With Herrick must be coupled in this connection the name of Cowley, of whom Dr. Johnson said, that ‘if he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.’[138] He was perfectly at home with Anacreontics. That on ‘Drinking’ will be remembered:-- Nothing in nature’s sober found, But an eternal health goes round. Fill up the bowl then, fill it high. Fill all the glasses there, for why Should every creature drink but I? Why, men of morals, tell me why? As will also ‘The Epicure’--the ‘_bibamus, moriendum est_’ of Seneca:-- Fill the bowl with spicy wine, Around our temples roses twine, And let us cheerfully awhile Like the wine and roses smile. * * * * * To-day is ours; what do we fear? To-day is ours, we have it here. Let’s banish business, banish sorrow; To the gods belong to-morrow. Cowley’s death was accelerated by intemperance if we can rely upon the authority of Pope. The event occurred while Dean Sprat was his guest. They had visited in company a neighbour of Cowley’s, who too amply refreshed them. ‘They did not set out for their walk home till it was too late, and had drunk so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off.’ To the same convivial school belongs Sir Richard Fanshawe, to whom the distress of the monarch provided occasion for a toast:-- Come, pass about the bowl to me; A health to our distressed king! Though we’re in hold, let cups go free, Birds in a cage do freely sing.[139] And Alexander Brome, whose _Mad Lover_ exemplifies the tyranny of excessive drinking:-- I have been in love and in debt and in drink This many and many a year; And those three are plagues enough, one would think, For one poor mortal to bear. ‘Twas drink made me fall into love, And love made me run into debt; And though I have struggled and struggled and strove, I cannot get out of them yet. There’s nothing but money can cure me And rid me of all my pain. ‘Twill pay all my debts And remove all my lets, And my mistress that cannot endure me Will love me, and love me again; Then I’ll fall to loving and drinking amain. (4) A fourth cause of the intemperance of the time was the profusion of _taverns_. Decker writes that ‘a whole street is in some places but a continuous ale-house, not a shop to be seen between red lattice and red lattice.’[140]