We have frolic rounds,
We have merry go-downs,
Yet nothing is done at random ;
For when we're to pay,

We club and away,

Id est commune notandum.

The blades that want cash,

Have credit for crash,

They'll have sack whatever it cost 'em;

They do not pay
Till another day.

Manet alta mente repostum.

Who ne'er fails to drink

All clear from the brink, With a smooth and even swallow, I'll offer at his shrine,

And call it divine,

Et erit mihi magnus Apollo.

He that drinks still,

And ne'er has his fill, Hath a passage like a conduit : The sack doth inspire

In rapture and fire,

Sic ather æthera fundit.

When you merrily quaff,
If any go off,

And slily offer to pass ye,

Give their nose a twitch,

And kick 'em in the breech,

Nam componuntur ab asse.

I have told you plain,

'And will tell you again, Be he furious as Orlando, He is an ass

That from hence doth pass,

Nisi bibit ab ostia stando.

SONG XXX.

*

BY MR. PHILIPS.

COME fill me a glass, fill it high,

A bumper, a bumper I'll have;

He's a fool that will flinch, I'll not bate him an inch,
Though I drink myself into the grave.

Here's a health then to those jolly souls,

Who like me will ne'er give o'er;

Who no danger controuls, but will take off their bowls, And merrily stickle for more.

Drown reason, and all such weak foes,

I scorn to obey her command;

Could she ever suppose I'd be led by the nose,
And let my glass idly stand?

* Mr. Nichols, from many circumstances, has little doubt but this convivial song was by the author of The Splendid Shilling.' (See his Select Collection of Poems, iv. 281.) But it seems to have appeared at a too early period to be safely ascribed to that writer. It is more probably, the production of that Philips who was nephew to Milton, and author of the Theatrum Poetarum,' and several poetical performances.

Reputation's a bugbear to fools,

A foe to the joys of dear drinking,
Made use of by tools, who'd set us new rules,
And bring us to positive thinking.

Tell 'em all, I'll have six in my hand,
For I've trified an age away:

'Tis in vain to command, the fleeting sand
Rolls on, and cannot stay.

Come, my lads, move the glass, drink about,
We'll drink the universe dry;

We'll set foot to foot, and drink it all out,

If once we grow sober, we die.

SONG XXXI.

RAIL no more, ye learned asses,
'Gainst the joys the bowl supplies;
Sound its depth, and fill your glasses,
Wisdom at the bottom lies.

Fill them higher still, and higher,

Shallow draughts perplex the brain ;

Sipping quenches all our fire,

Bumpers light it up again.

Draw the scene for wit and pleasure,
Enter jollity and joy;

We for thinking have no leisure,

Manly mirth is our employ :
Since in life there's nothing certain,

We'll the present hour engage;
And, when death shall drop the curtain,

With applause we'll quit the stage.

SONG XXXII.

THE TIPLING PHILOSOPHERS.*

DIOGENES Surly and proud,

Who snarl'd at the Macedon youth,
Delighted in wine that was good,
Because in good wine there is truth:
Till growing as poor as a Job,
Unable to purchase a flask,

He chose for his mansion a tub,
And liv'd by the scent of the cask.

Heraclitus would never deny

A bumper to comfort his heart,
But when he was maudlin would cry,
Because he had emptied his quart:
Though some are so foolish to think
He wept at man's folly and vice,
'Twas only his custom to drink
Till the liquor flow'd out of his eyes.

Democritus always was glad

To tipple and cherish his soul;

And would laugh like a man that was mad,
When over a full flowing bowl:

The author afterwards

* Consisted originally of but six verses. inserted a number of additional stanzas, of which, those included within crotchets have been sometimes printed as part of the song. The whole is contained in a little pamphlet, intitled Wine and Wisdom, or the Tipling Philosophers, a lyric poem.' Lond. 1710.

As long as his cellar was stor❜d,
The liquor he'd merrily quaff,
And when he was drunk as a lord,

At those that were sober he'd laugh,

[Wise Solon, who carefully gave
Good laws unto Athens of old,
And thought the rich Crœsus a slave,
Though a king, to his coffers of gold;
He delighted in plentiful bowls;

But, drinking, much talk would decline, Because 'twas the custom of fools

To prattle much over their wine.]

[Old Socrates ne'er was content,

Till a bottle had heighten'd his joys,

Who in's cups to the oracle went,

Or he ne'er had been counted so wise: .

Late hours he certainly lov'd,

Made wine the delight of his life, Or Xantippe would never have prov'd Such a damnable scold of a wife.]

[Grave Seneca, fam'd for his parts,
Who tutor❜d the bully of Rome,
Grew wise o'er his cups and his quarts,
Which he drank like a miser at home :
And to show he lov'd wine that was good
To the last, we may truly aver it,
That he tinctur'd the bath with his blood,
So fancied he died in his claret.]