousin maintains against my author,
M. Petit, the Journal des Scavans, of the year 1689, 27th June, that St.
Augustin, however, never got drunk. The arguments on both sides you may
find in Bayle's Dictionary, under the article Augustin. But yet there
are somewhere in St. Augustin these words, viz. My soul certainly being
a spirit cannot dwell in a dry place. _Anima mea certe quia spiritus
est, in sicco habitare non potest._

I shall make no comment upon these words, only insert one already made,
which I take from M. Duchat in his Remarks on Rabelais[4]. On these
words of Saint Augustin, says he, mentioned in the second part of the
Decretals, caus. 32, q. 2, c. 9, the commentator says, "And this is an
argument for the Normans, English, and Poles, that they may drink
largely, that the soul may not live in the dry. _Et est argumentum pro
Normannis, Anglicis, et Polonis, ut possint fortiter bibere, ne anima
habitet in sicco._ To which Peter Chatelain, a Flemish physician, made
this pleasant addition, It is very probable, that the commentator was an
entire stranger to the nature of the Flemings. _Verisimile est
glossatorem ignorasse naturam Belgarum._"