Where are the topers of yore?  Jovial I will not call them, for every one knows that

  ‘Mirth and laughter.’

worked up with a corkscrew, are followed by

  ‘Headaches and hot coppers the day after.’

But where are those Anakim of the bottle, who could floor their two of port and one of Madeira, though the said two and one floored them in turn?  The race, I believe, has died out.  Our heads have got weaker, as our cellars grew emptier.  The arrangement was convenient.  The daughters of Eve have nobly undertaken to atone for the naughty conduct of their primeval mamma, by reclaiming men, and dragging them from the Hades of the mahogany to that seventh heaven of muffins and English ballads prepared for them in the drawing-room.

We are certainly astounded, even to incredulity, when we read of the deeds of a David or a Samson; but such wonderment can be nothing compared to that which a generation or two hence will feel, when sipping, as a great extravagance and unpardonable luxury, two thimblefuls of ‘African Sherry,’ the young demirep of the day reads that three English gentlemen, Sheridan, Richardson, and Ward, sat down one day to dinner, and before they rose again—­if they ever rose, which seems doubtful—­or, at least, were raised, had emptied five bottles of port, two of Madeira, and one of brandy!  Yet this was but one instance in a thousand; there was nothing extraordinary in it, and it is only mentioned because the amount drunk is accurately given by the unhappy owner of the wine, Kelly, the composer, who, unfortunately, or fortunately, was not present, and did not even imagine that the three honourable gentlemen were discussing his little store.  Yet Sheridan does not seem to have believed much in his friend’s vintages, for he advised him to alter his brass plate to ’Michael Kelly, Composer of Wine and Importer of Music.’  He made a better joke, when, dining with Lord Thurlow, he tried in vain to induce him to produce a second bottle of some extremely choice Constantia from the Cape of Good Hope.  ‘Ah,’ he muttered to his neighbour, ’pass me that decanter, if you please, for I must return to Madeira, as I see I cannot double the Cape’

But as long as Richard Brinsley was a leader of political and fashionable circles, as long as he had a position to keep up, an ambition to satisfy, a labour to complete, his drinking was, if not moderate, not extraordinary for his time and his associates.  But when a man’s ambition is limited to mere success—­when fame and a flash for himself are all he cares for, and there is no truer, grander motive for his sustaining the position he has climbed to—­when, in short, it is his own glory, not mankind’s good, he has ever striven for—­woe, woe, woe when the hour of success is come!  I cannot stop to name and examine instances, but let me be allowed to refer to that bugbear who is called up whenever greatness of any kind has to be illustrated—­Napoleon