wholly unworthy of my advice; and, if any youth unhappily initiated in these odious and debasing vices should happen to read what I am now writing, I refer him to the command of God, conveyed to the Israelites by Moses, in Deuteronomy, chap. xxi. The father and mother are to take the bad son 'and bring him to the elders of the city; and they shall say to the elders, This our son will not obey our voice: he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones, that he die.' I refer downright beastly gluttons and drunkards to this; but indulgence short, far short, of this gross and really nasty drunkenness and gluttony is to be deprecated, and that, too, with the more earnestness because it is too often looked upon as being no crime at all, and as having nothing blameable in it; nay, there are many persons who pride themselves on their refined taste in matters connected with eating and drinking: so far from being ashamed of employing their thoughts on the subject, it is their boast that they do it. St. Gregory, one of the Christian fathers, says: 'It is not the quantity or the quality of the meat, or drink, but the love of it that is condemned;' that is to say, the indulgence beyond the absolute demands of nature; the hankering after it; the neglect of some duty or other for the sake of the enjoyments of the table.

25. This love of what are called 'good eating and drinking,' if very unamiable in grown-up persons, is perfectly hateful in a youth; and, if he indulge in the propensity, he is already half ruined. To warn you against acts of fraud, robbery, and violence, is not my province; that is the business of those who make and administer the law. I am not talking to you against acts which the jailor and the hangman punish; nor against those moral offences which all men condemn; but against indulgences, which, by men in general, are deemed not only harmless, but meritorious; but which the observation of my whole life has taught me to regard as destructive to human happiness, and against which all ought to be cautioned even in their boyish days. I have been a great observer, and I can truly say, that I have never known a man, 'fond of good eating and drinking,' as it is called; that I have never known such a man (and hundreds I have known) who was worthy of respect.

26. Such indulgences are, in the first place, very expensive. The materials are costly, and the preparations still more so. What a monstrous thing, that, in order to satisfy the appetite of a man, there must be a person or two at work every day! More fuel, culinary implements, kitchen-room; what! all these merely to tickle the palate of four or five people, and especially people who can hardly pay their way! And, then, the loss of time: the time spent in pleasing the palate: it is truly horrible to behold people who ought to be at work, sitting, at the three meals, not less than three of the about fourteen hours that they are out of their beds! A youth, habituated to this sort of indulgence, cannot be valuable to any employer. Such a youth cannot be deprived of his table-enjoyments on any account: his eating and drinking form the momentous concern of his life: if business interfere with that, the business must give way. A young man, some years ago, offered himself to me, on a particular occasion, as an amanuensis, for which he appeared to be perfectly qualified. The terms were settled, and I, who wanted the job dispatched, requested him to sit down, and begin; but he, looking out of the window, whence he could see the church clock, said, somewhat hastily, 'I cannot stop now, sir, I must go to dinner.' 'Oh!' said I, 'you must go to dinner, must you! Let the dinner, which you must wait upon to-day, have your constant services, then: for you and I shall never agree.' He had told me that he was in great distress for want of employment; and yet, when relief was there before his eyes, he could forego it for the sake of getting at his eating and drinking three or four hours, perhaps, sooner than I should have thought it right for him to leave off work. Such a person cannot be sent from home, except at certain times; he must be near the kitchen at three fixed hours of the day; if he be absent more than four or five hours, he is ill-treated. In short, a youth thus pampered is worth nothing as a person to be employed in business.

27. And, as to friends and acquaintances; they will say nothing to you; they will offer you indulgences under their roofs; but the more ready you are to accept of their offers, and, in fact, the better taste you discover, the less they will like you, and the sooner they will find means of shaking you off; for, besides the cost which you occasion them, people do not like to have critics sitting in judgment on their bottles and dishes. Water-drinkers are universally laughed at; but, it has always seemed to me, that they are amongst the most welcome of guests, and that, too, though the host be by no means of a niggardly turn. The truth is, they give no trouble; they occasion no anxiety to please them; they are sure not to make their sittings inconveniently long; and, which is the great thing of all, their example teaches moderation to the rest of the company. Your notorious 'lovers of good cheer' are, on the contrary, not to be invited without due reflection: to entertain one of them is a serious business; and as people are not apt voluntarily to undertake such pieces of business, the well-known 'lovers of good eating and drinking' are left, very generally, to enjoy it by themselves and at their own expense.

28. But, all other considerations aside, health, the most valuable of all earthly possessions, and without which all the rest are worth nothing, bids us, not only to refrain from excess in eating and drinking, but bids us to stop short of what might be indulged in without any apparent impropriety. The words of ECCLESIASTICUS ought to be read once a week by every young person in the world, and particularly by the young people of this country at this time. 'Eat modestly that which is set before thee, and devour not, lest thou be hated. When thou sittest amongst many, reach not thine hand out first of all. How little is sufficient for man well taught! A wholesome sleep cometh of a temperate belly. Such a man riseth up in the morning, and is well at ease with himself. Be not too hasty of meats; for excess of meats bringeth sickness, and choleric disease cometh of gluttony. By surfeit have many perished, and he that dieteth himself prolongeth his life. Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many. Wine measurably taken, and in season, bringeth gladness and cheerfulness of mind; but drinking with excess maketh bitterness of mind, brawlings and scoldings.' How true are these words! How well worthy of a constant place in our memories! Yet, what pains have been taken to apologise for a life contrary to these precepts! And, good God! what punishment can be too great, what mark of infamy sufficiently signal, for those pernicious villains of talent, who have employed that talent in the composition of Bacchanalian songs; that is to say, pieces of fine and captivating writing in praise of one of the most odious and destructive vices in the black catalogue of human depravity!

29. In the passage which I have just quoted from chap. xxxi. of ECCLESIASTICUS, it is said, that 'wine, measurably taken, and in season,' is a proper thing. This, and other such passages of the Old Testament, have given a handle to drunkards, and to extravagant people, to insist, that God intended that wine should be commonly drunk. No doubt of that. But, then, he could intend this only in countries in which