rships, let them drink,
frankly, freely, and boldly, without paying anything, and welcome. This is
my decree, my statute and ordinance.

And let none fear there shall be any want of wine, as at the marriage of
Cana in Galilee; for how much soever you shall draw forth at the faucet, so
much shall I tun in at the bung. Thus shall the barrel remain
inexhaustible; it hath a lively spring and perpetual current. Such was the
beverage contained within the cup of Tantalus, which was figuratively
represented amongst the Brachman sages. Such was in Iberia the mountain of
salt so highly written of by Cato. Such was the branch of gold consecrated
to the subterranean goddess, which Virgil treats of so sublimely. It is a
true cornucopia of merriment and raillery. If at any time it seem to you
to be emptied to the very lees, yet shall it not for all that be drawn
wholly dry. Good hope remains there at the bottom, as in Pandora's bottle;
and not despair, as in the puncheon of the Danaids. Remark well what I
have said, and what manner of people they be whom I do invite; for, to the
end that none be deceived, I, in imitation of Lucilius, who did protest
that he wrote only to his own Tarentines and Consentines, have not pierced
this vessel for any else but you honest men, who are drinkers of the first
edition, and gouty blades of the highest degree. The great dorophages,
bribe-mongers, have on their hands occupation enough, and enough on the
hooks for their venison. There may they follow their prey; here is no
garbage for them. You pettifoggers, garblers, and masters of chicanery,
speak not to me, I beseech you, in the name of, and for the reverence you
bear to the four hips that engendered you and to the quickening peg which
at that time conjoined them. As for hypocrites, much less; although they
were all of them unsound in body, pockified, scurvy, furnished with
unquenchable thirst and insatiable eating. (And wherefore?) Because
indeed they are not of good but of evil, and of that evil from which we
daily pray to God to deliver us. And albeit we see them sometimes
counterfeit devotion, yet never did old ape make pretty moppet. Hence,
mastiffs; dogs in a doublet, get you behind; aloof, villains, out of my
sunshine; curs, to the devil! Do you jog hither, wagging your tails, to
pant at my wine, and bepiss my barrel? Look, here is the cudgel which
Diogenes, in his last will, ordained to be set by him after his death, for
b