to quaff lustily, would
drinke so many carouses as there were letters in the names of their
mistresses, or lovers; so easily were they overcome with this vice,
who by their virtue some other time, became masters of the world; but
these devices are peradventure stale now; there be finer devices to
provoke drunkennesse.

In the time of Antonius Pius, the people of Rome being given to drinke
without measure, he commanded that none should presume to sell wine
but in apothecaries' shops, for the sicke or diseased.

Cyrus, of a contrary disposition to the gluttons and carousers, in his
youth gave notable signes and afterward like examples of sobrietie and
frugalitie, when he was monarch of the Persians. For, being demanded
when he was but a boy, of his grandfather, Astyages, why he would
drink no wine, because, said hee, I observed yesterday when you
celebrated the feast of your nativitie, so strange a thing, that it
could not be but that som man had put poison into all the wine that ye
drank; for at the taking up of the table, there was not one man in his
right minde. By this it appeareth, how rare a matter it was then to
drinke wine, and a thing to be wondered at to see men drunke. For when
the use of wine was first found out, it was taken for a thing
medicinable, and not used for a common drinke, and was to be found
rather in apothecaries' shops than in tavernes. What a great
difference there was betweene the frugalitie of the former ages and
the luxuriousnesse of these latter dayes, these few examples will
shew. This Cyrus, as hee marched with his army, one asking him what he
would have provided for his supper, hee answered, bread; for I hope,
sayth hee, wee shall find a fountain to serve us of drinke. When Plato
had beene in Sicilia, being asked what new or strange thing hee had
seene; I have seene, sayth hee, a monster of nature, that eateth twice
a day. For Dionysius whom he meant, first brought the custome into
that country. For it was the use among the Hebrewes, the Grecians, the
Romanes, and other nations, to eat but once a day. But now many would
thinke they should in a short time be halfe famished, if they should
eat but twice a day; nay, rather whole dayes and nights bee scant
sufficient for many to continue eating and quaffing. Wee may say with
the poet--

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.
The times are changed and we are changed in them.

By the historie of the swine (which by the permissi