Man is so pugnacious an animal, that even the quakers, who in all other things seem effectually to have subdued this part of their animal nature, carry on controversy, whenever they engage in it, tooth and nail.--_Quarterly Rev._ * * * * * RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS, * * * * * GLEANINGS ON GLUTTONY. _Against Voracitie and immoderate drinking, instanced by sundry histories_. Vitellius, an Emperour of Rome, was among divers other his notorious vices so luxuriously given, that at one supper he was served with two thousand fishes of divers kindes, and seven thousand flying foules; he was afterward drawne through the streets with a halter about his neck, and shamefully put to death. But what shall we wonder at emperours prodigalities, when of later yeares a simple Franciscan frier, Peter de Ruere, after hee had attained to the dignitie of cardinall by the favour of the pope, his kinsman, hee spent in two yeares, in which he lived at Rome, in feasts and banquets, two hundred thousand crownes, besides his debts, which were as much more. In our time Muleasses, King of Tunis, was so drowned in pleasures, that being expelled from his kingdome for his vices, after his returne from Germanie, being denyed of ayd hee sought of the Emperour Charles the Fifth, he spent an hundred crownes upon the dressing of a peacocke for his owne mouth. And that hee might with more pleasure heare musicke, he used to cover his eyes.--But the judgment of God fell upon him; for his sone or brother dispossessed him of his kingdome, and provided him a remedie that his sight should be no longer annoyance to his hearing, causing his eyes to be put out with a burning hot iron. He that is given to please his senses, and delighteth in the excesse of eating and drinking, may, as Sallust saith, bee called animal, for hee is unworthy the name of a man. For wherin can a man more resemble brute beasts, and degenerate from his angelicall nature, than to serve his belly and his senses? But if our predecessors exceeded us in superfluitie of meats, wee can compare and goe beyond them in drinking and quaffing. King Edgar so much detested this vice of drunkennesse, that hee set an order that no man should drinke beyond a certaine ring, made round about the glasses and cups, of purpose for a marke. Anacharsis saith, that the first draught is to quench the thirst, the second for nourishment, the third for pleasure, the fourth for madnesse. Augustine Lercheimer reporteth a strange historie of three quaffers in Germany, in the yeare one thousand five hundred and fortie nine; these three companions were in such a jollity after they had taken in their cups, according to the brutish manner of that countrey, that with a coale they painted the divell on the wall, and dranke freely to him, and talked to him as though hee had been present. The next morning they were found strangled, and dead, and were buried under the gallowes.