Other writers have confirmed this account of the Irish clergy;[290] and as to the laity, their lavish hospitality, whilst it did honour to their hearts, was the cause of great improvidence and self-indulgence. “Nine gentlemen in ten in Ireland,” wrote Chesterfield, “are impoverished by the great quantity of claret which, from mistaken notions of hospitality, they think it necessary to be drunk in their houses.” Another writer of the eighteenth century says, “Would not a Frenchman give a shrug at finding in every little inn Bordeaux claret and Nantz brandy, though in all likelihood not a morsel of Irish bread.”[291] That there followed in the train of drunkenness all the evils and diseases of which it is still the fruitful source, it may readily be conceived. This has been shown by William Hogarth in his famous pictures of life in his day,[292] and there is a poem of John Gay, written about the same time, which leaves no doubt upon the subject. Death, sitting on his throne, declares his intention to name his prime minister, and each disorder puts forth his claim to the office. Fever, gout, an unnameable disease, consumption, plague:— “All spoke their claim, and hoped the wand— Now expectation hushed the band, When thus the monarch from the throne: ‘Merit was ever modest known. What! no physician speak his right? None here, but fees their toils requite. Let then Intemperance take the wand. You, Fever, Gout, and all the rest (Whom wary men as foes detest), Forego your claim; no more pretend: Intemperance is esteemed a friend; He shares their mirth, their social joys, And as a courted guest destroys. The charge on him must justly fall Who finds employment for you all.’”[293] Much more might be written concerning the drinking habits of our countrymen in post-Reformation times; but if we mistake not, the reader will be better pleased that we should now draw this chapter to its close. For the changes which took place during the first half of this century may be briefly summed up by saying, that there was a gradual improvement amongst the upper and middle classes. Leaving the curious reader, therefore, to study the pictures of the three-bottle squire, and his friend the fox-hunting parson, by the light of the literature of this century, aided, it may be, by the memory of those who are still alive to relate their own experiences, we shall pass on to the consideration of drink as we find it to-day, and of those varied efforts which are being made for the purpose of diminishing the evils of intemperance. CHAPTER XII. THE ENGLISH OF THE PRESENT DAY—THE ARISTOCRACY—THE MIDDLE CLASSES—THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES—FARM LABOURERS—THE RESORTS OF DRUNKARDS.