shed me with these examples.

But I should never have done, if I endeavoured to give a list of all the
kings that got drunk.

-------- "Quorum si nomina quaeras
Promptius expediam quot amaverat Hippia maechos,
Quot themison aegros autumno occiderat uno[4]."

-------- Whose names, if you require,
With greater expedition could I tell,
To Hippia's lust how many prostrate fell;
How many only in one autumn died,
By doctors, and their slip-slops ill applied.

I shall content myself, therefore, to instance some of the most
illustrious, as they come into my mind, without observing any certain
order.

Alexander the Great first offers himself to my imagination. It will be
sufficient to mention his name, without saying any more. _Nomen non
amplius addam._

Caesar, to make use of Balzac's words, was not always the sober destroyer
of the commonwealth, and he did not at all times hate the pleasure of
drinking.

Cambyses was also very much given to wine, as may be judged by what I am
going to say. This prince, having been told by one of his courtiers,
That the people took notice he got drunk too often, taking, some time
after, his bow and arrow, shot the son of that courtier through the
heart, saying no more than this to the father, Is this the act of a
drunkard?

Darius, the first king of Persia, had these words put upon his tomb:--

Vinum multum bibere potui idque perferre.

I could drink much wine and bear it well.

King Antigonus may come in here. AElian reports of this prince, That one
day when he was much in drink, meeting Zeno the philosopher, whom he had
a great kindness for, he kissed him, and promised to give him whatever
he would desire. Zeno only answered very mildly, Go and ease your
stomach by vomiting, that's all I ask of you at present.

Philip, king of Macedon, got drunk sometimes; witness what a woman, whom
he had not done justice to, said to him, viz. I appeal from Philip
drunk, to Philip when sober.

Dionysius[5] the younger, tyrant of Sicily, was sometimes drunk for nine
days successively; he drank himself almost blind, and the lords of his
court, to flatter him, pretended they themselves could scarce see, so
that they neither eat nor drank but what he reached to them.

Tiberius was called Biberius, because of his excessive attachment to
drinking; and, in derision, they changed his surname of Nero into Mero.

Bonosus was a terrible drinker, if one may give any c