Your mountain Sack, your Frontignac, Tokay, and twenty more, sir, Your Sherry and Perry, that make men merry, Are deities I adore, sir; And well may Port Our praise extort, When from his palace forth he comes, And glucks and gurgles, fumes and foams. Gluck, gluck, Hickup, gurgle and gluck. OLD SONG. If one were to judge the traits of the vulgar from the indulgence they exhibit towards certain vices, or certain instances of their occurrence, it would be easy to show that man is, at bottom, a good-natured animal. It is certain that he betrays an extraordinary leniency in the case of a vice which all unite, in the abstract, to condemn; and that many men derive an importance from the sacrifice of reputation and mind to the Imp of the Bottle, which they might have failed to purchase by a life of wisdom and sobriety. It is not uncommon to find, in some rural districts, men of gross and degraded habits, whom a rational creature would spurn from him with contempt, and who are indeed the butts of ridicule or objects of commiseration, even among their own immediate neighbours; but who, strange to say, are regarded with a species of admiration, growing directly out of their profligacy. Such, we are sorry to say, are some of the rustic professors of law and physic, who, possessing a little talent, but no industry, prefer whiling the period of probationary idleness at the door, or in the bar-room, of the village tavern, to devoting it in the closet to that labour which is the only stepping-stone to distinction and fortune; and thus contracting a love for something more than idleness, and slipping, little by little, towards the bottom of the hill, are seen at last, downdraughts, with swollen visages and seedy garments, mingling among the coarse and base, themselves perhaps the coarsest and basest. You will see such a man gibed and laughed at by the lowest of his companions, as something that even they can despise; for whatever may be the hatred with which the humble regard the more lofty, they are the first to appreciate the degradation of a downfall; but the next moment you will hear them talk of him with praise. Is it 'the poor doctor at the Cross-Roads?' 'Oh, he is a ruined man, to be sure, and a sot; but he cures, when another man fails; somewhat dangerous now and then, when too "far in for it," but a marvellous hand at "rheumatisms and the fever."' Is it 'crusty Ned Jones, the lawyer?' 'Drinks like a fish, but with more sharp stuff in his brain than all the bar beside; a devil of a fellow to corner a witness, break a will, pick a flaw in an indictment, and set a jury a-sobbing: great pity he drinks,--but he's a tremendous orator, and all the better for a glass or two, in a hard case.' We have heard of a lawyer, a lover of his glass, who reformed his habits, and lost his practice.