Our Crew having been abroad, we had got a valuable Purchase; which after we had divided, I told them, that I would but visit a friend at _Oxford_, and repair to them again within two or three days. My old Acquaintance being overjoy’d to see me, after so long absence, treated me very gallantly, introducing me into the society of the Wits; who would frequently drink too, till they had lost them. The Company pleased me so well, that I thought it a solecism in civility to be sober, when they made any appointment for mirth; and they being true _Bacchanalians_, in the uppermost Classes of _Aristippus’s_ School, scorn’d to be outvy’d by a junior Sophister; and therefore, do what I could, they would be drunk before me: they never contended about any argument that tended to ebriety, but swallowed them all. I thought they would never have done speaking of Sack; every one endeavouring who should express most in its praise. One said, _That Diogenes was but a dry fellow_; and the only reason he could give for it, was, _That it is shrewdly suspected by the Commentators on his Tub, that that wooden-house of his was given him by a Beer-brewer, who being a enemy to all good wits and learning, gave him this Cask, which formerly had contained that pernicious liquor, Beer, that by the meer scent he might destroy his understanding_. But _Bacchus_ is so witty a Philosopher, that he never fails, night nor day, to pour forth his instructions, till he hath filled his auditors out of measure; it is he that makes us speak fluently, and utter our minds in abundance: for my part, I am commonly so overjoyed in his company, that I have often feared I should never be my own man again. Said another, It is Sack was the _Promethean_ fire, not stoln from _Jove’s_ Kitchin, but his Wine-cellar, to increase the native heat, without which we are but cold clay; but that celestial liquor applyed even to the dead, will cause a revivification: this is it which gave _Ganymede_ beauty, and _Febe_ youth. Can you think, that ever _Aristotle_ would have been taken notice of, had he drank Ale or Beer; or, that _Alexander_’s conquests had been heard of, had he been sober? therefore to make his Captains famous to posterity, he taught them how to muster Quarts and Pottles, and by accustoming them to be dead-drunk, shewed them the way to contemn death. All this is true (said another, so drunk, that what he spake could hardly be understood) but pray take my opinion with you too: do not all light things ascend? what better way is there to understand high matters, then a light head? _Copernicus_ by the lightness of his head, claimed alliance with heaven, and by that first found out the motion of the earth; which he could never have done, had not Sack been his instructor. Hence grew the Proverb, _In vino veritas_, as if Sack were the only Butt truth shoots at, the piercing of which causeth the other to be drawn out with it. For my part Gentlemen, said