gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome, Put less water in your wine,' says the philosopher, and you will quickly make her so.' Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns a good-natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and shew them in the most odious colours, but often occasions faults to which he is not naturally subject. There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of Seneca, that drunkenness does not produce but discover faults. Common experience teaches us the contrary. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. The person you converse with after the third bottle, is not the same man who at first sat down at table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is ascribed to Publius Syrus, 'Qui, ebrium ludificat, lædit absentem:' He who jests upon a man that is drunk, injures the absent.'

Thus does drunkenness act in direct contradiction to reason, whose business it is to clear the mind of every vice which is crept into it, and to guard it against all the approaches of any that endeavours to make its entrance. But besides these ill effects which this vice produces in the person who is actually under its dominion, it has also a bad influence on the mind even in its sober moments, as it insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory,

and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent excesses.

I should now proceed to shew the ill effects which this vice has on the bodies and fortunes of men; but these I shall reserve for the subject of some future paper.

N° 570.. WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1714.

Nugæque canora.

Chiming trifles.

HOR. Ars Poet.ver. 322.

ROSCOMMON.

THERE is scarcely a man living who is not actuated by ambition. When this principle meets with an honest mind and great abilities, it does infinite service to the world; on the contrary, when a man only thinks of distinguishing himself without being thus qualified for it, he becomes a very pernicious or a very ridiculous creature. I shall here confine myself to that petty kind of ambition, by which some men grow eminent for odd accomplishments and trivial performances. How many are there whose whole reputation depends upon a pun or a quibble? You may often see an artist in the streets gain a circle of admirers by carrying a long pole upon his chin or forehead in a perpendicular posture. Ambition has taught some to write with their feet, and others to walk upon their hands. Some tumble into fame,

others grow immortal by throwing themselves through a hoop.

'Cætera de genere hoc, (adeò sunt multa,) loquacem
Delussare valent Fabium,'

HOR. 1 Sat. i. 13.

"With thousands more of this ambitious race
Would tire e'en Fabius to relate each case.'

HORNECK.

I am led into this train of thought by an adventure I lately met with.

I was the other day at a tavern, where the master of the house accommodating us himself with every thing we wanted, I accidentally fell into a discourse with; and talking of a certain great man, who shall be nameless, he told me that he had sometimes the honour to treat him with a whistle; adding, (by the way of parenthesis) for you must know, gentlemen, that I whistle the best of any man in Europe.' This naturally put me upon desiring him to give us a sample of his art; upon which he called for a caseknife, and, applying the edge of it to his mouth, converted it into a musical instrument, and entertained me with an Italian solo. Upon laying down the knife, he took up a pair of clean tobacco pipes; and, after having slid the small end of them over the table in a most melodious trill, he fetched a tune out of them, whistling to them at the same time in concert. In short, the tobacco-pipes became musical pipes in the hands of our virtuoso, who confessed to me, ingeniously, he had broke such quantities of them, that he had almost broke himself before he had brought this piece of music to any tolerable per

* This man's name was Daintry. He was in the trained bands, and commonly known by the name of captain Daintry,

fection. I then told him I would bring a company of friends to dine with him the next week, as an encouragement to his ingenuity; upon which he thanked me, saying that he would provide himself with a new frying-pan against that day. I replied, that it was no matter; roast and boiled would serve our turn. He smiled at my simplicity, and told me that it was his design to give us a tune upon it. As I was surprised at such a promise, he sent for an old frying-pan, and grating it upon the board, whistled to it in such a melodious manner, that you could scarcely distinguish it from a bass-viol. He then took his seat with us at the table, and, hearing my friend that was with me hum over a tune to himself, he told him if he would sing it out, he would accompany his voice with a tobacco-pipe. As my friend has an agreeable bass, he chose rather to sing to the frying-pan, and indeed between them they made up a most extraordinary concert. Finding our landlord so great a proficient in kitchen music, I asked him if he was master of the tongs and key. He told me that he had laid it down some years since, as a little unfashionable: but that, if I pleased, he would give me a lesson upon the gridiron. He then informed me, that he had added two bars to the gridiron, in order to give it a greater compass of sound; and I perceived was as well pleased with the invention, as Sappho could have been upon adding two strings to the lute. To be short, I found that his whole kitchen was furnished with musical instruments; and could not but look upon this artist as a kind of burlesque musician.

He afterwards, of his own accord, fell into the imitation of several singing birds. My friend and I toasted our mistresses to the nightingale, when all of a sudden we were surprised with the music of the thrush. He next proceeded to the skylark, mount

ing up by a proper scale of notes, and afterwards falling to the ground with a very easy and regular descent. He then contracted his whistle to the voice of several birds of the smallest size. As he is a man of larger bulk and higher stature than ordinary, you would fancy him a giant when you looked upon him, and a tom-tit when you shut your eyes. I must not omit acquainting my reader that this accomplished person was formerly the master of a toy-shop near Temple-bar; and that the famous Charles Mathers was bred up under him. I am told that the misfortunes which he has met with in the world are chiefly owing to his great application to his music; and therefore cannot but recommend him to my readers as one who deserves their favour, and may afford them great diversion over a bottle of wine, which he sells at the Queen'sarms, near the end of the little piazza in Coventgarden.