Then stepp’d aside to fetch ‘em drink, Fill’d a large jug up to the brink, And saw it fairly twice go round. Somerville, the author of _The Chase_, was no doubt fond of the bottle, as we see very clearly from the letter of his friend Shenstone after his death:-- Our old friend Somerville is dead! I did not imagine I could have been so sorry as I find myself on this occasion.--_Sublatum quærimus._ I can now excuse all his foibles; impute them to age, and to distress of circumstances: the last of these considerations wrings my very soul to think on. For a man of high spirit, conscious of having (at least in one production) generally pleased the world, to be plagued and threatened by wretches that are low in every sense; _to be forced to drink himself into pains of the body, in order to get rid of the pains of the mind, is a misery_. James Quin the tragedian was a _bon vivant_. After being engaged at Drury Lane Theatre, a tavern brawl involved him in law proceedings, and he was obliged for a time to leave the country. His epitaph, by Garrick, depicts the man:-- A plague on Egypt’s arts! I say; Embalm the dead, on senseless clay Rich wines and spices waste! Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I, Bound in a precious pickle, lie, Which I shall never taste. Let me embalm this flesh of mine With turtle fat and Bordeaux wine, And spoil th’ Egyptian trade. Than Humphry’s Duke more happy I; Embalm’d alive, old Quin shall die, A mummy ready made. Richard Savage lived a very profligate life. Johnson says that ‘in no time of his life was it any part of his character to be the first of the company that desired to separate.’ It was when inebriated that he killed one Mr. James Sinclair, 1727, and was within an ace of being hanged for the same. Lord Tyrconnel, who had been very kind to him, and suddenly dropped him, gives a very bad account of his drinking habits. He affirmed that it was the constant practice of Mr. Savage to enter a tavern with any company that proposed it, drink the most expensive wines with great profusion, and when the reckoning was demanded, be without money: if, as it often happened, his company were willing to defray his part, the affair ended without any ill consequences; but if they were refractory, and expected that the wine should be paid for by him that drank it, his method of composition was to take them with him to his own apartment, assume the government of the house, and order the butler in an imperious manner to set the best wine in the cellar before his company, who often drank till they forgot the respect due to the house in which they were entertained, indulged themselves in the utmost extravagance of merriment, practised the most licentious frolics, and committed all the outrages of drunkenness.