I never was drunk, from drinking spirits, more than twice, which was with very strong brandy and water. Now he that praises drunkenness is a sot convicted on his own evidence; but were I to drink for what is called drinking's sake--that is, to acquire an artificial state of pleasurable excitement--brandy should be the liquor I should fly to to secure it. The "divine luxuries of opium" I never yet tasted; but the powers of wine upon me are, comparatively with brandy, truly insignificant. At the period I am alluding to, it not only appeared to afford me a sure panacea for all evils, past, present, and to come, but to open unlimited prospects of future bliss. I felt as if I were possessed of more than human powers, and that there was nothing I willed I could not do. In short, it eventually made me mad; and, on each occasion, I nearly lost my life, together with my senses. On the one, I attempted to go to sea, by moonlight, in a small open boat, without either rudder or sail, and in the current of a strong tide running out of a Welsh bay; on the other, although more than two hundred miles distant from it, I got upon a coachbox to go to London, in my evening dress; and did "go," till I tumbled off it into the road. To the latter excursion I was no doubt indebted to my early propensity to driving coaches; but having at no time of my life had a fancy for the sea, I owed my intended aquatic trip to a member of the yacht club, who was my partner in the debauch. Death, says Johnson, is more than usually unwelcome to a rich man; and as my friend is possessed of ten thousand a year, he was by no means a fit subject to be mangled by Welsh crabs. Had we, however, accomplished our purpose in unmooring the boat, we should never have been heard of in this world any more. The day would have come upon us both "unawares."