There is no sin but some have committed it in their drink; and if there be any that a drunken man doth not commit, it is not because he would not, but because he could not. He had not an opportunity.... For a man in such a condition hath no sense of the difference between good and evil; for ‘wind,’ as the prophet speaks (Hos. iv. 11), ‘hath taken away his heart.’ His reason, his understanding, his conscience, is gone; and therefore, all sins are alike to him. Hence it is that their sin never goes alone, but hath a great train of other sins always following it; insomuch that it cannot so properly be called one single sin, as all sin is one. The legislation of the reign was not important. The 1st Anne permitted tradesmen whose principal dealings were in other goods to sell spirits by retail, without a licence, provided they did not allow tippling in their shops or houses. Another law enacted in this reign allowed French wines and other liquors to be imported in neutral bottoms. Without this expedient it was believed that the revenue would have been insufficient to maintain the government. FOOTNOTES: [112] ‘Discovery of a London monster, called the Black Dog of Newgate.’ [113] J. R. Sheen, _Wines_. Cyrus Redding, _Modern Wines_. [114] Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Chances_. V. [115] _History of Signboards._ [116] _History of the English People._ [117] Strickland: _Lives of Queens_. [118] Burton observes (_Anatomy of Melancholy_, i. 2): ‘Drunken women most part bring forth children like unto themselves.’ [119] The author of the _History of Signboards_ is wrong in saying (p. 52) that James married a daughter of Christian IV. James married a daughter of Frederic II. and a sister of Christian IV. Frederick was dead before the marriage of James. [120] Sir John Harrington, _Nugæ Antiquæ_, i. 348. It is cited, more or less, in Lingard, _Hist. Eng._; Nichols’ _Progresses_; Aubrey, _Hist. Eng._; Samuelson, _Hist. Drink_; Sandys’ _Chrismastide_, &c. [121] Charles Lamb’s Works, _On the Poetical Works of George Wither_. [122] Hazlitt, _Lectures on the English Poets_. [123] Cited in Sir H. Ellis’s Brand, _Pop. Antiq._, and in Nares’ _Glossary_. [124] George Herbert: _Country Parson_. [125] _Virgidemiarum_, ii. 3. [126] _Nabal and Abigail._ [127] Blackstone: _Comm. on the Laws of England_, iv. 4. [128] Court of Hastings Book for Lyme. [129] _Philocothonista_, or the Drunkard opened, 1635. [130] For a picture of social degradation in this direction, see Middleton’s _A Chast Mayd in Cheape-side_, 1630 (or T. Middleton’s _Works_, iv. 44, &c.). [131] Heywood and Rowley, _Fortune by Sea and Land_. [132] Gervase Markham, _English Housewife_, 1683. [133] Pasquil, _Palinodia_, 1619. [134] _Familiar Letters, II._ 60. [135] Heywood, _Rape of Lucrece_. [136] _Healthes; Sicknesse_, 1628. [137] _Gent’s Mag._ for 1791. [138] _Lives of the English Poets._ [139] _The Royalist_, 1646.