Of him that haunteth tavern of custume, In shorte wordes the profit is this, In double wise: His bag it shall consume, And make his tonge speak of folk amis; For in the cuppe seldom founden is That any wight his neighbour commendeth. Behold and see what avantage is his That God, his friend, and eke himself offendeth * * * * * Now let this smart warninge to thee be, And if thou mayst hereafter be relieved Of body and pursé, so thou guidé thee By wit that thou no moré thus be grieved. What riot is, thou tasted hast and preeved. The fire, men sayn, he dreadeth that is brent; And if thou so do, thou art well y--meeved (moved), Be now no longer fool, by mine assent. Notwithstanding the arguments adduced by a modern historian to the contrary, the weight of evidence is overwhelming that the early life of Henry V. was a course of dissipation. His active spirit (in the language of Hume) broke out in extravagances of every kind; and the riot of pleasure, the frolic of debauchery, the outrage of the wine, filled the vacancies of a mind better adapted to the pursuits of ambition and the cares of government. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Henry IV. the reflection upon his son-- Whilst I ... See riot and dishonor stain the brow Of my young Harry. The abandoned Falstaff looked at the matter from another point of view, of course. He is represented as saying, ‘Hereof comes it, that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, steril, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled with excellent endeavor of drinking good, and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear their potations, and addict themselves to sack.’ Yet even Falstaff could tell the truth sometimes, for in the early part of the same sentence, amidst a hurricane of rubbish, he tells that wine makes the blood ‘course from the inwards to the parts extreme.’ One fancies one is reading Dr. B. W. Richardson as he tells, ‘wine propels the blood violently _from the heart_ to the extremities.’ But Henry V. found place for repentance. His life as king was widely different from his life as prince. Among his troops at Agincourt drunkenness was counted a disgrace. So impressed was he with the bane of it, that he would gladly have cut down all the vines in France. In the _Liber Albus_, compiled in this reign by John Carpenter, common clerk, and Richard Whittington, mayor, appears in full the oath of the _ale-conners_. These were officers appointed to look after the quality of ale, beer, and bread, to whom allusion is made in the _Cobler of Canterburie_:-- A nose he had that gan show What liquor he loved I trow; For he had before long seven yeare, Beene of the towne the _ale-conner_.