"Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul, The heart--the heart is lonely still." No--although I fear I am about to speak without experience now--it is my opinion, that neither the resources of the philosopher, nor the consolations of religion, nor conscious worth, unaccompanied by native fortitude and energy of mind, are of much avail against real grief. Why they should not be, is no business of mine to inquire; nor would it be becoming me to question the designs of Providence. But this much I may affirm without fear of offence,--Human life is prudently chequered with good and evil; and the most likely way to enjoy it, is to make the best of the one while the other is away. The powerful influence of wine on society is estimated by Dr. Johnson, in the _Rambler_: "In the bottle," says he, "discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence." Nothing is more true than this; although it sometimes happens that the first is looked for in vain, the second proves false, and the latter exceeds its bounds. The union of sensual and intellectual enjoyment, however, is requisite to complete the happiness of "the double animal"--the perfect man; and as all mankind are not philosophers, much less abstract ones, after-dinner conversation would generally be flat without the genial influence of good wine. Indeed, the wit of the wittiest man, and the most agreeable companion I ever sat down with, appeared to rise in brilliancy with every glass he drank; and when, to use an expression of his own, he felt himself "vinously inclined,"--that is to say, when he had what Cicero calls the "_furor vinolentus_" upon him, there were no bounds to his humorous sallies. Upon old men wine is generally well bestowed. "----Give me a bowl of wine; I have not that alacrity of spirit Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have," exclaims the bold King Richard; and I once heard a fine old sportsman, and very worthy man, declare, after a bottle of good port, that he would not exchange the present--his eightieth year--for the gayest he had ever spent. Luckily for the credit of the human race--although Cleopatra hunted and _drank_ with Antony--there has been, in all ages of the world, a sense of shame attached to the vice of drunkenness in women, having any pretensions to character, as something contrary to their more refined nature. By the ancient Roman laws it was punishable even by death; and we find that even the abandoned women who celebrated the Bacchanalia were ashamed to do so, except under the disguise of masks.