the dearer they buy it; and our
Gentlemen take up the same prudent way of Thinking, and never believe
themselves so generous, as when they drink Wines, that their poorer
Neighbours cannot Purchase. The present Fulness of the Treasury, vastly
beyond all former Years, shews how far our Madness is risen; for this
Folly of drinking away both our Estates and our Reason, has seized like
an epidemical Plague, on all Ranks of Men among us. Even those of the
poorer Sort, from a noble Emulation of copying their betters, drink as
much Wine as they can; and where their Purses or their Credit will not
reach so high, they must have foreign Liquors, tho' they be only Mum or
Cyder, Porter or Perry, and seem resolved to shew they are as little
afraid of a Jail, as greater Persons.

SWIFT. In other Nations the Nobility and Gentry, think for the
Commonalty, and govern their Manners by the Laws they make, and the
becoming Examples they set them. But in this poor ill-starr'd Island,
they corrupt them by their false Splendour, by their foreign Luxury, by
despising Virtue, Religion and Temperance, and as fast as they can
drinking themselves out of the World, and sinking their Fortunes, in
both which they are faithfully copied, by their Inferiors. I have often
thought while I was among them, that if our Gentlemen were oblig'd by
Law, to give in Accounts to the Publick of their annual Expences, as
Children do to their Parents, in order to have them regulated; what
miserable Oeconomists they wou'd appear to be, both for their own and
their Country's Interests. The Article of Drinking is grown so immense,
and at the same Time so general, that if some Fence is not provided for
it soon, this Nation will be more in Danger from this Land-Flood, than
the _Dutch_ are from being overwhelm'd by the Ocean. What imbitters
these Reflections the more is, that tho' all our Exports are the very
Necessaries of Life, which we send off to Feed and Cloath other
Nations, yet all our Imports, are the meer Superfluities of Luxury and
Vanity, that keep our Natives naked and starv'd, and ruin the Healths
of those of the better Sort. I say ruin the Healths, for I believe, if
you and I, _Tom_, were to draw up a List of all our Acquaintances, who
have died Martyrs to Wine and good Fellowship, it wou'd look like a
_London_ Plague-Bill in 1666. _Pharaoh_ and his Army wou'd appear but
as an Handful to those I cou'd reckon up, within these last fifty
Years, that have perish'd