<g>In</g> addition to the personal anecdotes, or ‘pithy sayings,’ already introduced, the following are too original and piquant to be overlooked:--“We were talking one day,” says the family chronicler, “of an old drunken fellow, who having used his body to sad disorder in drinking all his lifetime, and at last giving it over, he presently died. The fact being thus brought before him, the Marquis observed, ‘there was nothing to be wondered at in such a termination of the man’s life; for if you take a brand,’ said he, ‘out of the fire that is thoroughly burnt, it will fall to pieces; but if you let it lie there still, it may remain a pretty while before it is turned to ashes.’” This clearly shows that his Lordship was not a novice in the science of pathology; for, had he made the ‘anatomy of drunkenness’ his particular study, he could not have expressed himself by a figure that more completely illustrates the case. The burnt log may not only last longer, but also preserve its shape, and diffuse light and heat through the whole apartment, while it remains in the fire; but if suddenly removed, and the fire extinguished, it is soon transformed into a heap of black ashes. The comparison applies very forcibly to those in whom the pernicious habit of spirit-drinking has been long a rooted evil. If they suddenly reform, the constitution--to use the same figure--has been so thoroughly carbonized, that, on the artificial temperature being withdrawn, it breaks down like the charred firebrand and is extinguished; but if cautiously and gradually withdrawn, before the charring process has reached the core, it may live to furnish a better light than any that could be expected from it while in the furnace of dissipation. In the Marquess’s time, as already noticed, the habit of drinking was carried to a most fatal excess; and we may readily believe that the ‘apophthegm’ here recorded, was the result of personal observation among the troops of his own garrison, who-- “Red-hot with drinking; So full of valour that they smote the air For breathing in their faces.”